Incumbent favorite in Slovak presidential runoff

Slovakia's voters are widely expected to elect President Ivan Gasparovic to a second term in office Saturday, as the 68-year-old incumbent faces the country's first female candidate for the largely ceremonial post in a runoff.

Gasparovic has the support of the socialists and nationalists _ the two strongest parties in the three-party governing coalition _ and emerged as the front-runner in the first round presidential election two weeks ago.

Gasparovic won 46.7 percent of the vote in that ballot, and center-right Iveta Radicova advanced into the run-off with 38.1 percent.

The incumbent has campaigned on his record, saying he can offer the stability and continuity that Slovakia needs in the current economic crisis.

The Slovak president has the power to pick the prime minister and to appoint Constitutional Court judges, as well as the power to veto laws. But parliament can override the veto with a simple majority.

Gasparovic, elected in 2004 as Slovakia's third president since the country's independence in 1993, is supported by Prime Minister Robert Fico's left-leaning populist Smer-Social Democracy party and the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party.

But if he looses, the 52-year-old Radicova would become Slovakia's first female president and its first president not to have been a Communist Party member in the past.

A sociology professor before entering politics, Radicova is deputy chairwoman of the center-right party of former Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda. She served as Labor Minister under Dzurinda, whose political and economic reforms ushered in foreign investment and led the country to join the European Union and NATO in 2004.

Analysts have said her pro-Western orientation could help boost Slovakia's ties with the United States and other Western nations.

Turnout in the first round was relatively low, with only 43.63 percent of Slovakia's 4.3 million eligible voters casting ballots, and Radicova has said she will focus on persuading more people to vote Saturday to help put her on top.