Russia-friendly populist elected Slovak president

FE Team | Published: April 07, 2024 23:44:44

Peter Pellegrini

PRAGUE, Apr 07 (BBC): Populist Peter Pellegrini has been elected president of Slovakia, succeeding the liberal Zuzana Caputova. Mr Pellegrini, 48, defeated the pro-Western Ivan Kor?ok, a former diplomat, with 53% of the vote.
A former prime minister, he is an ally of Prime Minister Robert Fico, and shares the PM's dovish attitude towards Russia. Mr Fico and his allies now control Slovakia's parliament, government, and soon the president's office.
Slovakia had been one of Ukraine's staunchest allies before Mr Fico came to power in October on a pledge to halt supplies of Slovak Army military stocks to Kyiv. With Mr Pellegrini replacing Mrs Caputova, Ukraine has now definitively lost a voice of support in an EU and Nato capital.
Mr Fico has called for an end to Western military support for Ukraine, an immediate ceasefire, and peace talks with Moscow. He said recently President Vladimir Putin had been "unfairly demonised" and argued admitting Ukraine to Nato would mark the beginning of a third world war.
Mr Pellegrini's campaign echoed some of that Moscow-friendly rhetoric, accusing Mr Kor?ok of being a warmonger who would send Slovak soldiers to fight in Ukraine - a constitutional power the president does not have.
On Sunday Mr Pellegrini vowed "to ensure that Slovakia remains on the side of peace and not on the side of war".
"You don't have to worry that the Presidential Palace, as it has been for the last 10 years, will become a centre of oppositional, opportunistic power that will harm the government, that will harm the state abroad and will rejoice in the failures of the Slovak government," he said.