The two favourites in the Slovak presidential election, speaker of the parliament Peter Pellegrini and former minister of foreign affairs Ivan Korcok, have clashed in a their first televised debate ahead of this weekend's first round vote.

Pellegrini had been avoiding debates with Korcok in what many analysts interpreted as a sign of Pellegrini’s confidence that he could reach out to his electorate without confronting the former diplomat, and rely on his strong public visibility and the backing of the left-right cabinet of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico.

The two clashed on the largest commercial television Markiza on Monday, March 18, over the recent spat between the Czech and Slovak cabinets, the war in Ukraine and international issues.

“I am sorry that we have politicians in Slovakia who enjoy the gesture made by the Czech government towards Slovakia. I don’t know how any country can be criticised for not sharing such a militant stance as that of the Czech Republic,” Pellegrini said, in another one of his statements aligned to Fico’s cabinet position calling for peace in Ukraine.

“Responsibility is clearly on Slovakia,” countered Korcok, adding that “what happened is to the disadvantage of Slovak republic. We are burning bridges to our neighbours.”

“The peace you talk about is capitulation,” Korcok said in criticism of Pellegrini's call for a peace between Ukraine and Russia.  

Earlier this month, the Czech centre-right government of Prime Minister Petr Fiala suspended regular joint cabinet sessions with the Slovak government, which have been in place since 2013, in response to the Slovak minister of foreign affairs' meeting with his Russian counterpart Igor Lavrov in Turkey.

Pellegrini has been intensifying his public appearances and has been active on social media, where he said following the debate that “people in Slovakia feel that killing in Ukraine must end and that politicians are obliged to contribute to stop the dying of innocent people. I absolutely reject that anyone escalates this conflict more, and that is why I say not a single Slovak soldier will go to Ukraine.”

Pellegrini also backed Pope Francis’s recent comments about Ukraine gathering “courage” to seek peace terms with Russian invading forces.

The Slovak parliamentary opposition is largely backing Korcok, fearing that Pellegrini's election would mean Fico would control all levers of government, though it is not clear how independent of Fico the former premier would be if elected.

Korcok slammed Fico’s ruling coalition, of which Pellegrini’s centre-left party Hlas is part, for trying to control  “the whole society”, pointing to Fico’s attempted judicial overhaul and the cabinet's legislative proposal aimed at restructuring the public broadcaster RTVS, which has been  criticised by the opposition, liberal journalists and international media organizations.

Central European media platform VSquare published a story on Tuesday, March 19, reporting that in 2020, when Pellegrini served as interim prime minister and was still part of Fico’s Smer party, he asked Hungarian government officials to arrange a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to boost Pellegrini’s visibility ahead of the national elections in 2020.

“As [Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs] Peter Szijjarto said, if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade receives a request to help establish or maintain contacts with other countries, and the request is not contrary to Hungarian national interests, we are always ready to help”, the ministry spokesperson Mate Paczolay was quoted as saying by VSquare.

VSquare also quoted intelligence sources saying that the Hungarian side also showed interest in supporting the ultranationalist party SNS of Andrej Dandko, which is the third party in Fico’s ruling coalition, so it could enter the parliament in 2020 (it failed to).

Fico has pursued an alliance with Hungary’s radical right-wing leader, Viktor Orban, even though Smer is nominally a left-wing party and despite the history of strong anti-Hungarian sentiment among Slovak nationalists.

Pellegrini maintains a slim lead ahead of Korcok in the first round scheduled for Saturday, March 23, but the latest polls show he is the favourite of the second round run-off vote two weeks later, beating Korcok 53.4% to 46.6% when nationalist voters are expected to prefer Pellegrini over Korcok.