Slovakia: the war in Ukraine, central theme of the second round of the presidential election
In Slovakia, the second round of the presidential election takes place this Saturday, April 6. The pro-European diplomat, Ivan Korcok, and Peter Pellegrini, candidate of a government with pro-Russian leanings, are neck and neck in the polls. The war in Ukraine, a neighboring country of this Central European country of 5.5 million inhabitants, remained the main subject of the campaign between the two rounds.
Election posters show Slovak presidential candidates Ivan Korcok and Peter Pellegrini ahead of the second round of the election, in Bratislava, Slovakia, April 5, 2024. © Eva Korinkova / Reuters
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With our correspondent in Bratislava
,
Alexis Rosenzweig
“
The real danger is a policy oriented more towards the east than towards the west
,” believes Daniela, a marketing executive. She is one of thousands of
Slovaks
residing in Czechia to return to the country to vote for Ivan Korcok. She and many students in particular were even able to take advantage of the free ride organized by an NGO positioned against the pro-Russian discourse of the current government. There are those who, on the one hand, go down to vote in the first municipality served after the border, Kuty, and those who continue to Bratislava, the capital, where a bistro in the city center is called U prezidenta ( To the president, Editor's note), right next to the presidential palace.
“
I am for Pellegrini, like all of us here. In Ukraine, it is a civil war provoked by the Ukrainians and it is not our business
,” said Oliver, a retiree, who asserts that Ivan Korcok, like the outgoing president Zuzana Caputova, are “
manipulated by the American billionaire
George Soros
.”
“
Vote so that Slovak sons and grandsons do not die in combat
”
“
Robert Fico is our best Prime Minister and he supports Pellegrini. So, I vote for him
,” says Zuzana, laboratory assistant. She affirms, like the head of government, that she wants “
a peaceful relationship between Slovakia and Russia
”. And a few hundred meters away, the current Prime Minister chaired, Thursday April 4, the ceremony organized for the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the city by the Red Army, greeting the Russian and Belarusian ambassadors present and castigating the absence of those from the countries of the European Union.
And
the result looks close
, according to the polls. In the government camp, Peter Pellegrini's allies relied even more on the fear of war in the last hours before the vote. Some ministers did not hesitate to make Ivan Korcok the bellicose candidate and to post on social networks injunctions to “
vote so that the Slovak sons and grandsons do not die in combat
”.
The opposition, for its part, did not fail to point out that the photo used for this message was that of a grandmother hugging a Ukrainian soldier, whose flag had been erased from the uniform for editing.
Toto je vrchol cynizmu a falše ❗️
Presne pre toto nesmie Peter Pellegrini byť prezidentom, lebo sa nehanbí ničoho a kvôli moci prekročí každú hranicu. Dnes jeho ministri týmto zmanipulovaným obrázkom volajú ľudí voliť, aby “slovenskí synovia a vnuci neumierali vojne.” Ide… pic.twitter.com/3y5e8M96Cr
— Michal Šimečka (@MSimecka) April 5, 2024
Also listen to Slovakia: before the second round of the presidential election, press freedom threatened
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