Populist, pro-Putin candidate wins Slovakian presidency

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/07/peter-pellegrini-populist-pro-putin-slovakia-president/

by TheTelegraph

27 comments

  1. ***The Telegraph reports:***

    A populist sympathetic to the Kremlin has won a presidential election in Slovakia, strengthening [the central European bloc that opposes military support for Ukraine.](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/russia-ukraine-war/)

    Peter Pellegrini won the election with 53 per cent of the vote, defeating the pro-Western career diplomat Ivan Korock in a head-to-head run-off.

    “It’s a huge satisfaction,” said Mr Pellegrini, who was Slovakia’s prime minister in 2018-20. “Slovakia remains on the side of peace and not on the side of war.”

    He will replace the staunchly pro-Western Zuzana Caputova as president, a role that is largely ceremonial but can sway public opinion and has the power to appoint judges, sign international treaties and veto parliamentary legislation.

    [Mr Pellegrini’s victory comes as Ukraine reports an acute ammunition shortage](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/14/ukraine-war-european-union-assistance-fund-weapons-russia/) along the front line which has allowed better-armed Russian forces to capture territory. Ukrainian officials are worried that support in Europe for its war with Russia is dropping.

    In October, [Robert Fico, Mr Pellegrini’s political ally, won a prime ministerial election](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/01/slovakia-election-russia-support-bad-ukraine-robert-fico/) in Slovakia. Since then, Slovakia has cancelled military donations to Ukraine and instead backed calls by [Viktor Orban, the populist leader of Hungary,](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/29/european-union-plans-hungary-economy-blocks-ukraine-aid/) for peace talks with the Kremlin.

    And on Sunday, Mr Orban celebrated Mr Pellegrini’s narrow win as “a great victory for supporters of peace”.

    Read more: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/07/peter-pellegrini-populist-pro-putin-slovakia-president/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/07/peter-pellegrini-populist-pro-putin-slovakia-president/)

  2. That’s awful!

    What is the EU doing about it, nothing again?

    Why there’s no investigation on the sources of the funds for his campaign?

  3. I just… why are these people winning in the former Eastern Bloc? You’d think we would have learned by now what Russia truly means for Europe

  4. I was following the vote count with some Slovaks and at first they were hopeful, and down the line just became obvious korčok was gonna lose. Was kinda sad for them.

  5. The involving from Ruzzia is to great they want to cripple down EU and the EU is a corrupt bunch of laughing people who don’t dare to do anything and only think about themselves.

  7. So… ukraine, hungary, serbia, slovakia, and may be even austria. Let us check the map real quick.

  8. I think all nations are dumb and easily manipulated and will vote based in emotion, short term goals and zero critical thinking. I think the people that are capable of long term thinking, scheming became experts at manipulating the masses . We are doomed. And we’ll keep seeing this in every nation in Europe

  9. How are the Slovaks and Hungarians keep forgetting their time behing the Iron Curtain is beyond me. The Polish too.

  10. Difference of opinion makes Europeans very uncomfortable.

  11. Sad, but unsuprising after Fico won. Wonder how much far right will win during eu vote. They have all the momentum

  12. How unexpectedly Putin bribed another European election))

  14. What I find remarkable is the deep division between the urban core areas and the rural periphery.

    That’s a phenomenon in almost all democracies and we need to do something about it. An increasingly polarised society can’t be desirable.

  15. Man, what… as Russian i have a question, how did all pro-Putin candidates didn’t end up in mental ward?

  16. Here in Ruzzia we also started as a mere autocracy with a ‘slightly’ different opinion on human values and normality. We turned into a wholesome terrorist state in a dozen of years.
    I am really stunned to see how Hungarians and Slovakians are walking towards this trap. Please, resist. This pseudo-souvereign policy will eventually make your own nations poor and opressed, and others – endangered by your vicinity.

  17. Maintaining an educated population with well adjusted critical thinking skills is a constant, expensive and straining effort. So easy to let that slip and this is the result.

  18. Just tell him Putin’s opinion about gay people, and he’ll change up

  22. Is this the same Europe that keeps telling America it’s an unreliable ally?

  23. If there was ever a time to make clear distinction between us and Slovakia it is now. Until recently I just found the ignorance rude but at the end of the day it wasn’t that important. Now it’s becoming.

  24. Why always that a corrupt, wannabe dictator wins an election, he ran on screwing gay people, or “protecting children from lgbt propaganda”?

    Everywhere in this world people ARE stupid enough to risk their children’s future over this petty nonsense.

  25. Humans are drawn to misery. Look at Russia. Just look at it. Misery. They fucking love it, because they do nothing about it.

    Glasnost. Didn’t matter. Bring us back to the dark ages. Eastern Europe. Bring us back to puppet rule.

    America. Half of our nation wants to be ruled by _their fucking sworn enemy_. It’s just inconceivable that humanity chooses to fuck themselves over.

  26. With every day I lose more hope in the west’s capability to help Ukraine. I suppose I’m better off getting ready for war because I live in eastern EU.

  27. Actual pro-Putin or like r/Europe pro-Putin?

    …for example: Is he closer to Lukasenko or is he “pro-Putin” like a Marxist would want no more weapons to be sent to Ukraine?

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