Slovakia headed for presidential election runoff

SLOVAKIA’S presidential election was headed for a runoff where pro-West former Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok will face populist parliamentary speaker Peter Pellegrini.

According to the election commission yesterday, the final election results in the first round showed Korcok was leading with 42.5% of the vote.

He is now set to face Pellegrini in a second round of voting on April 6, as none of the nine candidates received an absolute majority of votes.

Pellegrini ended up with 37.0% of the vote in the first round of the election, despite leading in opinion polls for much of the campaign.

Voter turnout at the polls on Saturday reached 51.9%.

Pellegrini’s Voice – Social Democracy party (Hlas-SD) is part of Slovakia’s governing coalition behind the left-wing nationalist Prime Minister Robert Fico. The right-wing populist Slovak National Party (SNS) is also part of the coalition.

Korcok is backed by the opposition and has pledged to be a counterweight to Fico’s government.

Fico’s party has supported Pellegrini in the election, while the right-wing SNS supported the nationalist and pro-Russian former Justice Minister Stefan Harabin, who came third with 11.7%.

The incumbent president, Zuzana Caputova, did not run for a second five-year term despite her continued popularity.

There were no women in the field of nine candidates standing in the election to replace her.

The election campaign was overshadowed by the war in neighboring Ukraine and domestic disputes between the Fico government and the liberal opposition. The country is deeply divided politically.

Korcok and the opposition want Slovakia to offer decisive military support for Ukraine, while Pellegrini has urged caution.