František Mikloško (born 2 June 1947) is a Slovak politician. He was the Speaker of the Slovak National Council from 1990 to 1992 and a long serving MP of the

National Council of the Slovak Republic The National Council of the Slovak Republic (, abbreviated to ''NR SR'') is the national parliament of Slovakia. It is unicameralism, unicameral and consists of 150 members, who are elected by universal suffrage under proportional representation ...

(1990-2010). For most of his career, he was a member of Christian Democratic Movement.

Early life

Mikloško studied Mathematics at the Comenius University, graduating in 1966. Already as a student, he was active in the activities of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, which had a complicated relationship with the Communist regime at the time. At first, Mikloško's activities were limited to low profile organization of small student gatherings while working as a researcher at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. However, since 1980s, Mikloško started gradually to contribute to organization of large religious pilgrimages, which has attracted the attention of the Communist regime. In 1983 he was fired from the Academy and could only work in manual occupations. In spite of the regime repression, Mikloško continued to organize increasingly anti-regime rallied, most prominently the Candle demonstration in Bratislava in 1988. After the

Velvet Revolution The Velvet Revolution () or Gentle Revolution () was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Pa ...

, he became the first Speaker of the Slovak National Council.

Political career

Mikloško was one of the longest-serving members of parliament in Slovakia. He was also a candidate in the 2004 presidential election and the 2009 presidential election. Mikloško did not participate in 2010 parliament election and retired from politics. On 12 March 2008 František Mikloško, together with Vladimír Palko, Pavol Minárik, and Rudolf Bauer, established a new party called Conservative Democrats of Slovakia which was dissolved in 2014. After 15 years, Mikloško returned to run for KDH ahead of 2023 parliamentary election.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miklosko, Frantisek 1947 births Living people Politicians from Nitra Christian Democratic Movement politicians Conservative Democrats of Slovakia politicians Comenius University alumni Candidates for President of Slovakia Slovak mathematicians Members of the National Council (Slovakia) 1992–1994 Members of the National Council (Slovakia) 1994-1998 Members of the National Council (Slovakia) 1998–2002 Members of the National Council (Slovakia) 2002-2006 Members of the National Council (Slovakia) 2006-2010 Members of the National Council (Slovakia) 2023–2027