Michal Kováč

Michal Kováč (* August 5, 1930 in Lubisa ) is a former Slovak politician of the CSFR and was after the foundation of Slovakia from 1993 to 1998 the first President of the new state.

Life

Kováč worked on the completion of his studies in Economics in 1956 first. Assistant at the University of Economics in Bratislava today, then in a bank in Bratislava 1965-1966 he lectured at a bank school in Cuba, 1967-69 he was secretary of the Czechoslovak Commercial Bank ŽB in London. In 1969 he was called back to Czechoslovakia, but excluded in the aftermath of the Prague Spring in 1970 from the Communist Party. After that he worked until 1989 as a bank clerk in Bratislava.

1989 Kováč actively participated in the Velvet Revolution, in December 1989, he became Minister of Finance of the Slovak Republic of Czechoslovakia and remained so until 18 May 1991. Starting in June 1990, he was a member of the Federal Assembly of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. On 26 June 1992 he was elected Chairman of the Federal Assembly, and held this office until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on 1 January 1993.

On February 15, 1993, the Parliament elected him as a member of the strongest party HZDS of Vladimir Meciar as the first president of the new Slovak state. Kováč was the compromise candidate after the original candidate of his party, Roman Kováč ( the name similarity is purely coincidental ), after multiple choice passages the required quorum consensus could not meet because of the veto of the opposition. His inauguration took place on 2 March 1993. Relatively soon he came into conflict with Prime Minister Meciar. The clashes between both lasted until the end of Kovacs tenure.

In March 1993, the Meciar government had lost its parliamentary majority. Kováč held the annual speech on the state of the republic, in which he criticized the policy Meciar and his confrontational style of government sharply on 9 March 1994. As a result, the opposition introduced on March 11 by a narrow majority to censure and on March 16 Kováč appointed a new government under Jozef Moravčík. But with the elections on September 30 / 1 October 1994 Meciar's HZDS again the strongest party and Prime Minister Meciar again.

A spectacular incident was in August 1995, the kidnapping of Michal Kovacs younger son to Austria, where a warrant for his arrest was present. Although this action obviously aiming, to discredit Michal Kováč senior, the specific responsibilities could never be fully elucidated. A major reason for this was an amnesty by the parties which Meciar issued by the office of the President, when he managed the office of president during the vacancy.

Kováč now lives in Bratislava and suffers from Parkinson 's disease.