Zuzana Čaputová, President of Slovakia (takes office on Jun 15, 2019)

Born 21 June 1973, Zuzana is a Slovak politician, lawyer, and activist who is the president-elect of Slovakia, due to take office on 15 June 2019. Čaputová will be the first woman to hold the presidency, as well as the youngest president in the history of Slovakia, at the of age 45.

She first became known by prevailing in a decade-long struggle against the situating of a toxic landfill in her hometown of Pezinok. For this, Čaputová was awarded the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize.

Čaputová is divorced and has two daughters. She practices Zen yoga. She still lives in Pezinok.

Andrej Kiska, President of Slovakia (since June 15, 2014)

Kiska was born in Poprad. He studied electrical engineering. In 1990, after the Velvet Revolution, he moved to the United States. Later he founded Triangel and Quatro, two Slovakia-based hire-purchase companies that give the buyer the possibility to pay for goods in several installments over a number of months instead of paying the full price at once.

Andrej Kiska supports Kosovo’s independence and is in favour of Slovakia diplomatically recognising Kosovo as an independent sovereign state.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrej_Kiska

Ivan Gasparovic, Former President of the Slovak Republic (Slovakia)

Born in Poltár on 27th March 1941, President Gašparovic is married and has two adult children – Denisa and Ivo. After studying at the Comenius University Faculty of Law from 1959 to 1964, he earned his PhD in 1968 and he was appointed Associate Professor at the very same faculty. 1964 saw Ivan Gašparovi? working at the Martin District Prosecutor’s Office and subsequently at the Municipal Prosecutor’s Office in Bratislava. Between 1966 and 1989, Ivan Gašparovi? served as the Vice-Chairman of the Czechoslovak Ice Hockey Federation International Commission. He began lecturing at the Comenius University Faculty of Law, Department of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Criminalistics in 1968. He became Co-Chairman of the Independent Slovak Lawyers Forum in 1989 and the Vice-Rector of Comenius University in 1990. From 1990 to 1992, he served as the Prosecutor General of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic in Prague. In 1992, Ivan Gašparovic worked as a professor at the Comenius University Faculty of Law and he also was a member of its Scientific Council.

He was elected Speaker of the National Council of the Slovak Republic the same year and he also co-authored the Slovak Constitution. He held the post of Speaker of the National Council of the Slovak Republic (the Slovak Parliament) from 1994 to 1998, and he served as the acting President of the Slovak Republic between March and October 1998 – the year in which, Ivan Gašparovi? also worked as Member of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, Member of the Parliamentary Committee for Constitutional Law, Political Mandates and Immunity and Member of the Parliamentary Delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Between July and October 2002, Ivan Gašparovi? was an independent Member of the National Council of the Slovak Republic. He founded the HZD (Movement for Democracy) Party in 2002, becoming its leader. In the same year – following the end of his electoral term in the Slovak Parliament – he returned to his previous vocation as a pedagogue at the Comenius University Faculty of Law. He ran in the 2004 presidential elections, emerging as the victor in second round on 17th April. He was officially inaugurated as President of the Slovak Republic on 15th June 2004.

For more info, please visit: http://www.prezident.sk