Lawyer Zuzana Čaputová has won the first round of the Slovak presidential election with 40.5 percent of votes and will meet diplomat Maroš Šefčovič who received 18.6 percent of the votes in the second round to be held on March 30th.
It seems to me that Slovak voters can imagine in the presidential palace a person who may not have been in politics for long, but at the same time may offer different opinions and solutions. I differ with Mr Šefčovič when it comes to current issues, especially in the areas of accountability, corruption, abuse of power and fairness. From him I hear "just a look to the future" - he is not very willing to talk about the present time, or about the past that has not yet been resolved.
Said Čaputová - adding that she is, however, glad that she will not face a candidate with extreme views in the second round, a hint to the racist and xenophobic language used during the campaign by Štefan Harabin and Marian Kotleba, who finished in 3rd and 4th place with 14.3 percent and 10.3 percent of the votes respectively. Čaputová is running for president as a candidate of the non-parliamentary Progressive Slovakia party, whose vice-chair she is. Her name is linked with a successful struggle against an illegal landfill site in the town of Pezinok, in which she was actively involved for 14 years. In 2016, Čaputová received the Goldman Environmental Prize for her role in the case. She practices law, specialising in environmental issues.
The candidate she will go up against in the second round, diplomat Maroš Šefčovič - supported by the largest governing coalition party, Smer - wants to emphasise traditional Christian values in the upcoming period before the second round.
We're starting over tomorrow, the cards have been re-dealt. I'll do everything I can to reach the most voters in Slovakia. I certainly don't want to fight evil, as I've been characterised by my opponent. I definitely don't want to divide people into good and bad, decent and non-decent. I want to be a president of all the people in Slovakia.
Said Šefčovič. An economist and law graduate, he began his professional career in 1990 as an advisor to the first secretary of the Czechoslovak Foreign Affairs Ministry. He moved on to various diplomatic posts, and in February 2010 became European Commission Vice-president for Interinstitutional Relations and Administration. He held this post until 2014, when he took up his current role as Vice-president for the Energy Union in the European Commission.
On Saturday Zuzana Čaputová won in all eight of Slovakia's regions with the highest score in the Bratislava region 59.6 percent of votes while Maroš Šefčovič was runner up in all eight regions and had the best result in the Trenčin region with 22.4 percent.
There were no surprises in the first round of the presidential election, according to political scientist Darina Malová. She thinks that Zuzana Čaputová has demonstrated her ability to reach a fragmented segment of voters with varying opinions - from liberals to those dissatisfied with the current situation. According to Malová, the timing of the presidential election - almost exactly a year after the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée - aided Čaputová's victory in the first round. Fellow political analyst Ján Baránek links the results of the first round to the current political situation in Slovakia with many people searching for "something new" and expects "some very interesting two weeks ahead of us".
A round of "negotiations" will follow, concerning the question of whom the unsuccessful candidates will support in the second round. Bela Bugar, who got 3.1 percent of the votes, has already hinted his interest in discussing this with Zuzana Čaputová. She may also attract some of those who voted for František Mikloško, who received 5.7 percent of votes. Mikloško stated that although he, personally, would not vote for Šefčovič in the second round, he intends to let his voters decide according to their conscience. Harabin and Kotleba, who together garnered about a quarter of all ballots cast in the first round, have so far endorsed neither of the two candidates.
Voter turnout in the first round was at 48.7 percent.
