The new leader of Slovakia is a woman! Who is Zuzana Čaputová?
She was born in Bratislava in 1973. She graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Comenius University in Bratislava and worked in the local government in Pezinok as deputy chairman of the municipal office. It was there that she led a more than 10-year-long campaign against a landfill, which eventually ended in a success - in a million-dollar business case.
Her other activities included a campaign to abolish Mečiar's amnesties. With her team, she managed to collect over 76,000 signatures, causing enormous public pressure which forced Robert Fico to fall back. Even though it had originally seemed impossible for her to win in the campaign, she succeeded in the end.
She has also worked in the non-profit sector, dealing with the issue of abused and sexually exploited children among others. She has two daughters and her partner is the musician and photographer Peter Konečný.
From a successful attorney to a president
As an attorney, she was always on the side of those who fought for their rights without having connections or heaps of money.
In January 2018, she was elected the vice-president of the Progressive Slovakia political party and in May of the same year she announced her candidacy for the post of the president of the Slovak Republic in the 2019 elections.
"As president, I want to devote my life energy and the entire authority of the presidency to creating an environment where no one would have to experience the injustice and arrogance of power," says Zuzana Čaputová on her website.
In the second round of the presidential elections, she won 58.4% of the votes (votes from 1,056,582 voters), thereby defeating Maroš Šefčovič, who won 41.59% (from 752,403 voters). The Slovak Republic has thereby gained its first ever female leader!
She now finds herself in the company of the following European female presidents:
Croatia - Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
Estonia - Kersti Kaljulaid
Lithuania - Dalia Grybauskaité
Malta - Marie Louise Coleiro Preca
In total, we can find 13 women in the role of the highest representative of a state worldwide, including Zuzana Čaputová.
