The detention and questioning of former Slovak Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar has once again put the country's most controversial public figure in the spotlight.

Even though he has been out of power for 18 months, the man who dominated Slovak politics for much of the 1990s is one of the country's most popular politicians.

His nationalist and populist policies have ensured him enduring support among large sections of the electorate, and it was only a very broad-based - and somewhat improbable - alliance of liberals, centrists, ex-communists and ethnic Hungarians that managed to oust him from power at elections in September 1998.

Manipulation

These parties wouldn't have come together if they had not shared deep-seated suspicions that had been generated by Mr Meciar's authoritarian style.

His manipulation of parliament, the electoral law, the media and the secret police were also cited by European Union officials as the reasons for putting off Slovakia's application to join the EU while Mr Meciar was in office.

For several weeks now Mr Meciar has been evading arrest by refusing to accept police summonses to appear on charges of paying illegal bonuses to members of his former government.

His refusal to co-operate explains the extraordinary commando-style police raid on his home, after which he was taken in for several hours of questioning.

Amnesty

Mr Meciar is also being investigated in connection with the abduction of a former Slovak president's son by the secret police in 1995.

The president at the time, Michal Kovac, was one of Mr Meciar's leading opponents.

Mr Kovac's son was later found unconscious in Austria, sparking allegations that the incident was a political set-up aimed at getting the son extradited to Germany, where he was implicated in a financial scandal, thereby tainting his father's image.

While still in power, Mr Meciar granted an amnesty for all those involved in the affair but this has since been rescinded by his successor, current Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda.

The then Slovak security chief, Ivan Lexa, a close ally of the former prime minister, has been charged in connection with the case.

The 57-year-old former Prime Minister's reemergence into the limelight comes at a sensitive time in Slovak politics with the coalition government looking somewhat shaky, and the population suffering the effects of severe austerity measures.

Mr Meciar's latest encounter with the police is unlikely to be last dramatic event in what has already been a colourful political career.