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Environmental and anti-corruption activist Zuzana Čaputová wins runoff election

Pro-EU Caputova rode on a campaign of change and vowed to end corruption in a country, which she said is run "by people pulling strings from behind"



Vocal government critic and anti-corruption activist Zuzana Čaputová was set to become Slovakia’s first female president after near complete results showed her winning Saturday’s runoff election.

The environmental lawyer got 58.01% of the ballot after results from more than 90% of polling stations were counted, while the EU energy commissioner Maroš Šefčovič garnered 41.98, the Slovak statistics office said.

Čaputová, a political novice who ran on a slogan of “Stand up to evil,” had earlier said the campaign showed “that values such as humanism, solidarity and truth are important to our society”.

No stranger to tough battles, Čaputová won a 2016 award for successfully blocking a planned landfill in her hometown, Pezinok.

More recently, she took to the streets along with tens of thousands of other anti-government protesters after the investigative journalist Ján Kuciak was shot dead alongside his fiancee, Martina Kušnírová, in February 2018.

He had been preparing to publish a story on alleged ties between Slovak politicians and the Italian mafia.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...A5yo30Xsarg6IU