2024-04-05 21:06:56
Just a few days before the decisive second round of the Slovak presidential election, former Prime Minister Igor Matovič intervened in the campaign. In the slanderous video, he claims that Peter Pellegrini is having an affair with one of the government deputies. The Slovaks are also dealing with his assets and private jet.
When the single and childless Peter Pellegrini announced his candidacy for Slovak president two months ago, he declared that he would not share a household with anyone, and that if he became head of state, he would not have the first lady or any other person by his side. The statement, which was not particularly explosive at the time, began to seem implausible just before Saturday’s second round of elections. Parliament Speaker Pellegrini will face former Foreign Minister Ivan Korčok in it, and polls promise a very close fight.
The media discovered that Pellegrini was using the villa of deputy and fellow party member from the Hlas party Peter Náhlik in Vrakuni, Bratislava, which contributed to this. Pellegrini himself subsequently admitted it. Former prime minister and opposition politician Igor Matovič attacked his privacy on Wednesday. In the video, he showed three-year-old photos taken in Verona, Italy, which he claims show Pellegrini with his lover Náhlik. In addition, according to Matovič, the photos should have been taken at a time when Náhlik was taking pictures of a luxurious villa in Bratislava. According to the media, the deputy did not mention the house in the property declaration, which is required by law.
Náhlik’s name appeared several times in connection with Pellegrini in the hot phase of the campaign before the presidential elections. The first time was last week, when the head of the parliament traveled from Bratislava to Košice for a pre-election meeting in his private jet. Pellegrini subsequently claimed that he did not know whose plane it was and that he did not care. According to Slovak media, Náhlik is close to influential oligarch Vladimír Poor.
According to Slovak sociologist Michal Vašečka, the fact that Peter Pellegrini does not comment on speculations about his private life is his legitimate decision. But he sees the problem in the fact that the head of the parliament is not telling the truth, even on other topics. “In recent weeks, I have to think about when he actually didn’t lie. He said that he doesn’t share a household with anyone, but suddenly we learn that it’s not true. Pellegrini is a person who has lived a lie all his life precisely because of this topic and will probably continue to do so. “In reality, he probably doesn’t mind living in disguise, it’s more important for him to have comfort and luxury. He’s lost touch with reality,” the sociologist thinks.
According to Vašečka, Slovak society is traditionally more interested in the privacy of presidents than other politicians. “Pellegrini’s minority sexual orientation has been public information for years for people involved in politics. But at the moment when he is running for president, he logically becomes more in the center of attention. It is important for people,” explains the sociologist. Although the president does not have to formally inform about his private relationships, as Vašečka notes, the monarchist concept of the head of state prevails in Central Europe since the days of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Václav Havel. People were also unusually interested in their personal lives in the past.
However, according to the sociologist, the president’s personal relationships are indirectly affected by the long-standing custom that heads of state are often accompanied by their wives or husbands on foreign visits. According to Vašečka, if Pellegrini wins in Saturday’s elections, he will still be under pressure in this regard.
Speculation about a partner can make the voters of Hlas unsure
The latest polls in Slovakia predict the closest second round of presidential elections in history. According to the agencies, thousands of votes can decide. Supporters of nationalists, extremists and the pro-Russian Štefan Harabin, who finished third in the first round with less than 12 percent, will also play a role. In order not to lose them, according to Michal Vašečka, Pellegrini will not comment on his privacy in the following days, even if a lot of things come out on him.
In his commentary in Denník N, anthropologist Juraj Buzalka adds that “if Pellegrini manages to convince fascist voters that the petty-bourgeois maxim ‘what the eye can’t see, the heart doesn’t hurt’ applies, he has won”. But if he wins sympathy or the right to live in the truth, it will be more difficult, according to Buzalka.
However, Vašečka thinks that a part of the extremist spectrum will still vote for Pellegrini. “Potential homophobia is still weaker for them than anti-Western sentiment,” he adds. According to him, speculations about privacy can make Hlas voters themselves uncertain. “Pellegrini’s repeated lies were noticed even by people who don’t follow politics. There are, for example, more of them among Hlas supporters than among supporters of Roberto Fico’s Direction party,” he reminds.
The finals of the presidential campaign in recent days have also been marked by other uncertainties. For example, the Social Democratic politician did not come to one of the presidential duels in which he was supposed to face Ivan Korčok. He claimed on social media that he would be with voters in the regions at the time of filming. At the same time, SME newspaper photographed him in the streets of Bratislava.
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Spotlight News – Martin Ehl. | Video: Oldrich Neumann