Who are the 2024 presidential election candidates?

A total of 11 candidates ran in the first round of this year's presidential election, which took place on Saturday, March 23. Opinion polls suggested that two of the candidates were clear favourites from the start: Peter Pellegrini and Ivan Korčok.

In a runoff round, which takes place on Saturday, April 6, voters are deciding who of the two men is to replace Zuzana Čaputová as president in June.

Public opinion polls indicate the second round will be a tight battle between Peter Pellegrini, leader of the Hlas party and the current speaker of parliament, and Ivan Korčok, a professional diplomat who served as foreign minister between 2020 and 2022.

For now, we know that the next president will be a man: in 2024, there were no successful nominations by female hopefuls, so all 11 confirmed candidates were men.

Below, The Slovak Spectator brings you the short profiles of Peter Pellegrini and Ivan Korčok, as well as the candidates who did not advance to the second round: Štefan Harabin, Igor Matovič, Ján Kubiš, Andrej Danko, Krisztián Forró, Marian Kotleba, Patrik Dubovský, Milan Náhlik, and Róbert Švec.

Peter Pellegrini

Peter Pellegrini (source: TASR)

Age: 48

Profession: Lawmaker

City: Banská Bystrica

Peter Pellegrini, chair of the Hlas party and speaker of parliament, launched his political career in 2002 as an assistant to Smer MP Ľubomír Vážny. He was elected as an MP, for Smer, for the first time in 2006.

Pellegrini served in various posts in Smer-led governments, including as state secretary (i.e. deputy minister) at the Finance Ministry, as education minister, as speaker of parliament, and as deputy prime minister for investment and informatisation. In 2018 he replaced Robert Fico as prime minister after Fico was forced to step down in the wake of protests following the double murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová in February 2018.

At the 2020 general election, Pellegrini was given the number one post on the Smer party’s slate. The party received the second highest number of votes, but was unable to form a government. After the election loss, Pellegrini’s conflicts with Fico escalated, and he left Smer in June 2020 with a group of party colleagues. They then formed Hlas. In the 2023 early parliamentary election, the party ended third, and formed a governing coalition with Smer and the Slovak National Party (SNS).

As head of state, he says he would promote the national interests of Slovakia. At the same time, he claims that nothing would change in the foreign policy orientation of the country. While assuring voters that he would guarantee that Slovakia remains a solid part of the EU and NATO, he has declined to criticise the openly Kremlin-sympathetic and NATO-sceptical foreign policy pursued by his party’s coalition partner, Smer, and his own political partner Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Pellegrini tried to win over anti-system Harabin voters in the run-up to the second round. In the first round, he ended in second place.

Find out more about the candidate (in Slovak): Web | Facebook | Instagram

Ivan Korčok

Ivan Korčok (source: TASR)

Age: 59

Profession: Diplomat, foreign policy expert

City: Banská Bystrica

Ivan Korčok has spent nearly all of his professional life in diplomacy. He started working at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 1993, and has since served in various posts in Slovakia and abroad, including as ambassador to Germany (2005-2009), the EU (2009-2015), and the United States (2018-2020). He was a state secretary (i.e. deputy minister) at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 2002-2005 (during the second Mikuláš Dzurinda government) and in 2015-2018 (during Robert Fico's third government).

In 2020-2022 he served as foreign minister, as a nominee of the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party.

Korčok is running as a civic candidate. He managed to collect more than 40,000 signatures for his candidacy.

In the campaign, he promotes values like the rule of law, tolerance, and respect towards all democratic opinions and all minorities living in Slovakia. He stresses the need for Slovakia to maintain a clear, Western-oriented foreign policy orientation, and remain fully involved in EU and NATO structures.

The former diplomat, who won the first round, faced a massive smear campaign in the run-up to the second round.

Find out more about the candidate (in Slovak): Web | Facebook | Instagram

The candidates who did not advance to the second round:

Štefan Harabin

Štefan Harabin (source: TASR)

Age: 67

Profession: Lawyer, judge, pensioner

City: Bratislava

Štefan Harabin is former chair of the Supreme Court and a former minister. He ran also in the 2019 presidential election, ending third.

Until 1989, Harabin worked at the district court in Poprad, eastern Slovakia, and after the revolution worked at the regional court in Košice. In 1991, he was elected a member of the Supreme Court, and served as its president in 1998-2003 and 2009-2014. Between 2006 and 2009, Harabin was justice minister in the first Fico government, as a nominee of Vladimír Mečiar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS).

Harabin founded the Homeland (Vlasť) party in 2019. The party has failed to win seats in any parliamentary elections.

In his campaign, he promoted values like peace, Slovakia’s dignity, law and justice for everyone, family and bread. Harabin is a strong critic of the EU, and an outspoken supporter of Russia and its all-out invasion of Ukraine.

On March 23, he ended in third place. His voters are believed to decide this year’s presidential election.

Find out more about the candidate (in Slovak): Web (also English version available) | Instagram | Telegram

Igor Matovič

Igor Matovič (source: TASR)

Age: 50

Profession: Lawmaker

City: Trnava

Igor Matovič, chair of the Slovensko movement (former Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO)), entered politics in 2010 as an MP elected on the SaS slate. He made it into parliament thanks to preferential votes, despite running from the last spot on SaS's candidate list. Matovič was kicked out of the SaS caucus for supporting a parliamentary proposal submitted by Smer, thus violating the coalition agreement.

He later founded his own party, OĽaNO, which has been elected to every parliament since 2012. In 2020, it came first in the parliamentary election.

As a result of that victory, Matovič became prime minister, but was forced to resign after little more than a year, in 2021, for his mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and as a result of roiling conflicts in the then-ruling coalition. He took the post of finance minister in the subsequent Eduard Heger government, but resigned in December 2022.

Even though he acknowledged that he had little chance of making it to the second round, Matovič said he had decided to run for president to “create a corridor for the truth and also pose unpleasant questions” to other candidates.

Hours before the moratorium began, Matovič had published several videos on social media in an attempt to compromise Pellegrini.

Find out more about the candidate (in Slovak): Facebook | Instagram

Ján Kubiš

Ján Kubiš (source: TASR)

Age: 72

Profession: Diplomat, lecturer

City: Bratislava

Former diplomat Ján Kubiš is running as a civic candidate.

He has worked at the Foreign Ministry and in various international posts during his diplomatic career. He was Slovakia's ambassador to the United Nations and other international organisations in Geneva, and served in high functions in the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He was appointed UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon in 2019, and as head of the UN Support Mission in Libya in January 2021. He served as the first special representative of the EU for the Middle East.

In 2006-2009, Kubiš served as foreign affairs minister in the first Robert Fico government, as a nominee of Vladimír Mečiar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS).

The motto of his presidential candidacy was “Love to Slovakia, respect abroad”. He stressed that he is “a Slovak in the heart, a diplomat in the head” and would use his experience as a diplomat to resolve conflicts.

Find out more about the candidate (in Slovak): Web | Facebook | Instagram

Andrej Danko (withdrawal on March 18)

Andrej Danko (source: TASR)

Age: 49

Profession: Lawmaker

City: Bratislava

Andrej Danko is the leader of the Slovak National Party (SNS) and currently one of parliament's four deputy speakers.

Between 2006 and 2010 he served as an assistant to several SNS MPs, becoming leader of the party in 2012 after the party lost all its seats in that year's election. In 2016, the SNS re-entered parliament and joined the third Fico government; Danko was appointed speaker of parliament. In 2020, SNS once again failed to win any seats, but once again returned to parliament in 2023, and joined the fourth Fico government.

Danko, an admirer of Vladimir Putin and Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán, managed to collect about 20,000 signatures in support of his candidacy. In his campaign, he has focused on topics like stability, the preservation of the current ruling coalition, and tough measures against those who, he says, have stolen millions of euros from the state. He says he wants to investigate "what happened in the country" during the previous coalition government of OĽaNO, SaS, Sme Rodina and Za Ľudí.

In recent months, he has been mocked for crashing his car into a traffic light pole in early January and leaving the scene without calling the police. The case remains under investigation.

The motto of his campaign was: “Andrej Danko – a president who will never betray you”.

Find out more about the candidate (in Slovak): Facebook | Instagram | Telegram

Krisztián Forró

Krisztián Forró (source: TASR)

Age: 48

Profession: Politician

City: Veľká Mača (Galanta district)

Krisztián Forró, chair of the non-parliamentary Hungarian minority political party Aliancia - Szövetség, is the only ethnic Hungarian candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

Forró joined the Party of the Hungarian Coalition (SMK) in 2004, and served as its last chair in 2020-2021. The SMK then formed the newly created Aliancia - Szövetség together with two other political parties representing the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, and he became the new party's chair.

Forró ranas a civic candidate. He collected nearly 30,000 signatures from citizens. In the campaign he emphasised Hungarian-related topics.

As for foreign policy, he said that Ukraine deserves humanitarian aid, but that he does not think the delivery of weapons is the right solution. He does not oppose Ukraine’s EU membership if it meets the conditions, the SITA newswire reported.

Find out more about the candidate (in Hungarian): Web | Facebook | Instagram

Marian Kotleba

Marian Kotleba (source: SITA)

Age: 47

Profession: Politician

City: Banská Bystrica

Marian Kotleba chairs the far-right Kotlebovci – People's Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) party. He also ran in the previous presidential election in 2019, in which he ended fourth.

In 2003, he became leader of the extremist party Slovenská Pospolitosť, which was later banned and dissolved by the courts. In 2010, he took control of the Friends of Wine Party (Strana priateľov vína), and transformed it into the ĽSNS.

In a shock result at the time, Kotleba was elected as governor of the Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region in 2013 (serving until 2017), and then as an MP in 2016-2022. At the 2023 election, his party failed to pass the 5-percent threshold.

In April 2022, Kotleba was convicted for expressing sympathy towards a movement suppressing basic rights and freedoms. He was given a conditional sentence, but lost his seat as an MP. In 2023, the Specialised Criminal Court ruled that Kotleba had proved during his probation that he could lead a proper life, so he was able to run for president, SITA reported.

Find out more about the candidate (in Slovak): Facebook | Instagram | Telegram

Patrik Dubovský

Patrik Dubovský (source: TASR)

Age: 59

Profession: Historian

City: Dunajská Streda

Historian Patrik Dubovský, who studied at University College London, works at the Nation’s Memory Institute (ÚPN).

He worked at the Culture Ministry, and also the Government Office. In 2004, he started working at the ÚPN, where he focuses on religious persecution and civic resistance during the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

He started his political career in the 1990s in the Democratic Party (DS). In 2020 he ran for parliament on the Za Ľudí party slate, but was not elected.

Dubovský came to public attention when he filed a criminal complaint against Deputy Speaker of Parliament Ľuboš Blaha (Smer) for replacing the official portrait of the president with a portrait of Cuban communist revolutionary Che Guevara in his office. Subsequently, he received anonymous threats.

Find out more about the candidate (in Slovak): Facebook | Instagram

Milan Náhlik

Milan Náhlik (source: Facebook/Milan Náhlik vlastenec)

Age: 48

Profession: Police officer

City: Bratislava

Milan Náhlik is a former police officer.

In the 2020 parliamentary election, he ran on the slate of the nationalist party Voice of the People (Hlas Ľudu), which did not make it into parliament.

On his Facebook account, he supports Slovakia's departure from the EU.

Find out more about the candidate (in Slovak): Facebook

Róbert Švec (withdrawal on March 20)

Róbert Švec. (source: TASR)

Age: 47

Profession: Political scientist

City: Nitra

Róbert Švec is the chair of the Slovak Revival Movement (Slovenské Hnutie Obrody), a nationalist party. He ran in the 2019 presidential election, but received less than 1 percent of the vote.

He supports Slovakia’s departure from the EU and NATO, wants to drop the euro as the national currency and return to the Slovak crown, and says he will introduce a ban on LGBT+ symbols. For years, he has praised Jozef Tiso, the president of Slovakia's Nazi-allied wartime state, at events organised by his party, SITA reported.

Find out more about the candidate (in Slovak): Web | Facebook