Former Slovak minister of foreign affairs Ivan Korcok and Slovak National Council Speaker Peter Pellegrini are to face off in next month’s presidential election runoff, near-final results showed on Saturday.
The liberal Korcok led with 42.44 percent backing with 99.9 percent of the vote counted, while former prime minister Pellegrini earned 37.07 percent, the Slovak Statistical Office said.
The result was expected by analysts as the 48-year-old Pellegrini and 59-year-old Korcok topped the opinion polls before the vote marked by deep divisions on the war in neighboring Ukraine.
Photo: Reuters
Korcok, backed by the opposition, is staunchly pro-Ukraine like outgoing Slovak President Zuzana Caputova, a government critic who chose not to seek a second term.
Pellegrini is a part of the Russia-leaning ruling camp led by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who has questioned Ukraine’s sovereignty and called for peace with Russia.
Although the office is largely ceremonial, Slovakia’s president ratifies international treaties, appoints top judges and is commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
The head of the NATO and EU member of 5.4 million people can also veto laws passed by parliament.
Korcok, who would likely face stiff opposition from the Fico team if elected, said he would “like to address all voters” before the runoff on Saturday next week.
“I want to appeal to voters who disagree with the direction this government is dragging Slovakia ... including in foreign policy,” he said.
“I want to be a president who ... will represent the country abroad and at home and who will take independent decisions, without getting orders,” he added.
Pellegrini hailed the result as “a huge success,” pointing out that many voters opted for nationalists among the nine presidential candidates.
“The results have shown that most people in Slovakia do not want a liberal, progressive president,” he said.
Most Slovaks want “a president who will defend Slovakia’s national interests, who will not drag Slovakia into a war, but will talk about peace, who ... will put Slovakia’s interests first,” he added.
Bratislava-based analyst Pavol Babos said that Pellegrini would “most likely act as an ally for the government coalition led by Robert Fico.”
The Cabinet, in office since October last year, has refused to provide military aid to Ukraine, battling a Russian invasion since February 2022.
Pellegrini also urged “an immediate ceasefire and the opening of peace negotiations” on Ukraine in the last presidential debate.
Korcok, a diplomat who has represented Slovakia in the US, Germany and Switzerland, has instead urged Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine.
“The Russian Federation has trampled on international law ... I do not think Ukraine should give up part of its territory to achieve peace,” he said.
Korcok would “very likely be a counterweight to the government coalition and ... seek to correct the government’s undemocratic tendencies” at home, Babos said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS