15/03/2014 15:35
Slovakia elects new president
Slovak citizens are voting in a presidential election, choosing among 14 candidates to succeed Ivan Gasparovic in a largely ceremonial post, The Associated Press reported.
Left-leaning Prime Minister Robert Fico is a favorite in Saturday's balloting. The 49-year-old heads Slovakia's dominant SMER-Social Democracy party. He led it to a landslide victory in 2012 that allowed the party to govern alone — a first for Slovakia.
Fico's major challenger is Andrej Kiska, the 51-year-old successful businessman-turned philanthropist.
Other notable candidates include Milan Knazko, a leading figure of the 1989 Velvet Revolution that ended Communist rule in Czechoslovakia and Radoslav Prochazka, an independent conservative lawmaker with a degree from Yale Law School.
If no candidate wins at least 50 percent, the top two will advance to a second round on March 29.