“No poll predicted a difference of five percentage points,” marvels the liberal daily Sme. The day after the first round of the Slovak presidential election, Saturday March 23, and while no candidate won a majority, all eyes are already on the second round, on April 6.
This will pit Ivan Korcok, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, who obtained 42.4% of the votes against Peter Pellegrini, current President of the Slovak Parliament, who accounted for 37.1%, according to the almost complete results. “A very promising result,” says the Bratislava weekly. Tyzden on his site.
If the two candidates were at the top of the opinion polls before the vote, the lead taken by Ivan Korcok can be explained, according to Sme, by the support of “liberal and conservative voters”, traditionally located in large cities. His rival, Peter Pellegrini, was however supported by pro-Russian Prime Minister Robert Fico, who refused to extend military aid to Ukraine.
“It’s a huge success for us,” said Ivan Korcok, openly pro-European and pro-Ukrainian, to the press. The results showed that most Slovaks do not want a liberal, right-wing president. or progressive.” And he continued: “Most instead expressed interest in a president who will defend Slovakia’s national interests, who will not drag Slovakia into war but will talk about peace.”
Stefan Harabin’s voters “will decide the result”
Indeed, for the Slovak press, the advantage of the pro-European candidate shows that “Slovakia has not given up its roots in the free world”, we can read on the website of Tyzden. However, the second round is far from won. “It seems that it will be Stefan Harabin’s voters who will ultimately decide the result,” observes the weekly.
Stefan Harabin, former president of the Supreme Court, came third in the first round with 11.75% of the votes, after benefiting from the support of a nationalist party member of the ruling coalition. Given his pro-Russian position, however, it is not certain that his voters will go in Ivan Korcok’s direction.
Stefan Harabin was indicted last May for “defamation of a country and a people” as well as for “apology for a crime”, after having written on Facebook, the day after the Russian invasion in Ukraine, that he “would have done exactly the same thing as [le président russe Vladimir] Poutine”.