Róbert Švec (born 21 August 1976) is a Slovak politician who has served as chairman of the Slovak Revival Movement since 2019.

Early and personal life

Born 21 August 1976 in Nitra, Švec studied political science at the

University of Trnava The University of Trnava (in Trnava) () is based in Trnava, in western Slovakia. The university's presence in the town has historical antecedents as the University of Nagyszombat was operating there throughout the 17th and 18th century (present d ...

Political career

In the

2019 Slovak presidential election Presidential elections were held in Slovakia in March 2019. Incumbent President Andrej Kiska did not run for a second term. Fifteen candidates contested the first round on 16 March, of which two later formally withdrew their bids before voting ...

, Švec ran as an independent candidate for the

President of Slovakia The president of the Slovak Republic () serves as the head of state of Slovakia and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. The people directly elect the president for five years, for a maximum of two consecutive terms. The presidency is essent ...

. On 28 January 2019, he submitted more than 18,000 signatures confirming his candidacy for the presidency. During the first round in March 2019, Švec received 6,567 votes and did not advance to the second round. After the 2019 presidential election, Švec founded his political party, the Slovak Revival Movement (SHO), and became its chairman. He ran as the leader of SHO candidates in the

2020 Slovak parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Slovakia on 29 February 2020 to elect all 150 members of the National Council. The populist Ordinary People and Independent Personalities–NOVA–Christian Union–Change from Below (OĽaNO–NOVA–KÚ� ...

, but the party did not win any seat. Švec was about to ran his candidacy once again in the

2024 Slovak presidential election Presidential elections were held in Slovakia in March and April 2024. Incumbent president Zuzana Čaputová announced in June 2023 that she would not run for a second term. In the first round held on 23 March, Ivan Korčok led with 43% of the ...

, this time as a member of the Slovak Revival Movement. However, he was ruled ineligible due to an insufficient number of valid signatures.

Controversy

Promotion of fascist historical figures

Švec and the Slovak Revival Movement have repeatedly glorified the president of World War II era

Slovak Republic Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's ...

and convinced war criminal

Jozef Tiso Jozef Gašpar Tiso (, ; 13 October 1887 – 18 April 1947) was a Slovaks, Slovak politician and Catholic priest who served as president of the Slovak Republic (1939–1945), First Slovak Republic, a client state of Nazi Germany during World War ...

Anti–democratic rhetorics

In an interview with JOJ, Švec declared that Slovakia should withdraw from the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

and

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and band the

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symbols. He further declared that Slovakia should curb media freedom "so that our youth does not grow up under the influence of decadent culture and tabloids."

Signature forgery

Švec was prevented from running in the

because the election committee found about 10,000 out of 15,000 total signatures of Slovak citizens supporting his candidacy likely forged. The following years, activists led by Švec delivered 400,000 signatures to the president of Slovakia

Peter Pellegrini Peter Pellegrini (; born 6 October 1975) is a Slovak politician who is serving as the sixth president of Slovakia since 2024. He previously served as prime minister of Slovakia from 2018 to 2020. Pellegrini also served as the Minister of Health, ...

demanding a referendum to discontinue sanctions against Russia implemented after the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

. The president refused to do so, citing suspicions that of some of the signatures being created by the

Generative AI Generative artificial intelligence (Generative AI, GenAI, or GAI) is a subfield of artificial intelligence that uses generative models to produce text, images, videos, or other forms of data. These models learn the underlying patterns and str ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Svec, Robert 1976 births Living people 21st-century Slovak politicians Slovak fascists