Foreign Correspondence

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Slovaks re-elect their president .. beating Iveta Radicova first female to ..

Ivan Gasparovic, Slovakia's president, has been re-elected in a runoff election, beating opposition
favourite Iveta Radicova, the country's first female candidate to reach a second round runoff.



Sunday, 05 April 2009 16:19

Gasparovic won 55.33 per cent of the vote, according to final results published
by the country's statistics office and due to be confirmed on Sunday.

"The Slovak citizens respect me and I didn't disappoint them - that's what
decided the election," Gasparovic said after the results were announced.

"I am thankful to all the people and I promise I will always work for them."

Turnout in the election for the largely ceremonial position of president
exceeded 51 per cent of Slovakia's more than four million registered voters.

'New beginning'

The figures showed that Radicova won 44.47 per cent of the vote.

The former labour, social affairs and family minister, conceded defeat and
congratulated Gasparovic, but made it clear she would stay in the political arena.

"Almost one million votes - I view the support of so many people
as a challenge, as a responsibility, as a new beginning," she said.

In the last few days, the campaign has centered around nationalist issues.

'Yes we can'

Radicova, who borrowed the "Yes, we can" campaign slogan of Barack Obama, the US president, won several
southern regions inhabited mostly by Slovakia's Hungarian minority who make up 10 per cent of the population.

But analysts had mainly predicted that Gasparovic, who presented himself throughout his campaign
as a guarantee of stability and continuity amid the global economic crisis, would win the election.

Some saw the polls as a test of support for Robert Fico, the country's prime minister, who had endorsed Gasparovic.

The president has little political power in Slovakia, where a parliamentary
democracy was established in 1993, following the break up of Czechoslovakia.

Agencies