Slovaks pick between Fico ally and pro-Western diplomat for president

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Slovaks go 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 concern 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.

Slovak presidents do not have many executive powers, but can veto laws or challenge them in the constitutional court. They nominate constitutional court judges, which may become important in upcoming battles over Fico’s reforms that would dramatically ease punishments for corruption.

For Korcok, 60, the main battle cry has been not to give Fico and his coalition all executive positions.

Pellegrini, 48, has tried to portray Korcok as a war-monger 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.”

Polling stations will open from 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) until 10 p.m. (2000 GMT). The first results projections are expected soon after and official results will trickle in overnight.

The independent Korcok was Slovakia’s envoy to the EU and later ambassador to the United States, before taking the foreign ministry post in centre-right governments in 2021-2022.

At the time, Slovakia was a staunch ally of Ukraine, providing it 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 hand-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 off from Fico to set up his own 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.

(Reporting by Eva Korinkova in Bratislava and Jan Lopatka in Prague; Writing by Jan Lopatka in Prague; Editing by Alison Williams)