Slovakia will see incumbent Ivan Gašparovič, backed by the ruling coalition; Smer, the largest party in parliament and the Slovak National Party (SNS) and the joint candidate of the parliamentary opposition parties Iveta Radičová clashing in the second round of presidential election in Slovakia.
After counting all the votes from 5,919 election precincts, Gašparovič finished first with 46.70 percent of the votes and Radičová was second with 38.05 percent.
František Mikloško follows with 5.41 percent and Zuzana Martináková with 5.12 percent. Milan Melník collected 2.45 percent, followed by Dagmara Bollová with 1.13 and Milan Sidor with 1.11 percent, the Slovak Statistics Office published.
Since none of the candidates received more than half of the votes of all the eligible voters, the second election round will be held on April 4 in which only the two top candidates will compete.
The voter turnout was at 43.63 percent.
Out of eight regions, Gašparovič won the race in five: Banská Bystrica, Košice, Prešov, Trenčín and Žilina. Radičová was the most successful presidential candidate in Bratislava, Trnava and Nitra regions.
The election turnout was the highest in the Bratislava region, 47.87 percent. Košice recorded the lowest turnout. Here only 38.86 percent of the eligible voters used their right to cast their ballot.
In the first round of the presidential election in Slovakia on March 21, seven candidates were running.
The election term of the current president ends on June 15.