-
SPECIAL REPORTS
Special Reports
- Vulnerable Consumers
- Delivering water in the 21st century
- Reviewing Europe's alcohol harm strategy
- Greening the CAP
- Water Policy
- Broadband: driving recovery?
- Data protection
- ICT: Fuelling the economy
- Europe's electricity grids: Joining up the dots
- Countdown to the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI)
- Innovation and the Digital Economy
- Cloud Computing
- Jobs and Growth
- Air Quality
- Solar Power
- Resource efficiency: towards a circular economy
- Small Business:driving EU growth?
- SME's Access to Finance
- Rural Energy
- EU-Ukraine Relations
- EU budget 2014-2020
- European Business Summit 2011
- General
- Wind Energy
- Raw Materials
- Small Business Act Review
- Food & Responsible Marketing
- Europe's Regions in 2020
EU news & policy debates
- across languages -
- across languages -
Click here for EU news »
x
Gasparovic to be Slovakia's third President
Background:
Ivan Gasparovic has unexpectedly won Slovakia's presidential election. The latest official results show that Mr Gasparovic defeated his former mentor, Vladimir Meciar, with about 60 percent of the vote. Turnout was 43.5 percent. The race had symbolic importance in this Central European country of 5.4 million because it will join the European Union on 1 May along with nine other countries. The rejection of Mr Meciar, whose rule just under a decade ago was characterised by an authoritarian use of the secret police and a media stranglehold, will come as a relief for Slovakia's European partners.
Mr Meciar's big lead in the first round of voting, two weeks ago, highlighted the strength of populist feeling in central and eastern Europe where many voters feel excluded by political and economic change. His subsequent defeat appears to reflect voters' desire to defend reform and integration with the west.
Ivan Gasparovic, a 63 year-old lawyer, will become the country's third president since it became an independent country in 1993. Mr Gasparovic was a parliamentary speaker and a close ally of authoritarian Meciar from 1994 to 1998. They parted ways just before the 2002 general elections. Mr Gasparovic moved to the left and formed his own political organisation. He has apologised for any harm he might have caused during the 1994-98 government.
The president, a post that serves a largely ceremonial function in Slovakia, will help guide Slovakia through its first years of membership of NATO and the EU.
More in this section
