Slovak leader capitalises on anti-graft wave

Bloomberg

Slovakia’s outgoing president is mounting a challenge against the country’s dominant political force, capitalising on a wave of anti-corruption outrage that helped elect a pro-European
liberal to replace him.
Andrej Kiska will create a new political party after stepping aside in June to make way for the euro-area member’s first woman president, Zuzana Caputova, who won by a landslide in a presidential vote. Kiska, a long-time critic of the ruling Smer party and a supporter of Caputova, said he’d reveal the details of the party on June 17, two days after his term ends.
“We won this election, now we have to win the parliamentary vote,” Kiska, who didn’t pursue a second five-year term as president, said in a video on his Facebook page.
“I want to unite decent and willing people and change our country for the better.”
Kiska’s announcement comes as pro-European Union political figures in the bloc’s eastern wing try to confront the policies of leaders who have clashed with the bloc on issues ranging from migrants to the rule of law. Among their ranks are Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Poland’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the governing Law & Justice Party, who are vying with other nationalist groups to win more seats in next month’s European Parliamentary ballot.
Smer has ruled Slovakia for 11 of the past 20 years, mostly under three-time Prime Minister Robert Fico.
While Smer has long argued that Slovakia should remain among the EU’s core member states, his party has clashed with the EU over issues including migrants. It suffered a major setback last year when the murder of an investigative journalist triggered the biggest protests since the fall of communism and forced Fico out.
Anger over perceived corruption catapulted Caputova, who was previously a little-known anti-corruption activist, to defeat Smer’s candidate in the runoff ballot.
Kiska beat Fico in the 2014 presidential election and has a chance to capitalise on Caputova’s victory.