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Head-to-head race for the presidency in Slovakia
In the runoff election, former Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok will face Social Democratic Parliament Speaker Peter Pellegrini. photo
© Roman Hanc/TASR/dpa
The runoff election for the presidency in Slovakia promises to be exciting. The war in neighboring Ukraine overshadowed the election. In addition, society is polarized.
The Ukraine policy is up for vote, but also the attitude towards the rule of law and democracy: in the EU and NATO country Slovakia will elect a new head of state next Saturday.
In the runoff election, ex-foreign minister and diplomat Ivan Korcok, who is supported by the liberal and conservative opposition parties, will face the Social Democratic Parliament Speaker Peter Pellegrini, who is only half-heartedly supported by his left-wing populist and nationalist coalition partners around Prime Minister Robert Fico. The latter considers him to be too liberal.
It’s about the successor to the liberal incumbent Zuzana Caputova. Although she remains popular, she is not running for a second five-year term. The reason she cited, among other things, was the heavy burden on her and her family caused by hostility on the Internet and even death threats.
The head of state primarily carries out representative tasks in the country of 5.5 million inhabitants, but his word carries great weight in public. In the event of government crises, the president can temporarily set up a government himself.
Slovak politics and society are deeply divided. According to the last four surveys, there are signs of a very close race for the highest state office in the final stretch of the election campaign. In two surveys, Pellegrini was slightly ahead, and in two others, Korcok was ahead. Political scientist Radoslav Stefancik from the Bratislava University of Economics points out in an interview with the German Press Agency that these surveys should be viewed with caution: Before the first round of voting, the surveys also showed Pellegrini in the lead, but in the end Korcok was ahead with five and a half percentage points Gained lead.
Opinions differ about the war in Ukraine
The war in neighboring Ukraine is of course an important election campaign issue, says political scientist Juraj Marusiak from the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Pellegrini presents himself as the future “peace president”. The government parties that support him denounce the liberal opponent Korcok as a warmonger because he advocates intensive military support for his eastern neighbor.
The “Voice – Social Democracy” (Hlas-SD) party led by Pellegrini is the second strongest force in the three-party coalition led by the left-wing populist Fico, which also includes the small right-wing populist, pro-Russian Slovak National Party SNS.
Before the parliamentary elections in the fall, Pellegrini, like Korcok, advocated arms deliveries to Kiev and – taking a cue from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz – simply urged caution. Since his coalition with Fico’s party “Towards – Slovak Social Democracy” (Smer-SSD), from which he split off in 2020, Pellegrini has “turned 180 degrees” in his foreign policy priorities and is now using the same rhetoric as his coalition partners, says political scientist Marusiak.
Little known to the general population until his candidacy was announced, Korcok successfully collected the votes of all those people who were dissatisfied with the current government policies. The fact that the liberal and conservative opposition parties, which were defeated in the parliamentary elections in the fall, have been organizing protests against the government in the larger cities that favor them, such as Bratislava, since December has revealed enormous mobilization potential among the dissatisfied.
“These demonstrations certainly helped Ivan Korcok. Many people were able to realize that everything is not right in the state and that the governing parties do not make policies for the benefit of the citizens, but primarily pursue their own interests,” says Stefancik.