Slovakia Gets Its First Female President With Zuzana Caputova

Slovak politician, lawyer, and activist, Zuzana Caputova has become Slovakia’s first female president. With Caputova, Slovakia didn’t just get its first female president but also the youngest president in Slovakian history. The 45-year-old won with 58% of the votes in the run-off.

"We’ll try to have a constructive relationship with neighboring countries but at the same time have clear stances and positions based on values," she told an interviewer. In her inauguration speech, she said that state officials inefficient at rooting out corruption should lose their jobs and promised to make the justice system fair for everyone.

Too many people feel that this is not quite the reality in our country. The feeling of injustice has grown and has demonstrated itself in calls for change and decency but also in anger over 'the system'.

“Under the constitution, people are free and equal in dignity and in rights, meaning nobody is that irrelevant to have their rights compromised, nor is anyone that powerful to stand above the law.”

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“Too many people feel that this is not quite the reality in our country. The feeling of injustice has grown and has demonstrated itself in calls for change and decency but also in anger over 'the system',” she said, The Reuters reported.

Caputova announced her candidacy for the presidential election this year after she was endorsed by Progressive Slovakia along with Sloboda a Solidarita (SaS) and SPOLU. Her main opponent, Robert Mistrík, withdrew from the race and endorsed her on 26 February. She said that she felt it was mandatory for her to run for the presidency, particularly after the killing of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak, who investigated high-level graft cases, and his fiancé at their home last February. The killing let to public outrage in the country.

“Under the constitution, people are free and equal in dignity and in rights, meaning nobody is that irrelevant to have their rights compromised, nor is anyone that powerful to stand above the law.”

She launched a crusade against the situating of a toxic landfill in her hometown of Pezinok for which she received the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize. She was honored for her “relentless campaigning against the opening of a landfill in the town of Pezinok, which, if opened, would further aggravate potential health hazards and would contribute to urban pollution”. People popularly call her "Slovakia's Erin Brockovich" after the American environmentalist played by Julia Roberts in a 2000 film, also called on the European Union to become a leader in the battle against climate change. She claims that environmental protection should include a ban on illegal deforestation and that 5% of the most environmentally valuable territory should remain as a strictly protected zone.

Caputova is also an advocate of LGBTQ rights in Slovakia as she has lectured on the possibility of adoption by gay couples, “I prefer the child to have a biological mother and a biological father. If he were to grow up in institutional care, I think he'd be better off with two loving beings, even if they were of the same sex”.

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