In 1998, a wily long-distance runner named Mikulas Dzurinda took power in Slovakia, after bravely defeating the authoritarian prime minister Vladimir Meciar in an election that proved pivotal for the central European country’s future.

His squabbling multi-party coalition inherited a country sliding into stagnation and increasingly alienated from the European mainstream by Mr Meciar’s heavy handed politics and crony capitalism. Like other central Europeans after the overthrow of communism in 1989, Slovaks were on the painful road from Marx to the market. But, thanks to Mr Meciar, they had been left behind in the race to modernise and join the EU.

So Mr Dzurinda put on his running shoes and turned Slovakia into an engine of economic growth, drawing foreign investors, particularly motor companies which made the country a carmaking hub. Slovakia caught up with its eastern European rivals and joined the EU on time in 2004. Mr Dzurinda, who lost power in 2006, had the satisfaction of seeing Slovakia hit 10.7 per cent growth a year later. For most Slovaks, the pains of reform paid off.