Global Courant
Ex-Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok and current Parliament Speaker Peter Pellegrini face off in April elections dominated by the war in Ukraine.
According to the final results, Slovakia’s former pro-Western foreign minister Ivan Korcok and current parliament speaker Peter Pellegrini will face off in the second round of the presidential elections.
Liberal Korcok led with 42.44 percent support and 99.9 percent of votes counted, while former Prime Minister Pellegrini earned 37.07 percent, the Slovak Statistical Office said late on Saturday.
The result was expected by analysts as Pellegrini, 48, and Korcok, 59, topped opinion polls ahead of the vote marked by deep divisions over the war in neighboring Ukraine.
The presidential election is an opportunity for Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose views on Ukraine have angered critics for becoming too close to Russia, to tighten his grip on power.
President Zuzana Caputova, 50, who has been a fierce opponent of Fico, did not seek another term. But the opposition forces want a counterweight to Fico’s rule.
Korcok, a career diplomat who was a minister in a previous government, will go to the runoff against Pellegrini, leader of the Hlas (Voice) party, on April 6.
A Russia-leaning former Supreme Court head, Stefan Harabin, won the third most votes with just 11.75 percent after receiving support from a nationalist party that is also part of the governing coalition. His voters could help Pellegrini.
“I certainly need to speak to the tens of thousands of voters of the ruling coalition who do not agree with where the government is taking Slovakia,” Korcok told his supporters.
Fico and his ruling left-wing Smer party won parliamentary elections last September with promises to cut military aid to Ukraine and maintain support for people hit by price rises.
Pellegrini, a former member of Smer, played a key role in forming a coalition and said the results of the first round showed that a majority did not want a “liberal-right-progressive” president who would only conflict with the government.
“The majority in Slovakia has shown interest in a president who will defend national state interests,” he said.
Presidents do not have many executive powers, but they play a role in government and judicial appointments, can veto laws and shape public debate, as the liberal Caputova often did.
Voters in the past have rejected giving ruling parties both government and presidential offices, including Caputova’s victory in 2019, when anti-corruption sentiment hurt Fico’s party, then in government.
“These elections will show whether the mass protests that have taken place in Bratislava and other major cities in recent weeks are also supported by people who usually express their disapproval at the polling stations,” said Radoslav Stefancik, political analyst at the University of Economics in Bratislava . .
