Slovak president’s ‘Rock Star’ video goes viral

A video featuring Slovak President Andrej Kiska singing and playing the guitar with a rock band posted Friday on Facebook has gone viral, with over 100,000 views in just six hours.

The popular entrepreneur-turned-president joined the "Business Leaders" band at a recent charity event to perform the 1977 Slovak hit song "Usmev" (Smile) by local rock legends Modus.

The video shows the audience go wild as 52-year-old Kiska sings and strums the guitar to a high octane rock'n'roll beat, decked out in a business suit and red tie.

Known as a rock fan, he attended Slovakia's largest music festival Pohoda last summer, shortly after he had taken over as president from Ivan Gasparovic, who at 73 preferred folk music featuring a local shepherd's flute called a "fujara".

As a youngster, Kiska used to work as an instructor at summer camps, "where he won girls' hearts by playing the guitar," according to the Slovakia's Zivot (Life) weekly.

The multi-millionaire turned philanthropist came out of nowhere in March 2014 to be elected president of the eurozone member of 5.4 million people.

Analysts say he capitalised on his image as a political greenhorn untainted by the corruption allegations that had sunk Slovakia's right in the 2012 general election and handed victory to the Social Democrats of Prime Minister Robert Fico.