Slovakia’s president Zuzana Čaputová, a standard-bearer for liberal politics in central Europe, will not seek re-election next year, adding to doubts over the country’s pro-western politics.
The decision by Čaputová, a former human rights lawyer who became her country’s first female president in 2019, comes after a year of political turmoil in Slovakia that has boosted the Moscow-friendly ex-premier Robert Fico.
Čaputová was elected in 2019 on a pledge to uproot corruption, after the assassinations of a journalist and his fiancée sparked mass street protests and eventually forced the resignation of Fico.
Fico and his Smer party are now frontrunners to win a snap parliamentary election in September that was called after caretaker prime minister Eduard Heger resigned in May, deepening his country’s political crisis.
A comeback by Fico in Slovakia’s election would pose a further challenge to Nato and EU unity over Ukraine, bolstering Viktor Orbán of Hungary’s more sceptical view of sanctions against Russia.
Čaputová’s announcement on Tuesday is likely to further unnerve western allies who had pinned their hopes on her presidency helping to steady domestic politics. “I’m sorry if I disappoint those who expected me to run again,” Čaputová told a news conference on Tuesday. “The fate of Slovakia is not in the hands of one person.”
Čaputová said that she decided for personal reasons that she was not ready for another five-year mandate, after serving through turbulent years covering the pandemic, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the resulting economic hit for Slovakia.
Fico’s campaign has focused on highlighting the cost for Slovaks of supporting sanctions against Russia, which was Slovakia’s main energy supplier before last year. He has also presented himself as a defender of Slovak sovereignty in the face of Nato pressure, lambasting the previous government for authorising in March the delivery of MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine without first seeking approval from parliament.
After Heger’s resignation, Čaputová appointed the first technocratic caretaker administration, led by former central banker Ľudovít Ódor. Slovak politics have been in limbo also because of feuding among the main politicians of the previous coalition government.
Ódor said in an interview with the Financial Times two weeks after taking office that “the very fact that I’m sitting here is the result of a certain chaos in Slovakia’s politics. This wasn’t my dream job . . . This is the outcome of failures of the previous government.”
Speaking on the sidelines of a conference last month organised by Slovak think-tank Globsec, Japan’s ambassador to Bratislava said that he “really hoped” Čaputová would seek another term as president, particularly given the uncertain outcome of the September election.
“Among the ambassadors here, we say that we don’t want to have a second Hungary in this region,” ambassador Makoto Nakagawa told the FT.
Čaputová could still play a pivotal role after September’s parliamentary elections if there is no outright majority, as opinion polls indicate. The Slovak president has limited executive powers, but one of them is to appoint the prime minister.
“She represented the liberal side of this region and not only Slovakia, and she is now deciding not to run for personal reasons in a race that looked very favourable to her,” said Slovak analyst Milan Nič from the German Council on Foreign Relations. “In the long run I am not happy but in the short run she could be more decisive in the post-election scenario . . . because she will no longer have any specific constituency to please.”
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