Nationalists dealt setback in Slovakia

Bloomberg

European voters may be starting to put a damper on nationalists who want to shift the continent’s political direction.
Ahead of next month’s European Parliament elections, Slovakia provided one of the last signals of voter sentiment when it elected a socially liberal anti-corruption campaigner as president over populist challengers.
Zuzana Caputova’s victory may serve as a warning to euroskeptic leaders next door such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is teaming with other nationalist forces in a bid to turn the EU-wide ballot into a referendum against further European integration. Though her new post is largely ceremonial, her rise was hailed by liberals across the EU.
“Caputova is everything that Orban is not,” said Lukas Kovanda, chief economist at Czech Fund, a Prague-based investment group.
While Slovakia has avoided the lurch towards nationalism embraced by voters from Italy to Poland, governments in those countries are seeking allies to pool their forces in the EU legislature after the May 23 ballot.
Parties such as Italy’s League and Vox in Spain have surged in support, emboldened by the EU’s inability to resolve challenges from Brexit and Greece to youth unemployment and migration. That’s been a boon for the nationalist narrative that the EU’s decision-making structure is both too invasive into members’ national interests and not powerful enough to fix things.
Almost 70 percent of the world’s most influential economies are controlled by populist governments of non-democratic regimes, double the number of three years ago, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Economics.
But there are signs of pushback by European voters who, while dissatisfied with traditional parties, value the EU’s prosperity and visa-free work and travel.
Caputova, 45, catapulted from political obscurity to become Slovakia’s first woman president-elect, helped by public anger about political corruption.