Zuzana Caputova has been elected as the first female president in Slovakia in the last week elections.
The 45-year old newcomer to politics, defeated high-profile diplomat Maros Sefcovic in a run-off vote held on Saturday.
She won 58 per cent of the vote with Mr Sefcovic on 42 per cent, with the latter conceding defeat and congratulated his rival.
“I’m extremely happy about the result,” Ms Caputova said. “It’s an extremely strong mandate for me,” she said.
Ms Caputova attracted voters who are appalled by her anti-corruption and mainstream politics manifestos.
She only recently became vice chairman of the Progressive Slovakia, a party so new it has not had a chance to run in parliamentary elections. Ms Caputova resigned from her party post after winning the first round of the presidential vote two weeks ago.
She becomes Slovakia’s fifth president since the country gained independence after the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993.
The president of the nation of 5.4 million people has the power to pick the prime minister, appoint Constitutional Court judges and veto laws. Parliament can override the veto with a simple majority, however. The government, led by the prime minister, possesses most executive powers.
A lawyer by profession, Ms Caputova is a rising star of Slovak politics. She became known for leading a successful fight against a toxic waste dump in her hometown of Pezinok, for which she received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2016.
A divorced mother of two, she is in favour of gay rights and opposes a ban on abortion in the conservative Roman Catholic country.
She was also part of a campaign in 2017 that led to the annulment of pardons granted by former authoritarian Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar.
Sefcovic, 52, is a career diplomat who was supported by the leftist Smer-Social Democracy party led by former populist Prime Minister Robert Fico, a major force in Slovak politics that was tarnished by corruption scandals. He campaigned on a traditional family values ticket.
Popular incumbent Andrej Kiska, who did not stand for a second term, backed Ms Caputova in the vote.
