SLOVAKIA: The political comeback hopes of Slovakia's controversial former prime minister, Mr Vladimir Meciar, are unlikely to be realised in the country's presidential election today.
Mr Meciar, whose crude nationalist and populist policies isolated Slovakia from the EU and NATO in the 1990s, is expected to be beaten by the government-backed candidate, the foreign minister, Mr Eduard Kukan.
Even if no candidate captures the 50 per cent of the vote required for an overall victory today, as political analysts predict, Mr Kukan is likely to win a second-round run-off scheduled for April 17th.
Meanwhile, the reformist government of Mr Mikulas Dzurinda is expected to survive a separate vote today calling for early elections, with analysts predicting that turnout will be less than the 50 per cent required to validate the poll.
A victory for Mr Kukan in the presidential election and the defeat of the early election motion would give Prime Minister Mr Dzurinda a clear mandate to continue the reform process beyond next month's EU accession.
Popular discontent among Slovakia's 5.8 million citizens, particularly among the 17 per cent of the population without work, has given Mr Meciar his chance of a comeback and has seen him capture over 20 per cent support, particularly in rural areas.
He has fashioned himself as the populist candidate with an ear for the little people who have lost out in the transition to a market economy since the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989 and the "velvet divorce" with the Czech Republic in 1993.
"Reforms are not leading to a rise in jobs, people are leaving to work abroad. These are things I want to change as president," Mr Meciar commented in a newspaper this week.
But many Slovaks remember all too well Mr Meciar's authoritarian reign in the 1990s, when he alienated EU and NATO allies and sold off state assets on the cheap to friends. In 1998, he bade a tearful farewell after three terms in office, telling bewildered television viewers: "Farewell, I leave you. I never hurt, I never hurt any of you."
Opponents had very different memories of his reign, accusing the onetime boxer of using the secret police to threaten opponents. Suspicions abound that, as president, Mr Meciar would try to interfere in day-to-day politics and use the president's veto powers to cause maximum disruption to the reform process.
The other fear is that he would try to sour Slovakia's relations with NATO and the EU just days after the country has joined the defence alliance and a month ahead of accession.
"Even those who do not like Meciar as a politician admit that he is a strong personality who has leadership skills. But Meciar's problem as a politician is still the fact that he only stirs emotions of either uncritical love or hate," said Mr Michal Vasecka, a political analyst at the Institute for Public Affairs in Bratislava.
The current foreign minister and likely future president, Mr Kukan, is seen as someone who has a safe pair of hands. He is credited with having rebuilt relations strained by Mr Meciar and with having brought Slovakia back into the European fold.
The 63-year-old lawyer has held several top foreign posts, including two terms as permanent representative to the United Nations. He has attracted nearly a third of the vote, according to opinion polls, but would probably win over 60 per cent support in a run-off.
Although the role of the president in Slovakia is largely ceremonial, Mr Kukan would back rather than block the looming spending cuts in the government's austerity programme.