Slovaks stopped a comeback by hard-line nationalist former prime minister Vladimir Meciar in a presidential runoff vote, choosing the more moderate Ivan Gasparovic as the country heads into the European Union.
The electoral committee said on Sunday that Gasparovic, a former political ally of Meciar, took 59.91 percent of the vote to score an upset win in Saturday's election.
Many Slovaks characterised the election as a choice of the lesser of two evils. One voter even showed up at the ballot box wearing rubber gloves, not wanting to sully his hands with either candidate and in the end being questioned by police who feared an anthrax attack.
The West saw Meciar as a pariah in the 1990s, assailing the autocrat for what it viewed as his anti-democratic rule.
Isolated during Meciar's term in office, the small central European nation of 5.4 million people has only recently emerged as a favourite destination for foreign investors and a model of reforms.
The centre-left Gasparovic, 63, will begin his five-year term a few weeks after Slovakia joins the European Union on May 1 along with nine other mainly post-Communist nations. It joined Nato last month.
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