Iveta Radičová
Radičová in 2010
Prime Minister of Slovakia
In office
8 July 2010 – 4 April 2012
PresidentIvan Gašparovič
Preceded byRobert Fico
Succeeded byRobert Fico
Minister of Defence
In office
28 November 2011 – 4 April 2012
Preceded byĽubomír Galko
Succeeded byMartin Glváč
Minister of Labour
In office
17 October 2005 – 4 July 2006
Prime MinisterMikuláš Dzurinda
Preceded byĽudovít Kaník
Succeeded byViera Tomanová
Personal details
Born (1956-12-07) 7 December 1956
Bratislava, Czechoslovakia
(now Slovakia)
Political partyDemocratic and Christian Union-Democratic Party (2006–2012)
Spouse(s)Stano Radič (Deceased 2005)
Marián Balázs
Alma materComenius University
Slovak Academy of Sciences
Signature

Iveta Radičová (Slovak pronunciation: [ˈiʋeta ˈraɟitʂɔʋaː]; née Karafiátová; born 7 December 1956) is a Slovak politician who served as prime minister of Slovakia from 2010 to 2012. She was the first woman to hold the position. Radičová led a coalition government as a member of the SDKÚ-DS. As prime minister, she was responsible for managing the economy after the Great Recession, and she supported budget cuts to reduce the government deficit. For the final months of her tenure, she also served as Minister of Defence. Prior to her tenure as prime minister, she was a member of parliament, the Minister of Labor, Social Affairs, and Family, and an unsuccessful presidential candidate in the 2009 presidential election.

Born in communist Czechoslovakia, Radičová began an academic career as a sociologist and specialized in methodology so she did not have to participate in ideological projects. She was one of the few women to take a prominent role in the Velvet Revolution, serving as a spokeswoman for Public Against Violence. She founded the Center for Social Policy Analysis in 1992. During the 1990s, she oppose the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the rule of Vladimír Mečiar. Her husband Stano Radič died in 2005. The same year, she was appointed Minister of Labor, Social Affairs, and Family. Radičová was elected a member of parliament in 2006, and she was the runner up in the 2009 presidential election. She was forced to resign from parliament in 2010 when she cast a vote on behalf of a colleague, but she returned to parliament later that year as the leader of her party. Radičová's party formed a coalition, making her prime minister. Her coalition collapsed in 2011 when she tied the European Financial Stability Facility to confidence in her government. After stepping down, Radičová returned to academia.

Early life

Childhood and education

Iveta Karafiátová[1] was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, on 7 December 1956.[2] She has said that her father was strict, while she compared her mother to an angel,[3] though she has also said that her mother was quick-tempered. She has attributed her own temper to her mother, saying that it was inherited. Karafiátová grew up in poverty, which she attributed to the country's communist governance.[1] She practiced dance throughout her childhood, quitting when she was sixteen. She was not permitted to graduate from secondary school, as she and her class had decided to reject the required socialist theme of their class project. Despite this, she was still accepted into university.[3]

Karafiátová attended Comenius University from 1975 to 1979, where she studied sociology.[2] She took up the subject on the advice of Tón Hirner, a family friend and the brother of sociologist Alexander Hirner.[1] Her intention was to pursue a sociology and mathematics hybrid degree, but the program was canceled because she was the only applicant. When she began attending the school, she met Stano Radič. They married in 1979, and they had a daughter, Eva, in 1980.[3] After obtaining her bachelor's degree, Iveta Radičová attended the Slovak Academy of Sciences, where she earned her PhD in the same subject.[4]: 240 

Academic career and activism

Radičová began working as the head of the Slovak Academy of Sciences' family research team in 1979, where she studied how communist states such as Slovakia could implement family policy.[4]: 240  Unlike most academics in her field, she did not join the Communist Party of Slovakia or study Marxism–Leninism. Instead, she specialized in methodology, a field which demanded less ideological adherence.[1][5]: 559  Even then, she was relatively open about her anti-communist beliefs.[1]

As the Velvet Revolution was beginning in 1989, Radičová involved herself with the Public Against Violence movement, becoming its spokeswoman.[4]: 240  In this capacity, she was one of the few women was prominently involved with the Velvet Revolution.[4]: 241  The same year, Radičová left the Slovak Academy of Sciences and spent the following year at the University of Oxford working with Ralf Dahrendorf. Radičová returned to Slovakia in 1990, where she began teaching sociology and political science at Comenius University. She also founded the Center for Social Policy Analysis, where she served as the director from 1992 to 2005. She came to specialize in the study of gender issues, both at Comenius and at the Center for Social Policy Analysis.[4]: 240  She also became the head of the board for Open Society Foundations' Slovak branch.[5]: 559  She later left Public Against Violence to become the spokeswoman for the Civic Democratic Party, though she did not officially join it.[1]

Radičová opposed the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, and she supported liberal democracy during the semi-authoritarian rule of Vladimír Mečiar.[5]: 559–560  In the 1998–1999 school year, she was at New York University as a visiting fellow through the Fulbright Program.[4]: 240  She was made a full professor in 2005, making her the first woman in Slovakia to be a professor of sociology. Later that year, she was made head of the Slovak Academy of Sciences' Sociology Institute.[4]: 240  Radičová's husband died of a heart attack in 2005.[6]

Political career

Entering Parliament

Radičová was appointed Minister of Labor, Social Affairs, and Family by Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda in 2005.[4]: 241  Though she was not an elected politician, she was chosen as she had expertise in the area. She had difficulty adjusting to and working with her colleagues: she did not make strong allies among her peers in minister positions or her subordinates within her own ministry.[1]

Radičová left her position the following year, when she ran in the 2006 parliamentary election to serve in the National Council. She was elected as a nonpartisan candidate affiliated with the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union – Democratic Party (SDKÚ-DS), but she formally joined the party that November.[4]: 242  She was then chosen as the party's deputy chairwoman. During her term, she also served as the deputy chairwoman of the Committee of Social Affairs and Housing.[7] Here she specialized in issues relating to families and welfare.[4]: 242  Also in 2006, she began a romantic relationship with Paralympic athlete Ján Riapoš, which lasted for three years.[3]

2009 presidential campaign

Radičová was the opposition candidate in the 2009 presidential election. Officially running with the SDKÚ-DS, she was also endorsed by the Christian Democratic Movement, the Party of the Hungarian Coalition, and the Civic Conservative Party. She had to convince the Christian Democratic Movement to support her through negotiations, as they disapproved of her relatively liberal positions on family and gender. She agreed to make a statement of neutrality on the subject in exchange for their support.[4]: 242–243  She also made a point to speak out against abortion—voters believed her to be more sympathetic to abortion as she was a woman, and this issue made up most of the gender-related discussion during the election.[5]: 573  Though Radičová had previously said that her being a woman may harm her in a presidential election, she paid little attention to the subject publicly while she campaigned.[5]: 573–574 

Seeking to contrast herself with her opponents, Radičová maintained a policy of civility, speaking calmly and refusing to engage in personal attacks. Her critics alleged that her lack of aggressiveness represented an inability to fight for the interests of the country, and her prior opposition to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia was portrayed as a loyalty to non-Slovaks.[4]: 243–244  Voters feared that she was more closely aligned with the nation's significant Hungarian minority and that she may grant them autonomy. In this way, the support of the Party of the Hungarian Coalition was damaging to her approval outside of the Hungarian-populated southern Slovakia.[5]: 573 

Radičová received 38.1% of the vote, the second most overall, allowing her to proceed to the second round against the candidate who earned the most votes: incumbent president Ivan Gašparovič. She lost the election, receiving only 44.5% of the vote compared to Gasparovic's 55.5%.[4]: 242 

Resignation and reelection

After the presidential election, Radičová became the subject of a political scandal. On 21 April 2010, when her fellow legislator Tatiana Rosová was absent from the parliament building, Radičová illegally cast a vote on her behalf. Radičová resigned from her seat two days later.[7] She retained her position as SDKÚ-DS's deputy leader, and she defeated Ivan Mikloš in a competition for the top spot on the party's candidate list for the 2010 parliamentary election.[4]: 244  Though the SDKÚ-DS did not win a plurality of the vote, the Direction – Social Democracy party was unable to form a coalition. SDKÚ-DS was then able to form a coalition, and Radičová became its leader as Prime Minister of Slovakia.[4]: 245 

Prime Minister of Slovakia

Radičová with Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, at an EPP summit in September 2010
Radičová with President Gašparovič at the funeral of Václav Havel in 2011

In addition to her own SDKÚ-DS, Radičová's coalition government included the Christian Democratic Movement, Freedom and Solidarity, and a new pro-Hungarian party, Most–Híd. The circumstances of her premiership led her to be known as an "accidental prime minister".[4]: 245 

Radičová's position as prime minister was fragile. Her relationships with major party figures in her government, including Dzurinda as the Minister of Finance and Mikloš as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, declined and eventually became oppositional in nature. The coalition that she formed was also unreliable, as the parties did not necessarily agree on major issues.[4]: 245  Further troubles were caused by the corruption scandals that required her to replace several of her appointments.[4]: 246  When the minister of defence resigned from his office in such a scandal in November 2011, Radičová took a second role as acting minister of defence.[4]: 245  By the end of her government, Radičová was unable to see most of her policy objectives enacted, largely because of the short period of time that she was prime minister. She also cited the Great Recession as a complication, saying that it caused unrest and made governance more difficult across the European Union.[4]: 246 

In 2011, Radičová's coalition fell apart when presented with a vote on the European Financial Stability Facility. When the Freedom and Solidarity Party joined the opposition, Radičová insisted that an oppose vote was equivalent to a motion of no confidence in the government. This did not convince them to reconsider, and her government ended.[4]: 245  Radičová and the rest of SDKÚ-DS released a statement afterward defending the decision, arguing that integration with Europe was more important than the existing government.[4]: 245–246 

Policies

Radičová speaking in 2011

The economy was a major issue during Radičová's tenure, as she became prime minister at the end of the Great Recession and was responsible for the nation's recovery. Slovakia was not as well established financially as other European nations, suffering from a large deficit, high unemployment, significant debt, low average income, poor standard of living, and insufficient infrastructure. Radičová saw a 0.8pp decrease in unemployment during her government.[4]: 246 

Radičová pledged that her new government would cut state spending to reduce the budget deficit, while steering clear of tax rises. She stated, "We are ready to take responsibility over the country at a time when it is coping with the impact of a deep economic crisis and the irresponsible decisions of our political predecessors." She also said that Slovakia's guarantee of 4.5 billion euros to the EU stabilization fund was exorbitant, but she also stated that she will not block approval of the scheme within the EU, though she sought to renegotiate her country's contribution to it.[8] Radičová's government sought, through coalition partner Most-Hid, to rebuild links with Hungary that were badly damaged by the adoption of contentious language and citizenship laws.[9]

Radičová enacted efforts to reduce government corruption, establishing an open government initiative.[4]: 246  To promote transparency, she required that all public procurement contracts be made available online.[4]: 247  Her own government saw several corruption scandals during her tenure.[4]: 246  Among the largest was the Gorilla scandal, in which it was discovered that SDKÚ-DS leadership and other officials were engaging in elicit meetings with businesses. This caused a loss of faith in her government and harmed the party in the 2012 parliamentary election.[4]: 247 

Post-premiership

After leaving politics, Radičová returned to Comenius University, where she continued teaching. She renounced her membership with SDKÚ-DS, including her position as deputy party leader, on 3 May 2012.[10] Radičová was chosen as Dean of the Faculty of Mass Media at the Pan-European University in 2017.[11] Radičová published Krajina hrubých čiar [Country of Full Stops], a book on her experience as Prime Minister in 2013.[12] In a 2014 poll by Polis Slovakia, 23.2% of respondents named Radičová as one of the best recent politicians in the country, putting her second only to Robert Fico, while her name did not appear on the list of twelve least valuable politicians.[13] Radičová was honored with a Women Political Leaders award in 2017.[14] A 2018 poll by Focus found that she was the most popular choice for President of Slovakia, with 13.9%.[15]

Radičová has been in a relationship with Marián Balázs, the former head of her advisory team, since 2012.[6] She had two grandchildren as of 2022, but she does not discuss them publicly.[16]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Čobejová, Eva; Majchrák, Jozef (28 March 2009). "Neriadená profesorka". .týždeň (in Slovak).
  2. 1 2 "Radičová dostala poverenie zostaviť vládu". SME (in Slovak). Retrieved 23 June 2010.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Almášiová, Monika (9 December 2016). "Iveta Radičová: Väčšina života je za mnou". korzar.sme.sk (in Slovak). Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Wolchik, Sharon L. (2017). "Iveta Radičová: The First Female Prime Minister in Slovakia". In Montecinos, Verónica (ed.). Women Presidents and Prime Ministers in Post-Transition Democracies. Plagrave Macmillan. pp. 239–258. ISBN 978-1-137-48240-2.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bútorová, Zora (8 October 2009). "Twenty Years of Maturing: Slovak Women Exploring the Frontiers of Democracy". International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. doi:10.1007/s10767-009-9083-7. ISSN 0891-4486.
  6. 1 2 "Nešťastná Radičová (60): Ďalší jej muž v ohrození života!" [Unlucky Radičová (60): Another man of hers in danger!]. plus7dni.pluska.sk (in Slovak). 21 July 2018. Retrieved 3 October 2023.
  7. 1 2 "Iveta Radičová". The Slovak Spectator. 14 July 2010. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
  8. ↑ "Sociologist Iveta Radicova becomes Slovakia's first female prime minister". Istockanalyst.com. 8 July 2010. Archived from the original on 22 March 2012. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
  9. ↑ "Fri, Jul 9, 2010 – Sociologist Iveta Radicova becomes Slovakia's first female prime minister". The Irish Times. 7 July 2010. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
  10. ↑ "Iveta Radičová odišla z SDKÚ". SME (in Slovak).
  11. ↑ "Bývalá premiérka Radičová bude vychovávať budúcich novinárov" [Former Prime Minister Radičová will educate future journalists]. www.trend.sk (in Slovak). 16 May 2017. Retrieved 3 October 2023.
  12. ↑ News Agency of the Slovak Republic, "Radicova Writing Book on Premiership Tenure, Promises No Scandal", Feb. 21, 2012. Retrieved 2012-04-29.
  13. ↑ "Fico vedie pozitívne aj negatívne, ale Radičová je na tom lepšie" [Fico leads both positively and negatively, but Radičová is better]. www.trend.sk (in Slovak). 8 June 2014. Retrieved 3 October 2023.
  14. ↑ "Ex-PM Radičová praised as influential female leader". The Slovak Spectator. 11 December 2017. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  15. ↑ "Ak by to Kiska vzdal, najviac ľudí by chcelo za prezidentku Radičovú. Alebo Danka" [If Kiska gave up, most people would want Radičová as president. Or Danko]. www.trend.sk (in Slovak). 7 May 2018. Retrieved 3 October 2023.
  16. ↑ "Utajovaný vnuk: Iveta Radičová sa novým potomkom nechváli. Neuveríte, ako ho nazýva". plus7dni.pluska.sk (in Slovak). 22 November 2022. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
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