…As anger reign following another U.K. lawmakers rejection of Theresa May’s Brexit plan***
Anti-corruption candidate Zuzana Caputova has won Slovakia’s presidential election, making her the country’s first female head of state.
Ms Caputova, who has almost no political experience, defeated high-profile diplomat Maros Sefcovic, nominated by the governing party, in a second round run-off vote on Saturday.
She framed the election as a struggle between good and evil.
The election follows the murder of an investigative journalist last year.
Jan Kuciak was looking into links between politicians and organised crime when he was shot at home alongside his fiancée in February 2018.
Ms Caputova cited Mr Kuciak’s murder as one of the reasons she decided to run for president, which is a largely ceremonial role.
She won 58% of the vote, with Mr Sefcovic trailing on 42%.
Her opponent was nominated by the ruling Smer-SD party, which is led by Robert Fico, who was forced to resign as prime minister following the killings.
Ms Caputova gained national prominence as a lawyer when she led a case against an illegal landfill lasting 14 years.
Aged 45, a divorcee and mother of two, she is a member of the liberal Progressive Slovakia party, which has no seats in parliament.
In a country where same-sex marriage and adoption is not yet legal, her liberal views have seen her promote LGBTQ+ rights.
Meanwhile, while the expectations that Friday would be the day Britain’s Brexit mayhem would finally reach a moment of certainty has failed.
Instead, Prime Minister Theresa May suffered her third major defeat on plans to leave the European Union, with lawmakers rejecting it in a 344-286 vote.
Though smaller than the previous two losses — which were the largest and fourth largest in parliamentary history — the vote spells continued uncertainty and turmoil for Britain and Europe.
The prime minister, who even offered to resign in exchange for lawmakers’ support, pleaded in vain with the House of Commons before the vote.
“It’s the right thing for our country, it’s the right thing for our constituents, and with all my heart I commend this motion to the house,” she said. After her latest failure was confirmed, she told lawmakers the result should be “a matter of profound regret to every member of this House.”H 29, 201900:50
The result means the new Brexit deadline is April 12. However, moments after the vote, European Council President Donald Tusk announced he had called a summit on April 10.
This could mean the E.U. is prepared to give another extension, raising the possibility that the U.K. will participate in European elections. Anti-Brexit campaigners hope this might increase the chances of a less-extreme departure from the E.U., a second referendum or even no Brexit at all.
After the vote, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, urged her to resign and call an election.
“This deal has to change, there has to be an alternative found,” he said. “If the prime minister can’t accept that then she must go.”
Next week, lawmakers will put forward their own plans for what Brexit should look like. None of these achieved a majority when they were first submitted to Parliament on Wednesday, although some came close.
Unless there is some sort of intervention either way, Britain will crash out of Europe without a deal — something many consider a nightmare scenario.
And while London disagrees and dithers, the mood in Europe is bleak.
The view from E.U. officials has been “one of absolute astonishment and exasperation that the British body politic cannot decide what it wants to do,” Michael Emerson, a former ambassador in the European Commission, said Friday.
From its headquarters in Brussels, the E.U. announced this week that it believes it is “increasingly likely” the U.K. will fail to reach any deal at all.
“They don’t trust the U.K. political class not to screw up,” Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London think tank, tweeted Thursday.
Some pro-Brexit Britons worried May’s deal would tie the U.K. too closely to Europe. Others are simply angry at the delay in Britain’s final departure.
While lawmakers were voting, this feeling was evident on the streets of London where thousands of so-called Brexiteers marched amid a heavy police presence, waving British flags and chanting, “Out means out!”
BBC with additional report from NBC
