The first round of the presidential elections in Slovakia will take place on March 23 and so far the leader in the polls is Peter Pellegrini, a member of the governing coalition.
Pellegrini leads the centre-left Hlas party, which is part of a coalition led by the left-wing populist Smer party. Pellegrini is a former Smer member who fell out with his former party’s leader, Robert Fico, after the 2020 parliamentary elections.
In 2018, Fico had to resign as prime minister after the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak, who investigated corruption cases of businessmen close to the government, and it was Pellegrini who became prime minister at that time. However, Fico maintains control of Smer, remaining its director.
However, after last autumn’s parliamentary elections, Smer, Hlas and the right-wing populist party SNS formed a joint government and Fico became prime minister again.
Pellegrini announced his intention to participate in the presidential elections on Thursday and the political parties in the coalition are expected to express their support for him.
“I have already made a personal decision regarding my candidacy,” the parliament speaker said at a press conference, adding that he will officially announce his candidacy only after it has been approved by his Hlas party.
Pellegrini, despite having promised to want to be an impartial president, does not intend to resign from the position of president of Parliament or president of HLASI during the electoral campaign. Pellegrini intends to announce his candidacy in his hometown, Banská Bystrica. The city in central Slovakia is the sixth largest in the country and Hlas achieved one of the best results in parliamentary elections there.
Slovakia’s current liberal president Zuzana Čaputová had already announced this summer that she did not intend to run for a second term.
In Čaputová’s place, the liberal and pro-European opposition is represented by former Foreign Minister Ivan Korčok, who as president promises to rebalance the government accused of Euroscepticism. Fico has been compared to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and, after becoming prime minister, announced that the Slovak government would no longer send military aid to Kiev.
Korčok is formally participating in the elections as an independent candidate, but several opposition parties have already promised to support him.
According to opinion polls, the most voted would be Pellegrini in the first round, followed by Korčok. If no candidate receives more than half of the votes cast, a second round of elections will be held on April 6, in which Pellegrini will also be considered the favorite.
2024-01-19 13:36:00
the-favorite-in-the-slovak-presidential-elections-is-the-representative-of-the-governing-coalition-foreign-country