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Central Europe
April 5, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 14
Anti-corruption campaigner Zuzana Caputova becomes Slovakia’s first female president
bne IntelliNews
Zuzana Caputova was elected the first-ever female Slovakian president in the second round of the presidential election on March 30, when she took 58.4% of the votes against European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic who ended up with 41.6%.
Caputova, a lawyer and an environmental activist who has been nicknamed “Erin Brockovich”, led the field by a wide margin in the first round on March 16, as Slovakians sought a radical change in domestic politics after the murders of Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova last year. The killings, which have been linked to Kuciak’s final investigation, sparked mass protests in Slovakia that brought down the coalition government headed by former prime minister Robert Fico.
Caputova was a relative political outside before the election, though she was known for her work as lawyer in a high-profile marathon case over an illegal landfill in her home town of Pezinok. She was a member of the liberal Progressive Slovakia party, but stepped down as vice chair of the party in late March.
Caputova’s campaign slogan was “against evil, restoring justice”, and she promised to fight corruption, the misuse of power, extremism and lying in public.
“Many countries envy us for electing a president who symbolises values such as decency. The
Caputova won over Slovaks eager for political change after the killings of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée shocked the nation.
president-elect who said she will stand up to evil and who said that justice is what we need,” said Slovakia’s outgoing President Andrej Kiska. She needs to restore public trust in the state, he added.
The president-elect said this is a specific time when people are frustrated and don't trust politicians and politics itself on TA3's discussion programme 'V politike' (In Politics) on March
31. She perceives it as a great challenge not to disappoint her voters. Her first foreign visit will be to the Czech Republic, as per tradition, but she also wants to travel across Slovakia and meet the public as well as regional politicians.
While headlines have focussed on the fact that Caputova is Slovakia’s first female president (as well as the country’s youngest ever president), Caputova’s gender wasn't a factor in her victory, according to political scientist of Faculty of
Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava Pavol Babos, online Aktuality.sk reported. There
has been demand for a change in the form of
a candidate who would be different from the governing political elite, said Babos.
“Had Caputova given up in favour of [fellow political outsider, scientist] Robert Mistrik a month ago, he would have very likely won. It's more interesting that Slovaks don't mind having a female president,” Babos added.
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