Former allies clash in Slovak election

PRAGUE — European Union and NATO officials will have to deal with a combative, populist Slovak head of state no matter who wins Saturday’s runoff vote for the country’s presidency.

Vladimir Meciar, whose authoritarian leanings as prime minister from 1993 to 1998 led his country into political isolation, will be pitted against one-time ally Ivan Gasparovic in the second round of the two-tiered vote April 17.

In a stunning blow to Slovakia’s pro-Western, reform-minded government, Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan, the leader in pre-election opinion polls, finished third — the victim of infighting among the parties of the ruling coalition.

Center-right Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda, meeting with reporters on a trip to Washington just days before the first round of voting, flatly predicted Mr. Meciar had no chance.

“Every election his support has gotten weaker and weaker,” Mr. Dzurinda said. “He’s not coming back.”

But Mr. Meciar, whose support was consistently underestimated in the polls, garnered 32.7 percent of the vote, while Mr. Gasparovic, a former top aide and speaker of parliament who has tried to distance himself from his former boss, nipped Mr. Kukan by under a percentage point with 22.2 percent.

Saturday’s runoff will take place just two weeks after Slovakia formally joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and less than two weeks before it enters an expanding European Union on May 1.

“No one has forgotten Meciar in the EU,” said Abby Innes, an expert on Central Europe at the London School of Economics. “To be honest, I think he’ll prove an embarrassment.”

Under Mr. Meciar’s stewardship, Slovakia and its population of 5.3 million were blackballed in the bid to join both alliances.

Washington and Brussels repeatedly criticized his policies, accusing of violating minority rights, the rule of law and the fundamentals of transparency in politics and business.

But Mr. Kukan’s bid suffered from voter apathy and competition from two other pro-Western candidates.

With parties of the ruling coalition refusing to support either candidate, observers say that Mr. Meciar stands the best chance of winning simply because he has been an outsized figure in the country’s postcommunist era. And while the president does not wield executive authority, he does possess a legislative veto.

Mr. Meciar already has hinted that he will make life difficult for Mr. Dzurinda’s government. Despite Slovakia’s steady economic growth and recent successes attracting foreign investment, Mr. Meciar vows that future programs must protect the “socially weak” from the impact of change.

Compared with his 1990s bombast — he once proposed to his Hungarian counterpart that the two countries swap their respective national minorities — Mr. Meciar’s recent pronouncements have been relatively tame. Nevertheless, he could threaten Slovakia’s ongoing reforms, which have produced $8.5 billion in foreign direct investment since 2000.

Mr. Gasparovic left Mr. Meciar’s Movement for a Democratic Slovakia just two years ago, and now heads the rival Movement for Democracy. There is little love lost between the one-time allies.

In an April 8 televised debate, Mr. Meciar called Mr. Gasparovic a “liar from beginning to end,” while Mr. Gasparovic attacked controversial pardons Mr. Meciar gave political allies when he was in power in the 1990s.