Presidential elections were held in

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

on 3 April 2004, with a second round on 17 April.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1747 Although former Prime Minister

Vladimír Mečiar Vladimír Mečiar (; born 26 July 1942) is a Slovak former politician who served as the prime minister of Slovakia from June 1990 to May 1991, June 1992 to March 1994, and again from December 1994 to October 1998. He was the leader of the Movemen ...

received the most votes in the first round, he was defeated by

Ivan Gašparovič Ivan Gašparovič (; ; born 27 March 1941) is a Slovakia, Slovak politician and lawyer who was the third president of Slovakia from 2004 to 2014. He was also the first and currently the only Slovak president to be re-elected. Biography Ivan Ga� ...

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

Results

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=March 2017 Presidential elections in Slovakia

Presidential election A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The p ...