2004 Slovak presidential election
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Presidential elections were held in Slovakia on 3 April 2004, with a second round on 17 April.[1] Although former Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar received the most votes in the first round, he was defeated by Ivan Gašparovič in the run-off.[2]
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3 April 2004 (first round)
17 April 2004 (second round) | |||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 47.94% (first round)  25.95pp43.50% (second round) 31.95pp | ||||||||||||||||
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Eduard Kukan, who had led the opinion polling prior to the elections, was surprisingly eliminated in the first round, narrowly beaten into third place by Gašparovič. Gašparovič later admitted that he had not expect to qualify for the second round, and on first round election night he had gone home to sleep and only found out about his success when he was woken up by phone calls from friends.[3]
Incumbent president Rudolf Schuster finished fourth with just 7% of the vote. He subsequently retired from politics.[4]
Opinion polls
| Date | Agency | Schuster | Kukan | Mečiar | Gašparovič | Bútora | Mikloško | Roman | Králik | Kalman | Šesták | Bernát | Kubík |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11–17 February 2004 | Focus | 17.5 | 27.5 | 23.1 | 13.7 | 6.1 | 4.7 | 5.4 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.1 |
| 9 March 2004 | OMV | 15.5 | 27.9 | 22.4 | 15.8 | 6.3 | 6.7 | 3.4 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 0.2 |
| 16–22 March 2004 | Markant | 9.7 | 30.3 | 23.3 | 19.7 | 5.5 | 4.4 | N/a | N/a | N/a | N/a | N/a | N/a |
| 27 March 2004 | OMV | 13.0 | 27.0 | 24.2 | 17.1 | 6.5 | 8.7 | 1.1 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.2 |
Results
| Candidate | Party | First round | Second round | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | |||
| Vladimír Mečiar | People's Party – Movement for a Democratic Slovakia | 650,242 | 32.74 | 722,368 | 40.09 | |
| Ivan Gašparovič | Movement for Democracy | 442,564 | 22.28 | 1,079,592 | 59.91 | |
| Eduard Kukan | Slovak Democratic and Christian Union | 438,920 | 22.10 | |||
| Rudolf Schuster | Independent | 147,549 | 7.43 | |||
| František Mikloško | Christian Democratic Movement | 129,414 | 6.52 | |||
| Martin Bútora | Independent | 129,387 | 6.51 | |||
| Ján Králik | Party of the Democratic Left | 15,873 | 0.80 | |||
| Jozef Kalman | Left Bloc | 10,221 | 0.51 | |||
| Július Kubík | Independent | 7,734 | 0.39 | |||
| Jozef Šesták | Independent | 6,785 | 0.34 | |||
| Stanislav Bernát | Independent | 5,719 | 0.29 | |||
| Ľubomír Roman | Alliance of the New Citizen | 1,806 | 0.09 | |||
| Total | 1,986,214 | 100.00 | 1,801,960 | 100.00 | ||
| Valid votes | 1,986,214 | 98.53 | 1,801,960 | 98.56 | ||
| Invalid/blank votes | 29,675 | 1.47 | 26,347 | 1.44 | ||
| Total votes | 2,015,889 | 100.00 | 1,828,307 | 100.00 | ||
| Registered voters/turnout | 4,204,899 | 47.94 | 4,202,597 | 43.50 | ||
| Source: Nohlen & Stöver, European Election Database, Our Campaigns | ||||||