June 11, 2019

New Slovak President Zuzana Caputova: a proof that politics can be done differently

located:	Slovakia
editor:	Magdalena Rojo

This Saturday June 15, Zuzana Caputova will be inaugurated as the first female president of Slovakia.

It was front-page news even for the international media when Caputova won the elections at the end of March. And the reason was not that she is a divorced woman (even though surprisingly, it did still play a role for some voters in the country).

She got the majority of votes in almost every municipality in Slovakia in times when Visegrad countries are being ruled mostly by the far-right or corrupt politicians. She has been elected in an era when nationalism is on the rise across the world; in an era when even politicians of countries where no migrants come to, use migration as a threat, which happens to be the case of Slovakia.

Caputova did not follow this narrative. And she was also elected even after she proclaimed that she was in favour of registered partnerships of same-sex couples. This statement provoked a huge wave of debates in the Catholic country that escalated when an archbishop suggested in a church that voting for her or expressing her support is a sin.

Throughout the campaign, Zuzana Caputova stood firmly on her opinions. She was different from a typical politician as she always replied to questions openly. She was not scared of saying how things truly are – she was not a politician who would calculate and say only what people want to hear. Instead of searching for how to discredit her rivals, she was pointing at the key issues that Slovakia is facing and that need solutions.

Slovaks have been longing for change since an investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova were murdered last year in February. The shock provoked various protests in the streets across Slovakia, which grew bigger than the protests of the Velvet Revolution. People got tired of the ruling party SMER that has been in power for the last 13 years, including when the murder happened. The disclosures about activities of the Italian mafia in Slovakia and its links to the high-ranking politicians as well as the further details about the cooperation between some politicians and a businessman Marian Kocner, charged with ordering the murder, left Slovaks shaking their heads in disbelief.

Caputova offered change. It was her personality and completely new approach that she brought into Slovak politics that made her a president.

Slovakia elected a lawyer and an environmental activist who was calling for justice and who represents the values that are currently undergoing a crisis in the whole European Union. She can, to some, be a moral example.

And even though she is still about to deal with the challenges that come with being a president, Caputova is already proof that politics can be done differently. The question is if and how she can be an inspiration to other countries in the region as well as political parties in Slovakia itself.