Rudolf Schuster

Rudolf Schuster (born 4 January 1934 in Košice, Czechoslovakia) is a former President of Slovakia (1999–2004). He was elected on 29 May 1999 and inaugurated on 15 June. Schuster served as the second president of the Slovak Republic. In the presidential elections of April 2004, where his sought re-election Schuster was defeated. He received only 7.4% of the vote, with three other candidates (Ivan Gašparovič, Vladimír Mečiar and Eduard Kukan) receiving more than that. He was succeeded by Ivan Gašparovič.

From 1964 to 1990, Schuster was a member of the Communist Party of Slovakia. Before becoming president, he was a mayor (Slovak: primátor) of Košice in 1983–1986 and 1994–1999 respectively. He was also the last Communist president of the Slovak National Council (1989–1990), an ambassador of Czechoslovakia in Canada (1990–1992) and a leader of the Party of Civic Understanding (SOP – Strana občianskeho porozumenia, 1998–1999).

He speaks Slovak, German, Russian, English and Hungarian fluently.

Schuster‘s father's family is of Carpathian German origin, while his mother's family is of Hungarian origin. Rudolf Schuster was married to Irena Schusterová (died 2008) and he has two children (son and daughter) and two granddaughters. In his private life, he is a sports fan, a traveller and a writer. He is also a camera fan.

In 1998 he found the centre-left Party of Civic Understanding (SOP – Strana občianskeho porozumenia).

In 1999 he received honorary citizenship from Miskolc, as recognition of the good cooperation between the city and Košice during his mayorship.

In 2004 Schuster took participation in the Slovakia presidential election, 2004 and scored 7,4% of the votes. This score became the world anti-record of an incumbernt president support; this anti-record was beaten in 2010 by Viktor Yuschenko, president of Ukraine.