Slovakia elects new president amid divisions over Ukraine war
Al Jazeera
Russia and Ukraine a key point of contention between two leading candidates who went into the election neck and neck.
Voters in Slovakia went to the polls to pick a new president on Saturday, choosing between pro-Western opposition candidate Ivan Korcok and Peter Pellegrini running for the governing nationalist left coalition.
Polls closed at 10pm local time (20:00 GMT). Initial projections are expected soon, with official results meant to trickle in overnight.
It was a tight race for the largely ceremonial post, according to final opinion polls in the nation of 5.4 million people.
Korcok won the first round of voting last month after receiving 42.5 percent of the votes, while Pellegrini finished second with 37 percent. The two squared off in a decisive second round as neither won the minimum 50 percent at the time.
Korcok, 60, served as Slovakia’s foreign minister in 2020-2022, and before that as the ambassador to the United States and Germany. He was also the country’s envoy to NATO and the European Union. Korcok firmly supports Slovakia’s EU and NATO memberships.
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