Bratislava: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, a leftist known for straight talk and icy tenacity, is eyeing the presidency, sparking concern of a power monopoly in the eurozone nation.
The 49-year-old lawyer -- who enjoys football, fast cars and roller skating -- launched his political career in the Communist Party just before the 1989 Velvet Revolution swept away the regime, ushering in democracy.
Grim-faced and guarded about his private life, Fico captured a wider stage from 1994 to 2000 when he represented Slovakia at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
After being overlooked for a ministerial post in 1998 by the Democratic Left Party (SDL) -- the Communist Party's political heir -- he unceremoniously quit and set up his Smer-Social Democrats a year later.
The savvy move scored him a parliamentary landslide in 2006, catapulting him into the prime minister's post. He became Slovakia's most popular politician on promises of protecting the poor as he sidestepped tough belt-tightening measures amid the global financial crisis.
Slovakia's 2009 eurozone entry crowned his first four-year stint as premier but he ended up in the opposition after the 2010 election. He won the vote but was unable to find a coalition partner with whom to form a government.
He made a dramatic comeback in 2012, scoring another landslide in a snap election as allegations of widespread corruption torpedoed his rightwing rivals.
Fico's pro-European leftists won 83 seats in the 150-member parliament and have since been able to pass legislation unfettered by the opposition.
Opinion polls show he will likely be the frontrunner in the March 15 first round of the race to succeed President Ivan Gasparovic, a leftist with no political loyalty to Fico.
If he wins the March 29 run-off, Fico will leave power politics for the largely ceremonial job of president -- a prospect that has sparked head-scratching in Bratislava.
But some say it is a well-calculated gamble as his second term as premier draws to an end. The chance of a victory is also sounding alarm bells that a power monopoly is in the offing.
"Fico realises that it would be very difficult to be a three-term prime minister," Marian Lesko, a political analyst with the Trend business weekly, told AFP.
He says a Fico victory would mean that the presidency, parliament and government would all be controlled by the same party for the first time since Slovakia won independence in 1993.
"Fico might try to change Slovakia's parliamentary system into a presidential one by amending laws and the constitution to boost the president's powers," Lesko said.
While having a president and parliament of different political stripes is par for the course in many countries, Fico says he finds it dangerous.
"We can't afford to have a president who would seek open conflict with the government and the parliament," he warned voters on the campaign trail.
He shrugs off accusations of being a populist and demagogue, despite famously insisting that "it's up to the strong and rich" to bear the costs of consolidating public finances.
Fico used his second term to scrap a business-friendly 19-percent flat tax for corporations and individuals in a bid to preserve welfare programmes during a recession sparked by the eurozone debt crisis.
The corporate rate is now 22 percent, while a 25-percent rate applies to anyone earning more than around 39,000 euros ($54,000) a year.
Fico has promised to bring the deficit under the EU ceiling of three percent of gross domestic product this year as the economy, fuelled by exports of cars and electronics, is expected to grow by 2.3 percent.
Fluent in English, he is married to fellow lawyer Svetlana and they have one son, Michal.
