Kremlin critic takes lead in Slovak presidential election (VIDEO)

Ivan Korchok received 42.5% of the votes. Pro-government coalition candidate Peter Pellegrini also advanced to the second round with 37%

Former Slovak Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok, a pro-Western politician, won the first round of the presidential election with 42.5 percent of the vote on Saturday, ahead of Parliament Speaker Peter Pellegrini (37 percent).

The two front-runners vying to replace outgoing Liberal President Zuzana Caputova will face off once more in a runoff on April 6.

Both were expected to advance to the second round, although Pellegrini was ahead by a small margin.

“No poll, however, predicted Korczok would have a five-point lead over his rival,” Tomasz Koziak, a political analyst at the ISM University of International Business, told AFP. “He now appears to be a strong candidate.”

In the second round, the fight will unfold between the liberal Korczok and Pellegrini, the candidate of the ruling coalition led by the populist Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico.

Let us recall that the Slovak government, which has been in force since October and includes representatives of the Smer party led by Fico, Hlas (led by Pellegrini) and the far-right SNS, has stopped military assistance to Ukraine.

After the first round, Fico called Pellegrini “a better solution for Slovakia than Ivan Korcok.”

Analysts believe that Slovakia’s foreign policy will remain one of the main issues of the election campaign.

“If Korchok is elected, Slovakia will maintain a critical attitude towards Russia, pro-European positions and support for Ukraine,” says Grigory Mesezhnikov, head of the Institute of Public Affairs in Bratislava.

Pellegrini, following Fico, “will weaken our ties with allies and partners in NATO and the EU, weaken support for Ukraine and lean towards Russia,” Mesezhnikov told a France-Presse correspondent.

Korczok’s victory might also prevent the rapprochement between Slovakia and Hungary (remember that the Hungarian government is headed by Viktor Orban), which began when Fico took over as head of the cabinet.

Domestic politics are also at stake: Fico has been criticized for trying to interfere with the country’s judicial system – his recent reform has softened penalties for corruption – and for interfering in the work of state media.

Opposition parties supported Korczok, emphasizing that Pellegrini’s victory would open the way to presidential pardons for pro-government politicians convicted of corruption.