2004 Slovak presidential election

2004 Slovak presidential election

3 April 2004 (first round) 17 April 2004 (second round)

150x150px 150x150px Nominee Ivan Gašparovič Vladimír Mečiar Party HZD ĽS–HZDS Popular vote 1,079,592 722,368 Percentage 59.9% 40.1%

300px Results of the second round, showing vote strength by district.

President before election Rudolf Schuster Nonpartisan Elected President Ivan Gašparovič HZD

Presidential elections were held in Slovakia on 3 April 2004, with a second round on 17 April. Although former Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar received the most votes in the first round, he was defeated by Ivan Gašparovič in the run-off.

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.

Incumbent president Rudolf Schuster finished fourth with just 7% of the vote. He subsequently retired from politics.

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

File:2004 Slovak presidential election - First Round Vote Strength.svg

Results of the first round of the election, showing vote strength by district.

File:2004 Slovak presidential election - Second Round Vote Strength.svg

Results of the second round of the election, showing vote strength by district.