President Pellegrini: A Strengthening of Slovak Illiberalism or Pyrrhic Victory?

On March 23 and April 6, the Slovak people voted for their future head of state. In the runoff, the current chairman of the National Council of the Slovak Republic Peter Pellegrini was elected president of the Slovak Republic by a margin of 53.12% to 46.87%, defeating his opponent, the former diplomat and foreign minister in the Matovič and Heger governments, Ivan Korčok. Pellegrini’s presidential victory comes just six months after his party Hlas-SD (Voice – Social Democracy) helped the former prime minister Robert Fico and his Smer-SD (Direction – Social Democracy) return to power in the September 2023 parliamentary elections.

The President-elect will be the sixth of the Slovak Republic since 1993 and the fifth to be elected in direct elections. His victory makes him the only politician to have held all three of the highest representative offices after 1993, serving as Prime Minister (2018-2020) and President of Parliament (2014-2016 and 2023-2024).

How did Pellegrini, often labeled as Fico’s proxy, or a Ukraine-skeptical candidate, become president, and perhaps more importantly, what does this mean for Slovak democracy?

Presidential Elections 2024: Parliamentary Postscript and No Čaputová

The background of the 2024 presidential elections in Slovakia was formed by two key issues. Despite the fact that the OĽaNO (Ordinary People and Independent Personalities) movement defeated Robert Fico and his Smer-SD party in the 2020 parliamentary elections, the center-right coalition consisting of OĽaNO, SaS (Freedom and Solidarity), Za Ľudí (For the People), and Sme rodina (We are Family) had to deal with the consequences of the polycrisis (the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis) and, above all, with the permanent intra-governmental conflict related mainly to the populist style of OĽaNO leader Igor Matovič. This conflict initially led to the resignation of Prime Minister Matovič and his transfer to the Ministry of Finance. Then, as tensions continued, coalition member SaS and its ministers left the coalition. Subsequently, a vote of no confidence in Heger’s—Matovič’s successor— government in December 2022 was passed by the Parliament.

This chaotic governance was used by Fico and Smer to return the power. Fico owed his victory in the snap elections primarily to highly polarizing rhetoric and the hateful campaign that his party waged not only against the Matovič and Heger government, the Ódor bureaucratic government (put in place as a caretaker until the snap elections), or President Čaputová herself, but also thanks to radical rhetoric against the EU and NATO and their actions and solutions around various crises and the war in Ukraine. Fico formed his fourth government in seventeen years when the SNS (Slovak National Party) and Pellegrini’s newly formed Hlas—which emerged from a split with Smer—joined him, leading to a parliamentary majority of 79 out of 150 seats.

Perhaps an even more important event took place on June 20, 2023. On that day, President Čaputová, the first woman ever elected president of Slovakia, who was named by Forbes as one of the 100 most influential women in the world, and who significantly raised Slovakia’s international standing during her presidency, announced that she would not seek re-election. During her tenure, Čaputová faced a permanent hate campaign from Smer and far-right parties like K-ĽSNS (Kotlebovci – People’s Party Our Slovakia) and Republika, in which President Čaputová was labeled an American agent or an American whore. The hateful style of politics undoubtedly contributed to the fact that the official list of presidential candidates did not include a female candidate, as was the case in 2004.

Candidate’s selection

A total of eleven candidates successively entered the presidential race before the relevant opposition forces agreed to support Ivan Korčok as a joint candidate. The current leadership of the conservative KDH (Christian-Democratic Movement) was blamed by the party’s founding fathers for both its support of joint opposition candidates and Korčok’s liberal orientation, as well as the party’s inability to produce a relevant conservative candidate. As usual, the Hungarian minority proposed a candidate from its own ranks, Aliancia (Alliance) leader Krisztián Forró. The rebranded Slovensko (Slovakia) movement—formerly OĽaNO—nominated its leader Igor Matovič at the last minute. Although Matovič knew that he could not succeed, he wanted to support the leading opposition candidate, i.e. Korčok, against Pellegrini during the election campaign and the TV debates.

From the point of view of the coalition parties, two things were important in the nomination process. The announcement of Pellegrini’s candidacy only confirmed the assumption that part of the negotiations to support Fico’s government was Pellegrini’s potential presidential candidacy. However, Pellegrini was not the only one wearing a coalition jersey. The junior coalition party, the nationalist SNS, nominated its leader, Andrej Danko. Until his withdrawal before the first round of voting, Danko had rhetorically opposed Pellegrini’s candidacy, attacking him and suggesting that only Fico himself would be an ideal presidential candidate. Moreover, after Danko’s withdrawal, he and his party supported the anti-system candidate Štefan Harabin, not Pellegrini.

First Round Campaigning: The Calm Before the Storm

The campaign before the first round was relatively lukewarm because of the specific steps taken by the Fico government, such as controversial ministerial nominations and the approval of the budget. Above all, the issues surrounding the government’s efforts to revise the Criminal Code—which was drafted by people who were accused of crimes in various cases and are now working as advisors to the prime minister or are elected members of the National Assembly—were the cause of controversy. The fact that the Criminal Code revision was passed after a shortened legislative process and only partially stopped by the Constitutional Court (on the initiative of the President) completely overshadowed the campaign before the first round.

Long-term public polls conducted by all the relevant polling firms in Slovakia showed that Peter Pellegrini and Ivan Korčok were ahead of all other candidates in terms of support, and long before voting began it was clear that the second round would be a contest between Pellegrini and Korčok. The campaign strategies of all relevant candidates differed significantly before the first round.Štefan Harabin, who for a long while ranked third in public polls (with preferences oscillated around8-13%) ran on an agenda that suggested Slovexit, withdrawal from NATO, and establishing neutrality. However, he played a shrub for both relevant candidates.

Ivan Korčok, long second in the public polls, built his campaign around his own history in the diplomatic corps. Marketers used his glasses as the main symbol of the campaign. During the campaign, he used several slogans. Firstly, “Serve the people, not the politicians” tried to instrumentalize Korčok’s diplomatic career. From the very beginning, Korčok also used the slogan “Let’s not let them take over the whole state” as one of his main demands, which was intended to have a mobilizing appeal. Throughout the entire campaign, Korčok constantly and explicitly pointed out the unfairness of the election campaign and accused Pellegrini of abusing his position as Parliamentary Speaker for election purposes. He also highlighted the non-transparent financing of the campaign itself. This was confirmed by Transparency International, which described Pellegrini’s campaign as the least transparent of the candidates.

On the other hand, Pellegrini’s campaign before the first round was entirely focused on avoiding a primary confrontation with Korčok. Before the first round, their primary confrontation took place within 48 hours, in the presence of the other candidates on RTVS (Radio and Television of Slovakia) and on private TV Markíza. Pellegrini and his campaign team chose the slogan “Calm for Slovakia” as the main claim before the first round. The calm Pellegrini wanted to bring referred primarily to calming the situation in the context of the chaotic government of the last three years, as well as calming the political struggle that has recently become much more radical thanks to extreme rhetoric of illiberal agents. Furthermore, Pellegrini, in the first issue of his electoral newspaper (distributed to the voters’ mailboxes before the first ballot) also presented himself as a people’s president who would bring dignity and a better life to Slovakia.  

The lackluster campaign from Pellegrini’s point of view, his refusal to participate in debates, commonly with the overconfident feeling of a certain victory in the first round (which was predicted by all relevant polls in Slovakia) resulted in a surprising victory for Korčok in the first round; Korčok defeated Pellegrini by 42.51% (958,393 votes) to 37.02% (834,718 votes).

Second Round Campaigning: Shift to the Dirtiest Campaign Ever

In spite of proclaimed promises for a decent and fair campaign in the second round, it turned into the most negative and hateful campaign in Slovak history, regardless of the type of election. While before the first round Pellegrini promised calm, after the results of the first round he turned the campaign into a completely confrontational and even hateful one, knowing that otherwise he would not be able to mobilize both his voters and, especially, Harabin’s voters.

Pellegrini contributed to this mainly by fearmongering about the war in Ukraine. Before the second round, in the second issue of his election newspaper, which Pellegrini entitled “Proud Slovakia and Stable Government,” he portrayed Korčok as a man who served politicians, who was responsible for the poverty of the people, but above all portrayed him as “the president of conflict and war,” while self-stylizing himself as a president who would ensure a decent life for every citizen, but above all as a “president of peace.” The negative climax of Pellegrini’s campaign and fearmongering was the coordinated action of the deputies of his Hlas party and his supporters, who shared a photo of a soldier in the arms of a grandmother with the slogan “Come vote! So that the sons of Slovakia don’t die in the war.” It soon became clear that Pellegrini and his team had used a photo of a Ukrainian soldier while deliberately removing the Ukrainian flag from the soldier’s shoulder. The discourse and narratives on the war in Ukraine fully corresponded to those of Prime Minister Fico, narratives and positions that directly contradict the objectives of the EU and NATO on this issue. During the duel of the candidates at RTVS, Pellegrini suggested Korčok would send troops to Ukraine, while Pellegrini would never allow it. In fact, this competence does not even belong to the President of the Republic, nor did Korčok ever say anything like that.

While before the first round Pellegrini promised calm, after the results of the first round he turned the campaign into a completely confrontational and even hateful one. Pellegrini portrayed Korčok as a man who served politicians, who was responsible for the poverty of the people, but above all portrayed him as “the president of conflict and war,” while self-stylizing himself as a president who would ensure a decent life for every citizen, but above all as a “president of peace.”

Korčok tried to use the momentum of his first-round victory to raise new issues, for example by outlining his vision of patriotism, which according to him was stolen by pseudo-nationalists. However, he was unable to respond adequately to the negative and coordinated campaign that overwhelmed the media space. Korčok was also accused of negative campaigning by Pellegrini and his supporters, but there was a fundamental difference. While Pellegrini directly led the hate campaign backed by party and coalition colleagues, the negative campaign against Pellegrini was primarily led by Igor Matovič, not by Korčok himself. Matovič had attacked Pellegrini for his alleged homosexual orientation several months earlier during the election for the post of Speaker of Parliament, to which Pellegrini was elected. Between the first and second rounds, when Matovič declared his support for Korčok, he published a compromising photo of Pellegrini accompanied by Peter Náhlik, an MP elected on the Hlas-SD ballot in the 2023 parliamentary elections. In contrast to Pellegrini, who denied responsibility for the manipulation of the photo and unfair campaigning, Korčok strongly condemned Matovič’s interference in the campaign before the second round and condemned the attacks on Pellegrini’s personal integrity.

Why did Pellegrini become President?

Before the second round, there were three important questions. What would the turnout be? How would the candidates be able to mobilize their voters and non-voters? And finally, how many of Štefan Harabin’s voters, as well as the Hungarian minority, would the candidates be able to attract to their side?

Korčok and his staff knew that the high voter turnout in the second round would work against him. The turnout was the second highest in the history of direct elections in Slovakia (61.14%) mainly thanks to the aforementioned dirty campaign and voter mobilization strategy employed by Pellegrini, capitalizing on fears of war. He was massively supported in these activities by his illiberal colleagues. After the first round, the previously lukewarm support of Fico and Danko turned to support for Pellegrini and helped to mobilize the voters significantly.

While Peter Pellegrini had Slovaks to mobilize in the second round and could rely on a strong core of voters who might not have come to the polls in the first round, Ivan Korčok had reached the limits of his own electorate. Even though both candidates mobilized voters in the second round, Pellegrini mobilized voters to a much greater extent. Moreover, both candidates were successful in different areas. While Korčok’s vote share was slightly higher in urban areas, Pellegrini’s vote share was dramatically higher in rural areas. Compared to the first round, Pellegrini managed to get 574,537 more votes, while Korčok managed to get 285,316 more.

Korčok, for logical reasons, could not reach the voters of the extremist Harabin, but was also not as successful as Pellegrini in mobilizing the Hungarian voters. The Hungarian voters voted for Andrej Kiska against Robert Fico in the 2014 election, and also contributed significantly to the victory of Zuzana Čaputová over Maroš Šefčovič in 2019. In this election, Slovak Hungarians mainly voted for Pellegrini. Moreover, a very recent analysis has shown that another important factor shaped the final results: up to three-quarters of the people who voted for OĽaNO (today known as Slovensko) in the early parliamentary elections did not vote in the second round. On the one hand, this is evidence of Igor Matovič’s weakening ability to mobilize his voters and on the other hand, it perhaps also showed the limits of Matovič’s hate campaign, which he waged to help Korčok before the second round.

All of the above questions were answered in favor of the winner. Pellegrini’s victory came despite his own admission of unfair campaigning and his willingness to pay a fine after Transparency International had reported a post-election deposit of 250,000 euros into Pellegrini’s transparency account and pointed to other irregularities related to the legal and proper management of the campaign.

Pellegrini’s Victory and Three Remaining Questions

Although it is difficult to predict future developments, the three questions surrounding Pellegrini’s victory focus primarily on how Pellegrini will approach the execution of his mandate; how Pellegrini’s departure will affect the Hlas-SD party itself; and finally, what impact will his election have on the stability of the current governing coalition?

Pellegrini’s interpretation of how to ensure the functioning of public authorities and maintain constitutionalism will differ from President Čaputová’s. It is not expected that Pellegrini will offer any resistance, especially in the process of submitting government nominations, or that he will put the brakes on other key bills announced by the coalition that will affect the functioning of public television, or the functioning and financing of NGOs. The president-elect laid out his vision for the presidency when he stated that the presidential palace will no longer be the seat of an opposition-opportunist center that harms the state and the government abroad. Pellegrini knows to whom he owes his election and will undoubtedly play into the government’s hands. To create and strengthen the appearance of his own autonomy on Fico’s government autonomy, Pellegrini can, for example, use the Polish scenario where, like Polish President Duda, he will veto some laws, while the coalition will easily override his veto.

Pellegrini’s election will also have a significant impact on the stability of the Fico-led government. Interior Minister and party Secretary General Matúš Šutaj Eštok confirmed that Hlas will nominate Richard Raši as the next parliamentary speaker. Although according to the coalition agreement the position belongs to the Hlas-SD party, Fico expressed the idea that it would be better for the stability of the coalition if the position were held by SNS party leader Andrej Danko, who was not elected to any office after the snap parliamentary elections. It seems that perhaps sooner than expected, the representatives of Hlas will face a major challenge for the party’s future: whether it will be able to defend the distribution of seats and the coalition agreement signed after the parliamentary elections, or whether it will succumb to Smer and the nationalist SNS. The outcome of this event could tell us more about the viability of the party as such. The fact that the election of the speaker was announced after the European Parliament elections is also an indication of the tensions in the coalition and points to the possibility that they currently do not have 76 votes to confirm Raši.

Pellegrini’s Victory: A Strengthening or Pyrrhic Victory of Slovak Illiberalism?

Slovak democracy is certainly not facing easy times and will undoubtedly lose some years of development that could have taken a different, more meaningful direction. Despite the fact that the Constitutional Court showed great resistance and autonomy when it postponed the government’s changes to the Criminal Code, the autonomy of the judiciary will become a core of democratic resistance in Slovakia in the coming period. Already at the press conference announcing Pellegrini’s victory, Fico presented it as a blank check from voters who agree with the government’s policies. Having previously attacked the President of the Constitutional Court and the institution itself, he then criticized and politicized the Judicial Council. Both institutions, as well as the Slovak media and the non-governmental sector, will undoubtedly face the greatest pressure from illiberal actors in the coming period. This is evidenced by the announced effort to dismiss two members of the Judicial Council nominated by the Parliament, which is expected to take place soon.

Although the current coalition has captured the legislative and executive branches with Pellegrini’s victory, it should be noted that it does not yet have a constitutional majority that would allow it to make far-reaching changes to the political system. Fico’s government has a fragile majority, it is existentially dependent on money from the EU, and the circle from which it is possible to recruit a new enemy is gradually but significantly narrowing. Soon after Pellegrini’s victory, Fico began pushing a narrative that Brussels might cut Slovakia off from the economic stimulus of the EU Recovery Plan and the EU Cohesion Fund as punishment for electing Pellegrini as president instead of Korčok, thus trying to divert attention from the EU’s criticism of the controversial amendment to the Criminal Code and at the same time trying to create the beginnings of an image in which Fico himself, his party, and his government will not be responsible for any future failures of his government—”the others” will be.

Although the current coalition has captured the legislative and executive branches with Pellegrini’s victory, it should be noted that it does not yet have a constitutional majority that would allow it to make far-reaching changes to the political system. Fico’s government has a fragile majority…Although Pellegrini’s election may appear to be a decisive victory for illiberal forces in the short term, in the medium or long term Pellegrini’s victory may significantly destabilize the unity of Fico’s government and may ultimately prove to be a Pyrrhic victory for illiberal agents in Slovakia.

The way Pellegrini entered the presidential palace is hardly consistent with the idea that he could aspire to be a president who would unite rather than divide society. Given the presently tense relations between the government and the EU, between the government and the opposition, between the government and selected parts of society, Pellegrini will soon have to show whether he will be a non-partisan president or just Fico’s puppet, making untrustworthy speeches full of lofty phrases about a sovereign Slovak state and the need for a united and undivided Slovak nation. The political opposition and part of civil society will undoubtedly be able to unite again and express their dissatisfaction with further steps that weaken the liberal-democratic character of Slovakia and will again protest in the streets, as we recently saw.

Although Pellegrini’s election may appear to be a decisive victory for illiberal forces in the short term, in the medium or long term Pellegrini’s victory may significantly destabilize the unity of Fico’s government and may ultimately prove to be a Pyrrhic victory for illiberal agents in Slovakia.

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Ľubomír Zvada is a teaching assistant and Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Politics and European Studies, Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic. His research focuses on Slovak politics, the history and contemporary politics of the Visegrád countries, and foreign policy analysis. He has published in scientific journals such as Politics and Governance, Czech Journal of Political Science, Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics, Slovak Journal of Political Sciences, and others. His chapter on social democracy in Slovakia is part of The Social Democratic Parties in the Visegrád Countries Predicaments and Prospects for Progressivism, edited by A. Skrzypek & A. Biró-Nagy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). From 2019 to 2020 he served as an associate editor of the journal Central European Papers.

Image by John Chrobak, made using “2024 Slovak Presidential election 2nd round” by Nsrotvt licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; “DSC_4342 – Copy” by Estonian Foreign Ministry licensed under CC BY 2.0; “Jakou Evropskou unii chceme v sále Morava 2018-05-26 (6766) Pellegrini” by  Martin Strachoň licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.