politics
Slovakia: Pellegrini looks set to win presidential election
Around 4.4 million Slovak voters were called upon to elect a new head of state in a runoff election. One presidential candidate is Peter Pellegrini. photo
© Denes Erdos/AP
Almost 90 of the ballot papers have been counted. The liberal Korcok can basically no longer catch up with the social democrat Pellegrini.
With a slight delay, the decisive second round of the presidential election in Slovakia ended shortly after 10 p.m. Around 4.4 million voters were called to vote in a runoff between the liberal former foreign minister Ivan Korcok and the social democratic parliamentary speaker Peter Pellegrini to choose the future head of state.
The Social Democratic parliamentary speaker Peter Pellegrini is likely to have won the presidential election in Slovakia. After almost 90 percent of the electoral districts were counted, he was clearly ahead of the liberal opposition candidate Ivan Korcok with 44 percent, with almost 56 percent of the votes, as the electoral commission reported. In particular, those electoral districts in which Korcok won in the first round had not yet been counted. But according to observers, Korcok’s deficit was too great to be able to catch up.
Voter turnout higher than on March 23rd
Liberal incumbent Zuzana Caputova did not seek a second five-year term despite her still high popularity. In the first round on March 23, Korcok, who was supported by the liberal and conservative opposition parties, surprisingly won by five and a half percentage points over Pellegrini, who was supported by part of the left-wing national three-party coalition led by the left-wing populist Robert Fico. For the runoff election, polls suggested a neck-and-neck race.
The decisive factor should be the voting behavior of the supporters of seven candidates who were eliminated after the first round of voting. According to preliminary information, voter turnout was almost 60 percent, clearly higher than the first round of voting on March 23rd with 52 percent.
This was particularly true for polling stations in districts where the majority recently voted for the opposition candidate Korcok. The only clear trend that emerged after around half of the votes were counted was that both candidates had roughly the same chances of winning.