Kovac is Slovak president

BRATISLAVA (Reuter) - The Slovak parliament elected the economist Michal Kovac, a close ally of the Prime Minister, Vladimir Meciar, as Slovakia's first president. The vote was 106 for and 20 against.

Mr Kovac, 62, was the only candidate. He is deputy chairman of the dominant Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, the party whose campaign for Slovak independence hastened Czechoslovakia's partition into separate Czech and Slovak states.