IF TWO ARE DOING THE SAME, IT IS NOT THE SAME: DIFFERENT PATHS TO DIRECT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN THE SLOVAK AND CZECH REPUBLICS1 JAKUB CHARVÁT & PETR JUST

Abstract: This study analyses the genesis, implementation and application of direct presidential elections in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It deals with the reasons and circumstances that led from indirect to direct elections, with emphasis on differences in both analyzed countries. The object of study is not to argue for or against the direct election, but to put the appropriate constitutional and political reform in the broader framework of the Czech and Slovak post-1993 developments. Keywords: Czech Republic; Slovak Republic; President; direct elections; indirect elections; executive power.

The Czech and Slovak Republics share a long common historical development. From 1918 until the end of 1992 they were two parts of one country, Czechoslovakia. Since the very beginning of 1993, Czechoslovakia does not exist, each of the republics became a sovereign and independent state and their paths diverged. Yet the post-1993 institutional development in both countries, at least at first sight, is in a certain extant, similar. Although both countries were constituted as parliamentary regimes with indirectly elected President after the 1992/1993 split of Czechoslovakia, they have remained parliamentary regimes until today, but nowadays with directly elected head of state. Although the institutional design is similar in both countries, reasons for the introduction of direct presidential election vary considerably in the Czech and Slovak Republics. The present study deals with an issue of the post-1993 political development in the Czech and Slovak Republics and with special focus on the issue of introducing direct presidential election in both countries. Leaving aside the advantages and disadvantages of directly elected President for now, the paper is focusing herein on a genesis of direct presidential elections (namely, the conditions and circumstances under which the direct election was established) in the Slovak and Czech Republics. However, it analyzes not only the reasons, political backgrounds and paths to the direct election, but also the political 1

The paper has been prepared as a part of scientific a research project of Metropolitan University Prague (no. 34-17) funded by the Institutional support for long-term conceptual development of research organization in 2015.

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consequences of this change and running of individual presidential contests as well. Its aim is to prove that reasons for introducing the direct presidential election differ significantly in the Slovak and Czech Republics, even despite the fact that any discussion on direct presidential elections in the Czech Republic was often accompanied by referring to the Slovak example and Slovak inspiration.

Political background in the Slovak Republic Although the Slovak discussion on direct presidential election came a little later in comparison with the Czech Republic, it had a more concrete character and was implemented earlier. A faster adoption of direct presidential election in Slovakia was caused by a political situation Slovakia faced to in the first period of its independence, especially during the rule of the Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar in 1994-1998. The then (first) Slovak President Michal Kováč, elected indirectly by the Slovak Parliament in early 1993 as a candidate of the governmental Movement for Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), left the Presidential palace on 2 March 1998 in a relatively tense domestic atmosphere. It was marked by, besides other things, one foiled and one annulled referendum on the direct presidential election. Kováč has become one of the biggest proponents of direct presidential election already in the course of his mandate, seeing it rather as a mean to weaken and eventually remove Mečiar from power. Kováč’s reasoning clearly shows how strong phenomenon and, to some extent, “factor” was a person of Mečiar for forming an image of Slovak party system, as well as adjusting some elements in the constitutional system. Kováč focused more intensively on the theme of changing the way of presidential election mainly during the last year of his presidency, speaking in favour of the direct presidential election the most frequently. “I would like to emphasize that it is very important to strengthen the independence and non-partisanship of the President for our country and its future by being elected directly by the people,” said Kováč in his New Year address to the nation in 1997 (Kováč 1997), i.e. less than 15 months before his mandate expired. It was a time of the culmination of disagreements between him and Prime Minister Mečiar, having a constitutional and political level as well as a personal level. President Kováč feared the moment when he would have to hand over the presidential powers to Mečiar who would become the acting head of state under the Constitution (Constitution of the Slovak Republic, Art. 105[1]) in case of vacancy in the presidential office. “The direct election would guarantee that the function will be immediately occupied after the end of the term of office of the current President,” Kováč said in his 1997 New Year speech (Kováč 1997). In this speech, Kováč actually prophesied that the preservation of the presidential election in the hands of Parliament may fail, which was eventually

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fully reflected in 1998. “As we know, the current composition of the Parliament and the permanent impossibility of agreement between the coalition and the opposition do not guarantee that the President will be elected by the Parliament in a timely manner” (Kováč 1997). It is necessary to note that at that time, at least a constitutional three-fifths majority vote of all deputies (90 votes out of 150), was needed for electing the President. This quorum was not reduced even in the second round for the two most successful candidates from the first round. However, the then government coalition possessed only majority; moreover, the assumption of President Kováč about the impossibility of any agreement between the coalition and the opposition became fully apparent later. This situation was also the result of the government in 1994-1998. The combination of strict constitutional terms, the distribution of political powers in the Parliament and the impossibility of cooperation between the opposition and the coalition significantly hampered the election of the head of state on the grounds of the legislature. President’s New Year’s speech was met with a positive response by the citizens, and during the first three months of 1997, the Committee on Petitions accumulated a total of 440,000 signatures for the direct election. On the basis of this petition, a referendum was announced in May 1997 but it was thwarted by the government. Mečiar’s Cabinet had adopted a resolution which ordered the Interior Minister Gustáv Krajči to print and distribute referendum ballots with only three questions related to the entry of Slovakia into NATO, and thus without a question on the direct presidential election, as originally proposed. Ivan Šimko, deputy of Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), turned to the Constitutional Court concerning the violation of constitutional rights as a result of the process of the Ministry of Interior. President Kováč turned to the Constitutional Court as well, asking for an interpretation of the Constitution in connection with a government resolution. In both cases, the court upheld the verdict in favour of the plaintiffs. Therefore, the President and a group of opposition deputies requested Ivan Gašparovič (HZDS), the Speaker of the National Council of the Slovak Republic (NR SR), to announce a repeated referendum. Gašparovič refused due to the need to examine the formal requirements of the petition. Thus, the second referendum was not held at all. Meanwhile, the Slovak lawmakers were preparing the election of the head of state in Parliament. This option ended up unsuccessfully. None of the proposed candidates gained the required constitutional majority through repeated attempts. Closest to the election was a HZDS nominee, the then rector of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Otto Tomeček during the fifth attempt on 9 July 1998. He received 86 votes in each round. The fifth attempt was also the last, which anyone was nominated to. Although other rounds were announced, always in accordance with the law, never was any candidate nominated. However, the parties focused on the upcoming parliamentary elections (they were scheduled for autumn 1998), which could have brought a

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change into the course of the presidential election as well, whether because a new balance of power in Parliament would allow for electing President or because a new legislature would agree on changing the method of election. Anyway, both of the above steps needed to have the constitutional majority.

Political background in the Czech Republic Despite the fact that the debate on direct presidential election in the Czech Republic had gradually become an integral part of the political discourse, it is possible to monitor the escalation of this debate in several time periods. The direct presidential election begun to be discussed more intensively in connection with the approaching end of the second presidential mandate of Václav Havel (it was to expire in early 2003), and therefore the need to elect his successor. In this regard, the direct presidential election was seen as a tool to ensure the election of appropriate, charismatic figures respected by both citizens and politicians. Although Havel himself advocated the direct presidential election, this discussion did not lead to a constitutional change of the way the head of state was elected. The issue of the direct elections have been repeatedly updated, especially in connection with the upcoming presidential elections, largely quite purposefully with regard to partisan demands and to the current distribution of political power (cf. Kubát 2003, 299-301; Hloušek 2008, 263; Kubát 2013, 97; Kysela 2013; Brunnerová and Charvát 2014). The second important factor was the effort of the political parties to gain favour of voters in the election campaign. The proposal to introduce the direct election of the Czech President was submitted gradually by all the main Czech political parties except the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM). Yet neither the KSČM remained indifferent to this issue, mentioning the possibility of introducing the direct presidential election in its program for the parliamentary elections in 2006 and 2010. Although it may appear that there was a consensus on the direct presidential election among the main parties, the opposite is true. Even more participative debate was sparked after the 2003 presidential election, which was characterized by lengthiness and the inability of the political groups to agree on a strong candidate. The 2008 presidential election escalated the debate mainly due to scandals and political disputes accompanying the election, but also because of the continuing inability of the various political groups to find a sufficiently strong candidate who could win the support of at least the members of the nominating party.2 The indirect presidential elections 2

Václav Klaus was elected the President in 2003 after the third round of the third presidential election (the ninth vote), and in the third round of the second election in 2008 (the sixth vote).

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in the Czech Republic hence saw an apparent paradox: the conventional institutions relying on a strong Masaryk tradition and with a long-term utmost respect and reverence from the public3 which should represent a kind of moral authority, and on the other hand, there was an undignified course of the procedure with a series of backstage nuisances and pressures on individual deputies.4 Thus, a distinct inherent factor and an important incentive for the direct presidential election in the Czech Republic appeared. It was not a structural problem of an indirect election procedure as such, because it has always eventually led, despite many twists and turns, to fulfilling its main objective, the election of the President (in contrast to several unsuccessful attempts to elect President in Slovakia in 1998 which became the impetus for the direct presidential election there). However, the election failed to ensure the fulfilment of normative expectations associated with its procedure and was criticized by both the public and media, as well as by an important part of the political representation. Following the 2008 presidential election, the direct presidential election in the Czech Republic became a major topic of political and public discourse, also thanks to media coverage of the issue. Parties had gradually started promising relevant constitutional changes that would enable the direct presidential election for the forthcoming election (in 2013). Although three specific proposals for the implementation of the direct presidential election were actually presented before the 2010 parliamentary elections (two proposals in the Chamber of Deputies, in May 2008 and October 2009, and one Senate proposal of February 2009), none of these proposals gained the necessary parliamentary support and the relevant amendments to the Constitutional Law failed to be passed prior to the 2010 parliamentary elections. Although the individual proposals did not differ much from each other on crucial issues, other parliamentary parties did not support them because they were initiated by political rivals.

Circumstances of implementing the direct presidential elections in the Slovak and Czech Republics As mentioned above, the breakthrough year for Slovak reform that would implement a directly elected President was 1998. Moreover, President Kováč’s term of office expired that year and parliamentary elections took place in the autumn. Although the election resonated as one of the main topics throughout 3

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The President is the most trustworthy constitutional institution in the Czech political system in post-communist development in the long term. The 2003 and 2008 indirect presidential elections were evaluated by terms like incompetence, incapacity and decay of the Czech parliamentary representation, the peculiarity of the election or vanity, awkwardness and sleaze throughout the procedure.

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the year and even in the election campaign, the strongest political party and formal winner of the 1998 elections, HZDS, did not mention the direct presidential election in its election programme of 1998, even though HZDS often supported the direct election (Mesežnikov 1998, 14). Neither the then strongest left-wing party SDĽ had the direct election in its programme, although some of its leaders had also repeatedly claimed to support the direct election in the past period (Mesežnikov 1998, 22). The issue of the method of electing the President was a taboo also in the SNS election programme which was the then part of the ruling coalition led by Mečiar’s HZDS. On the contrary, the Democratic Coalition Party (SDK), a group of five opposition ‘anti-Mečiar’ subjects5, incurred as a counterbalance to and an election challenger of the ruling HZDS, bet on reaching the direct election (Mesežnikov 1998, 16). In 1994-1998 it was the politicians of those parties who are in Parliament who several times unsuccessfully tried to initiate legislative change in the method of electing the President. Support of the Constitution changes regarding the direct presidential election was declared also by the opposition Party of Hungarian Coalition (SMK) and the newly formed Party of Civic Understanding (SOP) in their election programmes (Mesežnikov 1998, 19, 24). After the election, a broad anti-Mečiar coalition of SDK-SDĽ-SMK-SOP was created having a constitutional majority of 93 votes in a 150-member Parliament. There was a theoretical assumption for the amendment of the Constitution and the adoption of the constitutional law on the method of electing the President. In addition, all coalition parties, besides the SDĽ, had the implementation of the direct presidential election in their programmes. But as mentioned above, the SDĽ did not act directly against it. Constitutional majority also theoretically allowed for the coalition to choose its candidate in the presidential election. However, this option fell because the coalition did not have a 100 % guarantee that all of its 93 deputies would vote in a balloting for a common candidate. This guarantee definitely fell when SOP, the smallest party, forced to mention its Chairman Rudolf Schuster as a common presidential candidate of the entire government coalition in the coalition agreement, which was disliked especially by the representatives of KDH. Finally, the government coalition parties decided in line with their programmes to bring the country to the direct election. The parliamentary proposal to amend the Constitution implementing presidential elections by citizens was eventually supported by all 93 coalition deputies at the final vote on 14 January 1999. Only deputy Ivan Hudec of the HZDS voted against it, 11 opposition deputies abstained and 42 were registered as absent. Unlike the sharp rhetoric in 5

SDK was composed of the following five political parties: KDH, the Democratic Party (DS), the Democratic Union (DÚ), the Social Democratic Party of Slovakia (SDSS), and the Green Party of Slovakia (SZS).

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attempts to elect the President in Parliament in 1998, discussing the act on direct election was surprisingly quiet and smooth6 (for more see Hladká and Just 2003). Ground-breaking milestone for the direct presidential election in the Czech Republic were the parliamentary elections as well. The direct presidential election was gradually appearing in the election manifestos of all relevant parties in 2010, including the KSČM, even though its election programme contained less strict wording of “consider the direct presidential election without broadening his powers” (KSČM 2010, 5). This was largely caused by the fact that a majority of Czech society had long been declaring for the direct presidential election.7 Eventually, direct presidential election was promised by the new Nečas’ coalition government in 2010; however, Prime Minister Petr Nečas said at that time that he personally preferred the presidential election by the Parliament. In order to demonstrate the willingness to fulfil campaign promises, political leaders submitted proposals to implement the direct presidential election within the different political camps – the government coalition of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), Tradition Responsibility Prosperity 09 (TOP 09) and the Public Affairs Party (VV) on one side and the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) on the other. Nevertheless, there was not any broader political consensus on the specific details of the changes regarding the presidential election again. Initially, it seemed that the “scenario” known from the previous years would be repeated after the 2010 parliamentary elections and that the various political camps would not agree on the setting of the electoral system, or on the question of whether to modify or retain the existing presidential powers. While the ODS wanted to keep the existing powers, the opposition ČSSD, on the contrary, connected the direct presidential election with the need to weaken presidential powers. However, the events eventually took a different turn. Finally, the political representation managed to find a compromise solution in 2012. After complicated negotiations, the ČSSD representatives achieved to include two of their requirements into the coalition draft – restricting the presidential power to decide on suspending a prosecution and limiting the immunity of the President. In exchange for that, the ČSSD withdrew from its third request to change the method of appointing members of the Bank Board of the Czech National Bank, or to weaken the presidential powers. Governmental draft was then supported by the lawmakers of all 6

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Only two deputies took the floor for factual contributions: Ján Cuper (HZDS) and Jozef Prokeš (SNS). While Prokeš proposed to have no President in Slovakia at all (see Prokeš 1999), Cuper suggested two changes: to introduce a paragraph talking about ‘political independence of the head of state’ literally included in the Constitution, and to reduce the age limit for candidates from 40 to 35 years of age (Cuper 1999). But none of these proposals was passed. Opinion polls showed a sustained support of the direct presidential election in the Czech Republic by more than 60 % of citizens, at the latest from 2007.

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parliamentary parties except the Communists. The representatives of parliamentary parties eventually met the public discourse – despite the warnings of experts on constitutional law and political scientists who rarely agreed that the direct presidential election would not benefit the Czech political system and that, conversely, this institution potentially introduces a number of new risks and challenges into the Czech politics – and implemented the direct presidential election, even though they were not clearly supportive of this method, as was evident from the course of discussing various proposals for constitutional amendments implementing the direct presidential election or from a series of public appearances and statements (Charvát 2013). The Chamber of Deputies passed the draft to amend the constitutional law introducing the direct presidential election on 14 December 2011. The draft of the Constitutional Act was supported by 159 out of the 192 deputies present (all 53 ČSSD deputies present, all 20 registered deputies of VV, 36 out of 37 registered deputies of TOP 09, 45 of the 50 registered ODS deputies and 5 of 6 non-attached deputies). In contrast, only 3 deputies (all of the ODS) voted against the draft of the Constitutional Act and 30 deputies abstained (incl. all 26 KSČM deputies). The Senate approved the draft of the constitutional amendment on 8 February 2012. Voting was attended by 75 senators (therefore, the approval quorum was 45 senators) and 49 senators voted for the draft adoption. However, the voting was less uniform within individual Senate fractions than in the Chamber of Deputies. While a majority of ČSSD senators voted in favour of the bill adoption (36 senators voted to adopt the bill, 3 senators abstained and 2 were not present) and all 6 senators of the Christian Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People´s Party (KDU-ČSL) voted against the direct election, it was about half for and half against in the senatorial caucuses of the ODS, TOP 09 and the Mayors.

Procedures of direct elections Changing the method of electing the Slovak President influenced the relevant articles of the Constitution, and sought the adoption of a separate implementing law on the method of electing the President and on the popular vote of his revocation (Act no. 46/1999 Coll.). The Act contains detailed technical and organizational parameters for the application of direct election (as well as a direct removal) of the heads of state and the NR SR passed it on 18 March 1999, two months after the amendment of the Constitution. Slovak President has been elected by the citizens in direct elections since 1999. His mandate lasts five years, and no person shall be elected for more than two consecutive terms. Candidates for President may be proposed by a group of at least 15 deputies or citizens through petitions signed by at least 15,000 eligible voters (Constitution of the Slovak Republic, Art. 101[3]).

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Constitutional Act no. 71/2012 Coll. on the direct presidential election in the Czech Republic came into force on 1 October 2012. The Law specifying the details of the election was passed in the Parliament in 2012 and promulgated as the Act no. 275/2012 Coll. of 18 July 2012, on the election of the President of the Czech Republic and on amending certain laws. The right to elect a new President belongs to every Czech citizen who has reached 18 years of age. Candidates for President may be proposed by a minimum of 20 deputies, 10 senators or citizens, provided they have reached the age of 18 and if their proposal is supported by a petition with 50,000 signatures of Czech citizens with the right to elect the President. Presidential election is announced by the President of the Senate (if this office is not occupied, the Speaker announces the election) not later than 90 days prior to its holding. The President then newly takes an oath and renounces his office to the President of the Senate, and no longer to the Speaker, as was the case with the indirectly elected heads of state. A two-round majority run-off system8 was applied for the election of both the Slovak and Czech Presidents, although the electoral system employed in Slovakia differs from the Czech one in one very important detail. In the case of the Slovak Republic, the candidate obtaining a majority of valid votes of all eligible voters in the first round is elected President (Constitution of the Slovak Republic, Art. 101[4]; Act no. 46/1999, § 31[1]). It is worth mentioning that the quorum is calculated from all citizens having the right to vote. Czech electoral system requires only a majority of valid votes to gain a mandate in the first round. Therefore, the quorum is not given in advance, but is derived from the number of valid votes cast.9 In both cases the second run-off round proceeds as is conventional, when it is won by a candidate who receives the highest number of valid votes. While Slovak President is not only elected by the citizens but may be also revoked by them through the institute of the so-called “popular vote on removing the President from office”10 (Constitution of the Slovak Republic, Art. 106[1]), 8

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The second round shall be held within 14 days. If any of the candidates advancing to the second round is unable to attend it (loss of eligibility, surrendering the candidacy, death, etc.), a candidate finishing the third in the first round takes his place. This provision was included in the law on the proposal of the government no sooner than during the legislative process. The original parliamentary draft did not allow for a substitute. If only one candidate seeks the office of President, the vote on him is held only in one round, and he needs to obtain majority of valid votes of participating voters to be elected (Constitution of the Slovak Republic, Art. 101). The second round is held two weeks after the first round. If any of advancing candidates stops being eligible before the second round or resigns on his/her candidacy, another candidate with the highest number of votes advances. The second round is held even if only one candidate remains. The popular vote on removing the Slovak President from his office is announced by the Speaker of Parliament if the Parliament decides so by a three-fifths majority of all its members (i.e. at least 90 votes). If the majority of all eligible voters voted for removing in

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this option was less discussed in the Czech Republic. Finally, the possibility of direct removal was not included into the Constitution amendment in the Czech Republic. Therefore, the Czech President remains irresponsible for the performance of his duties, despite being newly elected by popular vote. The Czech President continues to be prosecuted before the Constitutional Court only on suspicion of treason, recently defined as “acting of the President directed against the sovereignty and integrity of the Republic and against its democratic order” (Constitution of the Czech Republic, Art. 65 [4]). But he may be sued by the Senate with the consent of the Chamber of Deputies and a possible presidential action must be agreed on by a three-fifths majority of senators present and three-fifths majority of all deputies. The loss of both the presidency and the possibility of being elected again still remains a punishment in case of conviction.

Modification of presidential powers because of the implementation of direct elections While implementing the direct presidential elections in the Slovak Republic was not without some presidential power adjustments or their refinement, there were only some minor modifications of presidential powers without having a greater intervention in the scope of presidential powers and changing the position in the political system in the Czech Republic. In the case of Slovakia, the President must appoint or remove members of the government on the proposal of a prime minister since 1999. Until then, the binding nature of Prime Minister’s proposal belonged to the disputed articles of the Constitution. Among other presidential powers whose performance needs to be countersigned by the Prime Minister or minister there have been recently added the power to delegate ambassadors, to announce amnesty and decisions that the President makes as a supreme commander of the armed forces. According to the amendment to the Constitution, the President has newly the right to dissolve the Parliament even if it does not agree on a government bill with which the government would connect a vote of confidence within three months, or should the Parliament be not capable of deciding within a period longer than three months. However, the President cannot dissolve the Parliament six months before the end of its term of office. Newly adjusted has been the returning of acts by the President. Since the popular vote, President's mandate expires and new elections are held (Constitution of the Slovak Republic, Art. 106[2]). If the President is not removed in the popular vote, the dissolution of Parliament occurs and new elections are held. Moreover, if a President ‘survives’ the vote on his removal from office, he begins a new five-year term of office under the Constitution (Constitution of the Slovak Republic, Art. 106[3]). A situation in which people are in favour of not-removing a President is thus understood as the reelection of this President while expressing no-confidence in Parliament.

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the amendment of the Constitution, a majority of all deputies (instead of the present one) is necessary to outvoting a presidential veto. On the contrary, the President has been deprived of the right to veto constitutional laws. In the case of the Czech Republic, President’s right to stop and not to initiate criminal proceedings has been moved from the exclusive to countersigned powers. Along with this, there was a partial limitation of the presidential immunity, which now applies only to the term of office. Rather a logical change in the presidential powers was the abolition of a power to declare a referendum on accession to the EU and its outcome.

Direct election in Slovak and Czech practice Four direct presidential elections (in 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014) have been held in Slovakia until now. The first elections in 1999 were still marked by “dis-Mečiarizing” of Slovak politics. Ten candidates participated, including the then-President Kováč. However, he resigned on the candidacy shortly before the election. At the last moment, Mečiar entered the electoral contest and advanced to the second round. But he was defeated by the coalition candidate Rudolf Schuster (SOP), gaining 57.18% of the votes. The second round attracted more than 75% of the voters to the polls, which was about two per cent more than in the first round. It can be said that the first direct election in 1999 fulfilled its “purpose” and after Mečiar’s actual defeat in the 1998 parliamentary elections, he was deprived of the possibility to be the head of state as well. The second election was held in 2004, and ended in a surprising advance of Ivan Gašparovič to the second round, along with Mečiar. Election surveys favoured the then Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan who eventually finished the third. Gašparovič was the second one, at that time a member of the small nonparliamentary Movement for Democracy (HZD), separated from the HZDS. In addition to his party and several smaller, rather nationalist formations, Gašparovič received the support of the then gradually increasing SMER, a party without its own candidate, just before the elections. It was undoubtedly one of the factors of his success. The second factor was a person of his rival in the second round – Mečiar, which was widely used in Gašparovič’s campaign. Even he tried, just like Schuster in 1999, to present himself to the position of the person being this “anti-Mečiar” building on the still negative image of Mečiar. Unlike the 1999 situation, this case included a certain paradox because Gašparovič was, from the position of the Parliamentary Speaker, directly co-responsible for the former state of Slovak politics in 1994-1998. Another reason of Gašparovič success could be a populist, suitably chosen election motto catching on to such an extent that it ‘graced’ the title page of the Slovak Presidential office website throughout his presidency: “I think nationally, I feel socially”. The new

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President was elected in 2004 with the support of 59.91% of voters participating in the second round. In the 2004 elections, the incumbent President Schuster was a candidate as well, yet he ended already in the first round in fourth place, obtaining less than 7.5% of the votes. There was a total of 12 candidates, one resigning just before the election. However, a voter turnout declined dramatically as compared to 1999 (to 48 % in the first round, and 43.5% in the second round). The first contest without Mečiar and with a total of seven candidates were the third elections in 2009. Voter turnout was nearly 47% in the first round and almost 52% in the second round. Gašparovič, defending the mandate and supported by the then ruling party SMER, was challenged by a common candidate of several right-wing parties and later Prime Minister Iveta Radičová, supported by the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ). Although she was defeated by Gašparovič in the second round (old-new President defended his mandate with 55.53% of the votes), the elections were seen as a certain test of a possible future cooperation for her and the right-wing scene itself. Parties supporting Radičová, actually formed the basis of a new coalition government a year later, coincidentally with Radičová as Prime Minister. Nevertheless, the government fell after less than two years, when a part of the coalition deputies (from Freedom and Solidarity Party, SaS) did not vote for a bill merged with the vote of confidence. The last presidential elections were held in March 2014, with the participation of 14 candidates. The voter turnout was 43.40% in the first round and 50.48% in the second round. Due to the limitation of two terms for the Slovak President, these election was the first fully open and without the incumbent President being a candidate. The result brought some surprise when a candidate without a nomination and without the support of some of the main political parties was elected. Independent candidate Andrej Kiska defeated the SMER candidate and Prime Minister Robert Fico by obtaining 59.31% of the votes in the second round. Moreover, the latter was considered a favourite because of the 2012 parliamentary elections, after which the SMER won a majority of seats in the Parliament. On the other hand, the Czech Republic has only one experience with the direct election. In January 2013, there were 9 individuals meeting the conditions for candidate registration. The first round of the 2013 presidential election reached 61.31% turnout, most of the voters electing Miloš Zeman (24.21%) over Karel Schwarzenberg (23.40%). None of the other candidates exceeded 20% of the votes. The second round was attended by nearly 200,000 fewer voters and the voter turnout reached 59.11%. Most voters opted for Zeman (54.80% of the vote) who thus defeated Schwarzenberg (45.19%) by almost half a million of votes and became the first directly elected President in the Czech Republic. Probably the most striking problem of the 2013 presidential election appeared with the registration of civil candidates (the Ministry of Interior making

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several errors). The first misconduct can be considered the Ministry of Interior’s publishing an algorithm for selecting ‘random’ sheet to be checked before the deadline for the registrations. This was the denial of the principle of randomness, since the candidates could calculate what sheets would be selected for inspection by themselves or with the help of mathematical experts. Subsequently, the Ministry of Interior wrongfully “handled the sheets when they were (possibly intentionally) reclassified mostly in the hundreds, thus having entirely different sheets in a control sample than those that should have been included in accordance with a set algorithm” (Odehnalová 2014). Therefore, the sequence of controlled sheets was disrupted in comparison with the set algorithm, which paradoxically partially mitigated the aforementioned error. Further doubts about the Ministry of Interior’s procedure may be made to the actual inspection of petition data which was done very formally – removing petitioners from the lists for small formal shortcomings such as stating a previous address or current address instead of the address of permanent residence while the authenticity of the signatures was not verified; although it should be admitted that the Ministry of Interior has not the support in the law for checking the authenticity of signatures, mentioning the control of information, not of signatures (Odehnalová 2014). However, the most media covered misconduct was the mechanism of controlling the accuracy of petition data of civic candidates according to the last sentence of § 25(6) of the Act on presidential elections which states that “if the Ministry of Interior finds that the second control sample shows the error rate at 3% or more than 3% of citizens signing a petition, the number of citizens corresponding to the percentage of error rate in both control samples shall be deducted from the total number of citizens signing a petition”. The interpretation of this provision by the Ministry of Interior was that when determining the final percentages of error rates, the results of both samples should be added and the percentage thus obtained deducted from the total number of signatures. However, such an interpretation was later refused by and the verdict was cancelled by the Supreme Administrative Court (NSS), according to which the relevant provision can be interpreted in a constitutionally conformist and logical manner as an obligation of the Ministry of Interior to average both percentages and the percentage obtained then subtract from the total number of signatures. This NSS decision was crucial because it changed the earlier decision of the Ministry of Interior and returned Jana Bobošíková to the election, who was excluded on the basis of the Ministry of Interior interpretation of determining the error rate (along with Vladimír Dlouhý and Tomio Okamura) as the conversion conducted by the Ministry of Interior showed that the petition supporting Bobošíková’s candidacy did not have the required number of 50,000 signatures. Nevertheless, according to the calculation mechanism established by the NSS, Bobošíková, unlike the other eliminated candidates, narrowly

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overcame the limit of 50,000 signatures, thus meeting the conditions for the registration of her candidacy.

Conclusion One famous Czech adage says that if two are doing the same, it is not the same. And this saying quite aptly describes the paths of Slovak and Czech politics to direct presidential elections. Even if the result is similar, paths to it were different in the Slovak and Czech Republics. The implementation of the direct presidential election in Slovakia was not primarily the consequence of some sort of desire to let the people decide. The change was primarily motivated purely pragmatically, by the experience Slovakia went through in 1994-1998 and which was particularly evident during the 1998 presidential election. It became a victim of a combination of strict constitutional and electoral condition setting for the presidential election by an indirect manner and the then deadlock of a party system incapable to generate the appropriate majority required for the election of the President. On the other hand, the main problem in the Czech Republic was not the institutional setting that was milder as compared to the former Slovak adjustment but “only” a discreditable running of the 2008 presidential election in the Parliament. The direct presidential elections in Slovakia freed the country from a deadlock in 1999 which it got into through the political balance of powers and the inability of the parties and their deputies to agree on an acceptable candidate for the President who would gain the support of both parts of the then sharply polarized Slovak political scene. High set quorum had its part of quilt on it as it was needed to be achieved for electing the head of state in Parliament. However, using a two-round majority electoral system for the direct presidential election made, according to many political scientists, the Slovak citizens to vote rather a ‘lesser evil’ after the advance of Mečiar to the second round. Mečiar’s personality at least strengthened his both rivals during the elections, Schuster in 1999 and Gašparovič five years later. Slovak governments formed after 1999 have never had a constitutional majority and the relations between the coalition and the opposition have always been quite escalated, without being able to consent on elementary questions. For these reasons, the original system of electing the President by the Parliament had probably always failed. However, this is apparently the only practical significance, which Slovakia gained by changing the method of presidential elections. Otherwise, the direct presidential election was not indispensable for the character of the political and constitutional system of Slovakia. One can even say that the President’s powers were in certain aspects weakened simultaneously with the change of the election method, although he received

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a slight strengthening, which is tied to a situation where a government operates in resignation or a government has lost confidence, after a government crisis and a swift change in the Constitution in 2011. Neither the Czech change of 2012 strengthened the presidential powers defined by the Constitution. Here we can see a more moderate weakening in the form of a transfer of one competence from the exclusive to the countersigned; on the other hand, the change was accompanied by the aggravation of the process of constitutional action against the President. Unlike the Slovak case, the Czech change did not involve an extension of the method of removing the President from office through a popular vote. To compare the effects and consequences of the implementation of direct presidential elections on the constitutional, political and party system is premature for the time being. Although Slovakia could offer a certain material for a research, yet the comparison with the Czech case would not be appropriate due to still fresh experience and could hardly produce reliable and valid results.

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