Presidential elections will take place in Slovakia on March 23rd
Slovakia will hold the first round of presidential elections on March 23 to decide who will succeed current head of state Zuzana Caputova, who has announced she will not run for re-election. The announcement of the date was made by Peter Pellegrini, speaker of parliament and leader of the Hlas party, a member of the coalition of populists and nationalists that governs the country and one of the possible candidates for the presidency.
Pellegrini has indicated that he will officially announce his candidacy on January 19 if his party decides to do so. If he were to run, Pellegrini would also have the support of Smer, the party of the prime minister, left-wing populist Robert Fico. Both Smer and Hlas were suspended from the European Socialist Party because they had agreed on a government with the ultranationalist formation SNS and because they took a pro-Russian stance in the Ukraine conflict.
Former Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok of the liberal Sas has already announced his candidacy, other possible candidates include Jan Kubis, who also headed Slovak diplomacy, and former Supreme Court President Stefan Harabin. Applicants still have three weeks to formalize their candidacy, which must be confirmed by the signatures of either 15 MPs or 15,000 citizens.