Kovac, Michal (1930– )

Slovak politician, president 1993–98, when Czechoslovakia split in two to become the Czech and Slovak republics. He was known to favour some confederal arrangement with the Czech Republic and, in consequence, his election was welcomed by the Czech government.

Born in Lubiša in eastern Slovakia, Kovac was educated at the Commercial Academy at the Bratislava University of Economics. After a career as an academic economist and banker, he served as Slovak minister of finance in the post-communist administration between 1989 and 1991. A member of the centre-left nationalist Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), he was the speaker of Czechoslovakia's federal assembly from 1992 and, after the ‘velvet divorce’ of January 1993, became the Slovak Republic's first president. From 1995 Kovac's relations with his prime minister, Vladimír Meciar, became strained over allegations of Meciar's intent to oust him. Kovac's presidential powers went to Meciar after he stepped down at the end of his term in March 1998, after repeated failures to elect a successor. In August 1998 the presidency was taken over by the national council chair, Ivan Gasparović.

Immediately after his election as president Kovac said he would resign his membership of the HZDS ‘as a signal that we are ready to put the general interests of the country above partisan interests’.