Peter Pellegrini was elected to function the following president of Slovakia on Saturday, beating ex-Overseas Minister Ivan Korcok. Pellegrini is a detailed ally of Prime Minister Robert Fico, who’s a staunch opponent of sending weapons to Ukraine.
With almost 100% of the ballots counted, Pellegrini is main with 53.17% of the votes, in response to the official tally.
Korcok has conceded the loss. “I’m genuinely dissatisfied, to be sincere,” he stated shortly after the outcomes had been introduced. “However as a result of I’m an athlete at coronary heart, I respect the outcomes. It was a celebration of democracy.”
Outgoing President Zuzana Caputova congratulated Pellegrini, wishing him success in workplace. “It will be significant that, from the second of the election, the brand new president acts in such a approach that no a part of society will really feel defeated,” she stated.
Pellegrini served as prime minister between 2018 and 2020 and is at the moment the speaker of Slovakia’s parliament. He’s allied with Fico, who has reversed the earlier authorities’s determination to ship navy assist to Ukraine.
Fico has been a vocal critic of the NATO and EU for his or her unconditional help for Ukraine throughout its combat in opposition to Russia, arguing that Slovakia shouldn’t be dragged into the battle. He accused Kiev of creating “unrealistic” calls for relating to the potential peace settlement with Moscow and even instructed that Ukraine might need to relinquish its territorial claims. He additionally slammed Korcok as “a warmonger who unhesitatingly helps every little thing the West tells him.”
Pellegrini has defended the stopping of weapons deliveries to Ukraine. In his victory speech, the president-elect promised to “do every little thing to make sure that Slovakia will all the time stay on the facet of peace and never on the facet of battle, whether or not anybody likes it or not.”
In an op-ed revealed final month within the newspaper Hospodarske noviny, Pellegrini dismissed the concept of doubtless sending NATO troops to Ukraine as a harmful escalation. He argued that it was “irresponsible” for Slovakian politicians to name for arms shipments to Ukraine with none regard for Bratislava’s personal security and to “label those that point out the phrase ‘peace’ because the brokers of Moscow.”
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