BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — An official says the first president of independent Slovakia has been hospitalized.

The 85-year-old Michal Kovac is in a stable and non-life threatening condition, according to Petra Stano Matasovska, the spokeswoman for Bratislava's University Hospital. But she declined Saturday to give any further details.

Kovac has been hospitalized in the past, mostly because of problems linked to Parkinson's disease.

Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993, and Kovac held Slovakia's mostly ceremonial presidential post from that year until 1998. He is no longer involved in politics.