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Profile: Iveta Radicova, Slovakia's First-ever Female Prime Minister
Thursday 08 July 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, July 8 (TASR) - Iveta Radicova is Slovakia's first-ever female prime minister after being appointed to the post at the head of a centre-right government on June 23. TASR brings her profile below.
Professor Iveta Radicova worked for years in the area of social affairs, focusing on employment, socially-disadvantaged groups and the protection of children's rights.
Born in Bratislava on December 7, 1956, Radicova graduated in sociology from the Philosophy Faculty of Comenius University. She continued to pursue this sphere in her career at the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV), heading up a research unit for family policy.
She completed postgraduate studies at Oxford University in 1990; was active in the Public against Violence movement from 1990-92; lectured at the Comenius University's department of sociology between 1990-93 and at the department of politics between 1997-2005.
She lectured as a visiting professor at universities in the United States, Great Britain, Sweden, Finland and Austria, and as an expert in social policy for the European Commission. In August 2005 she was chosen to head SAV's Institute of Sociology.
Between October 2005-July 2006, Radicova served as labour, social affairs and the family minister. In the parliamentary elections in 2006 she became a lawmaker for SDKU-DS, leap-frogging to top spot on the party slate thanks to receiving the largest number of preferential votes. She became a party vice-chair in November. She was deputy chair of the committee for social affairs and housing until April 23, 2009, when she gave up her MP's mandate after breaking parliamentary rules by voting on behalf of her colleague Tatiana Rosova two days earlier.
In 2009, she lost a bid to become Slovakia's president to the incumbent Ivan Gasparovic, nonetheless garnering 988,000 votes or 44.46 percent of the total, falling short of her rival by 11.07 percent.
Right after the presidential elections she was talked about as a potential successor to Mikulas Dzurinda at the helm of SDKU. Despite this she declined to join the contest for the post of election leader When a party-funding scandal broke and Dzurinda stepped down as election leader, she won the ensuing primary election on February 27, gaining 2,669 votes against Ivan Miklos's 1,666.
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