Prime Minister responds to election results

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) responded to the first-round presidential election results. He welcomed the fact that the two presidential candidates heading into the run-off round, Zuzana Caputova and Maros Sefcovic, provided "guarantees of the normal functioning of politics in Slovakia". As Pellegrini said, he was glad that both candidates were guarantors of Slovakia's clear pro-European orientation as well as its NATO membership. "It is paramount in these turbulent times to have a president who will continue this orientation because there is no other way for the country to exist," the Prime Minister said. Pellegrini was "disturbed" by the significant number of votes for candidates who are either anti-system or "tread upon our values and history, and often prefer policies not really belonging to the fully democratic world". Such a development must be openly analysed, he believes. The Prime Minister voiced his wish to see an experienced president capable of plunging headlong into that extremely turbulent international life from day one, "as foreign politics around us are growing increasingly worse and the situation is rather serious." At the away-from-home Government session in Gelnica, eastern Slovakia, Pellegrini also added that the country prospers when the president and the government are capable of co-operation instead of constant competition.