Slovokian first women PM falls over eurozone

A government that doesnt perceive a changing situation doesnt deserve to govern, she told lawmakers in an emotional speech ahead of Tuesdays late-night vote on the eurozone rescue fund.For a politician who has prided herself as a listener and a communicator, it was one challenge too far.She had tied the vote on whether or not to beef up the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to a confidence motion in the coalition government.So when her junior coalition partners the liberal Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party voted against 440-billion euro ($600 billion) fund, her government fell with it.We have done work that well be proud of, Radicova said after the vote.Slovakia has made a mark as a responsible government that consolidates public finances and carries out reforms, she added.Radovica, a 54-year-old former sociology professor, is a staunch advocate of fiscal responsibility and had pledged to straighten out her nations battered public finances.She also made a name for herself with an anti-corruption drive.The small central European country joined the European Union in 2004 and the eurozone in 2009. Small as it is however, it has made its voice heard, thanks in part to Radicova.She stole the limelight from big EU players when she refused to join the bailout for indebted Greece last summer.But when it came to revamping the EFSF, she joined her 16 eurozone fellow-leaders, saying tiny Slovakia couldnt act like an island within Europe.In the end however, she failed to persuade a rebel junior coalition partner to ratify the revamped eurozone fund designed to bail out countries caught up in the debt crisis.Until then, she had managed to preside over what was an unruly four-party coalition for 15 months.She had proved a masterful strategist capable of unifying her cabinet of disparate political forces, which included conservatives, liberals and ethnic Hungarians.Slovakia is essentially a conservative country. But with her long blonde hair, broad smile and dynamic style, Radicova sought to bring a non-confrontational style to the rough-and-tumble male-dominated political scene.The ability to listen is my most valued possession, she once said.Her slow, meticulous way of speaking reveals an academic past, while her persuasive skills have been attributed to her experience as a social worker with Romas and the handicapped.Radicova started her political career as minister for labour, social affairs and family in 2005-2006 in a liberal government that implemented several painful and unpopular social reforms.It was only in 2006 that she was actually elected to parliament, but then she resigned after she had pressed the voting button for an absent colleague during a parliamentary vote.In 2009, she became a leading contender in the presidential election -- the first woman to do so in Slovakia -- but she lost out to Ivan Gasparovic.She then emerged as the centrist SDKU-DS party leader for the 2010 general election after chairman and former prime minister Mikulas Dzurinda resigned over a political funding scandal in early 2010.Born December 7, 1956 in the capital Bratislava to a materially challenged but emotionally affluent family, as she puts it, Radicova graduated with a degree in sociology from Commenius University in Bratislava.She completed her postgraduate studies at Oxford University and later lectured at universities in Slovakia, the United States, Britain, Sweden, Finland and Austria.Touting German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a role model, Radicova is also known as a book-worm, boasting a library of 5,000 book.She has one daughter from her marriage with a popular political satirist and humorist, who died in 2005.