Ján Lunter (born 15 July 1951) is a Slovak entrepreneur, owner of a family food company and, following the November 2017 elections, governor of the

Banská Bystrica Region The Banská Bystrica Region (, ; , ) is one of the eight regions of Slovakia. It is the largest of the eight regions by area, and has a lower population density than any other region. The Banská Bystrica Region was established in 1923; its bord ...

Biography

Lunter studied

Cybernetics Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...

at the School of Electrical Engineering at the

Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (STU) () is the biggest and oldest university of technology in Slovakia. In the 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities it was ranked in the first 150 in Computer Science, the only university in ...

. Following the gentle revolution, he started a firm producing computer software and hardware, called Proces, and later started a food processing company called Alfa-Bio. In 2016 Alfa-Bio produced 160 tons of

tofu or bean curd is a food prepared by Coagulation (milk), coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness: ''silken'', ''soft'', ''firm'', and ''extra (or super) firm''. It originated in Chin ...

and 100 tons of spreads.

Candidacy

Lunter announced plans to run for governor of the Banská Bystrica Region in January and officially entered the race in April 2017. By the end of August, Lunter had gained the support of

Peter Pellegrini Peter Pellegrini (; born 6 October 1975) is a Slovak politician who is serving as the sixth president of Slovakia since 2024. He previously served as prime minister of Slovakia from 2018 to 2020. Pellegrini also served as the Minister of Health, ...

of Direction - Social Democracy, and later won support from Most–Híd and

Progressive Slovakia Progressive Slovakia (, PS) is a liberal and social-liberal political party in Slovakia established in 2017. The party is led by Michal Šimečka, a former Vice President of the European Parliament. It is a member of the Renew Europe group and ...

. As candidates from other parties withdrew, many gave support to Lunter, including Martin Klus, who withdrew on 3 October; and Viliam Baňák, who withdrew on 4 October. By November, Lunter had support of all parties excluding the far-right Kotleba - People's Party Our Slovakia (the party of incumbent governor

Marian Kotleba Marian Kotleba (; born 7 April 1977) is a Slovakia, Slovak politician and leader of the far-right, neo-Nazi political party Kotlebists – People's Party Our Slovakia (). He served as the governor of Banská Bystrica Region from 2013 to 2017. He ...

References

1951 births Living people Governors of Banská Bystrica Region Slovak politicians Slovak businesspeople Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava alumni {{Slovakia-politician-stub