Slovakia – Presidential election

The first round of the presidential election in Slovakia was held on Saturday. The second ballot will be held on 4 April. Here is the result of the first ballot:

Registered Electors 4,339,331
Voters Obtaining Envelopes 1,893,439, 43.6%
Delivered Envelopes 1,892,669
Valid Votes 1,875,629, 99.1%

Ivan Gašparovič 876,061, 46.7% (Movement for Democracy – HZD)
Iveta Radičová 713,735, 38.1% (Slovak Democratic and Christian Union – Democratic Party SDKÚ-DS)
František Mikloško 101,573, 5.4% (Conservative Democrats of Slovakia -KDS)
Zuzana Martináková 96,035, 5.1% (Free Forum)
Milan Melník 45,985, 2.5% (People’s Party – Movement for a Democratic Slovakia – HZDS)
Dagmara Bollová 21,378, 1.1%
Milan Sidor 20,862, 1.1% (Slovak Communist Party – KSS)

Source: http://electionresources.org/sk/president.php?election=2009

President Gašparovič is the incumbent. He is backed by two parties of the current government – SMER and SNS. The other government party, HZDS, ran their own candidate.

Given President Gašparovič is from the HZD party and the party is not represented in the government, then, in one sense, Slovakia is an example of cohabitation. However, the HZD party has no parliamentary representation either. Given this situation and given the government have supported his candidacy and the two biggest parties have not stood a challenger against him, then this is probably a case where cohabitation should not be recorded.

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