The presidential elections in Slovakia are taking place on 15th March. It is going to be the 4th time that Slovak citizens will choose their president via secret ballot in a direct election. It is a two-round voting system. The winner might emerge also in the 1st round, if there is a candidate who receives more than 50% of legitimate votes, otherwise, in two weeks’ time the 2nd round will take place, where the two most successful candidates from the 1st round meet. The one who gets the most votes in this round will reside in the Presidential palace for the next five years. There are 14 presidential candidates and we will introduce all of them in alphabetical order.
Gyula Bárdos
Gyula Bárdos is a politician representing the Party of the Hungarian Coalition, being at the moment one of the party leaders, while at the same time he presents himself as a candidate representing the wider public, especially all the minorities and people open to democratic thinking.
This 56 year old politician with a degree in philology comes from the Slovak capital. He used to work for various Hungarian magazines. Gyula Bárdos has been active in politics for the past 20 years. He served as an MP for one term; however, his political party has not been part of the Slovak parliament for the past two terms. Gyula Bárdos is the chairman of The Slovak Hungarian Social and Cultural Association. He finds the relations within the Visegrad group very important, as well as the cooperation of states within European Union. He believes that the closest ally of Slovakia is the Czech Republic.
Jozef Behýl
Jozef Behýl is running his electoral campaign as a public activist, who has been involved within the community sector for a long time. He also represents the non-governmental organizations in the Government Body of Advisors both in the area of criminality prevention and voluntary sector.
This 57 year old candidate, who comes from the town of Trnava, has a degree in pedagogy; however he runs his own real estate agency. He used to be involved in politics before, but quitted his party affiliation due to ideological disagreements.
Jozef Behýl supports the idea of a Slavonic mutuality in the states foreign politics. He sees the neighbouring states and the countries of the European Union as the closest allies to Slovakia. If he was elected Slovak president, he would conduct the official visits to foreign countries in this order: first it would be the Czech Republic, then the Russian Federation and Croatia.
