Slovak PM Mečiar Considers Leaving Politics

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Vladimír Mečiar, Slovakia's controversial prime minister, said on Thursday he was unsure whether he would contest planned general elections next autumn, or whether he would even complete his current term of office. Speaking after a month-long stay in the western Slovak spa of Piestany for unspecified health problems, Mečiar added that if he did run for another term in office and lost, he would retire from politics altogether. "I still have not solved the question for myself, whether I will enter the next elections, or whether I will finish this election term," Mečiar said in a political debate broadcast on Thursday on official Slovak television. "In case of a failure of HZDS in the elections, I will not stay active in politics at any function any more," he added. Mečiar also said he would not consider being a presidential candidate when current President Michal Kováč, a former ally but now an avowed political enemy, officially ends his term of office in March 1998. Mečiar negotiated the 1993 division of the former Czechoslovakia with his Czech counterpart Václav Klaus, and has been prime minister of Slovakia three times, twice being ousted in parliamentary votes only to win back his position in general elections, the last of which was held in 1994.