Ivan Gašparovič

Ivan Gašparovič is a Slovak lawyer and politician who served as the third President of Slovakia from 2004 to 2014, the first Slovak head of state to win re-election to a second term. He was born on March 27, 1941, in Poltár, in what was then the Slovak Republic, to a Croatian father and a Slovak mother. He was raised in Bratislava and studied law at Comenius University, graduating in 1964.

He spent the early decades of his career as an academic and prosecutor, teaching criminal law at Comenius University and serving as Prosecutor General of the Slovak Socialist Republic from 1990 to 1992 in the final years of Czechoslovakia. After the 1993 Velvet Divorce, he became Chairman of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, a post he held until 1998 as a close ally of Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar and his HZDS movement.

He broke with Mečiar in 2002 and founded the Movement for Democracy (HZD), which became the platform for his presidential campaign. In April 2004 he defeated Mečiar in a runoff to win the presidency, taking office in June. His first term coincided with Slovakia's accession to NATO and the European Union and with the country's 2009 adoption of the euro. He was re-elected in 2009, defeating Iveta Radičová, and served until June 2014, when he was succeeded by Andrej Kiska.

His presidency was largely ceremonial under the Slovak constitution, but his vetoes of justice and media legislation drew repeated parliamentary overrides. Since leaving office he has lived quietly in Bratislava and made occasional public commentary on Slovak constitutional questions.

His name Ivan is the Slavic form of John, ultimately from the Hebrew Yochanan meaning "God is gracious." It has been among the most common masculine names in Slovakia and across the Slavic world for centuries, and he has carried it as one of his country's most-recognized political figures.