Slovaks pick between Fico ally and pro-Western diplomat for president
World
Slovaks pick between Fico ally and pro-Western diplomat for president
BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovaks went to the polls on Saturday to pick a new president, choosing between pro-Western opposition candidate Ivan Korcok and Peter Pellegrini running for the ruling nationalist left coalition.
At stake is whether Prime Minister Robert Fico, who took power in October for the fourth time, will get an ally in the presidential palace or an opponent who could challenge his pro-Russian stance and plans to reform criminal law and the media, which have raised concerns over weakening the rule of law.
The election is expected to be tight, according to final opinion polls published ahead of a moratorium on campaigning from Thursday.
Bookmakers made Korcok, who surprisingly topped the first round two weeks ago, the slight favourite on Friday.
Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) and were due to close at 10 p.m. (2000 GMT). Initial projections are expected soon after that and official results will trickle in overnight.
Slovak presidents do not have many executive powers but can veto laws or challenge them in the constitutional court. They nominate constitutional court judges, who may become important in political strife over the fate of Fico's reforms, which would dramatically ease punishments for corruption.
Korcok, 60, has focused on making clear he does not want Fico and his coalition to have executive positions in the government, and also on speaking out against an anti-western policy shift by Fico.
"I want to be at the beginning of a process which would mean improvement in the life of our people, and make clear where Slovakia belongs," Korcok said after voting in Senec, 35 km (20 miles) northeast of Bratislava.
Pellegrini, 48, has tried to portray Korcok as a warmonger for his support for arming Ukraine and suggested he may take Slovak troops into the war, which Korcok denies.
Outgoing President Zuzana Caputova, a human rights lawyer who is not seeking a second term, criticised the war rhetoric in a television address on Wednesday.
"I am sorry that playing with fear was part of this campaign," Caputova said.
"I have had the opportunity to get to know both presidential candidates during my five years in office and I can say with clear conscience that neither Peter Pellegrini, nor Ivan Korcok will drag us into any war and will not send any of our soldiers to Ukraine."
But Pellegrini, seen as more moderate than Fico, said his election would not mean a rush to change foreign policy.
"This is not about the future direction of foreign policy, I am also a guarantee, like the other candidate, that we will continue to be a strong member of the EU and NATO," he said after voting in Rovinka on the outskirts of the capital.
The independent Korcok was Slovakia's envoy to the EU and later ambassador to the U.S., before taking the foreign affairs portfolio in centre-right governments in 2021-2022.
At the time, Slovakia was a staunch ally of Ukraine, providing it with air defence and fighter jets. Fico's cabinet halted official supplies after taking power.
Pellegrini, now speaker of parliament, was a long-time ally of Fico, who picked him to be prime minister after Fico was forced to resign amid public protests against corruption following the murder of an investigative journalist in 2018.
He later split from Fico to set up his party, Hlas (Voice), more centrist and liberal than Fico's populist-leftist SMER-SSD, but formed a government with Fico and the nationalist SNS last October.
