- How Slovakia Became One of the Most Polarized Countries in Europe
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Slovak PM Had Another Operation: Still in Serious Condition
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has undergone another operation two days after being shot multiple times and remains in a serious condition, officials said last Friday.
Fico, 59, was attacked as he was greeting supporters after a government meeting in the former coal mining town of Handlova. A suspected assailant has been arrested.
The director of the hospital in Banska Bystrica, where Fico was taken by helicopter after he was shot, said Fico underwent a CT scan and is currently awake and stable in an intensive care unit. She described his condition as “very serious” (AP/Associated Press, May 17).
“I think it will take several more days until we will definitely know the direction of the further development,” Robert Kaliniak, the defence minister and deputy prime minister, told reporters at the hospital.
Kaliniak stressed that the government continues to work.
“The ministries are working on all their duties, nothing is frozen or halted, the country goes on,” he told reporters. “The state is stable and today the patient is stable as well” (AP).
Fico has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond.
His return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American platform led to worries among fellow European Union and NATO members that he would abandon his country’s pro-Western course, particularly in Ukraine.
The Assassin
Earlier Friday the man charged with attempting to assassinate Fico was escorted by police to his home in the town of Levice as part of a search for evidence.
Unconfirmed media reports suggest he was a 71-year-old retiree Juraj Cintula , who was known as an amateur poet, and may have previously worked as a security guard at a mall in the country’s southwest.
Government authorities said the suspect did not belong to any political group, though the attack itself was politically motivated.
A team is investigating the possibility the attack was not carried out by a “lone wolf”, as previously believed, Slovakia’s interior minister Matus Sutaj Estok told reporters (BBC, May 20).
Way Forward
Slovakia’s presidential office said Friday that it was working to organize a meeting of leaders of all parliamentary parties for Tuesday.
Outgoing President Zuzana Caputova announced the plan together with President-elect Peter Pellegrini, who succeeds her
At the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine February 2022, Slovakia was one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters, but Fico halted arms deliveries to Ukraine when he returned to power, his fourth time serving as prime minister.
Slovakia: Basic Facts
Slovakia is a small land-locked country in Central Europe bounded by Poland in the north, Ukraine in the east, Hungary in the south, Austria in the west, and the Czech Republic in the north-west.
In land area, its world rank is 126 [ in comparison, Nepal’s 92 ] and with a population of 5.5 million, it is 109 [ Nepal’s 42 ].
It is roughly coextensive with the historic region of Slovakia, the easternmost of the two territories that from 1918 to 1992 constituted Czechoslovakia.
The short history of independent Slovakia is one of a desire to move from mere autonomy within the Czechoslovak federation to sovereignty – a history of resistance to being called “the nation after the hyphen” (Britannica).
Although World War II thwarted the Slovaks first vote for independence in 1939, sovereignty was finally realized on January 1, 1993, slightly more than three years after the Velvet Revolution – the collapse of the Communist regime that had controlled Czechoslovakia since 1948.
“Although a critical stocktaking of the Czech-Slovak relationship shows more discord than harmony, there was one splendid moment when the two nations stood firmly together. This was in the summer of 1968, when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia [ then also a Communist country! ] and crushed the Prague Spring, the period during which a series of reforms were implemented by Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek, arguably the best-known Slovak in the world” (Britannica).
How Robert Fico Rose to Dominate Slovak Politics
Robert Fico’s ability to reinvent himself kept him at the top of Slovakia’s politics despite repeated scandals (BBC/Rob Cameron, May 16).
As a politician this makes him like America’s chief agitator-in-chief Donald Trump, Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban and India’s Narendra Modi.
Currently surgeons are battling to save his life after an assassination attempt that followed a government meeting in a small town.
His most recent fall from grace was in 2018, when mass protests forced his resignation in the wake of the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée.
Turning to the then president Andrej Kiska one of many political antagonists – he vowed to return to politics.
“I’m not going anywhere, Don’t worry,” he said.
And he was right.
Initially stunned by the sudden fall – and swiftly replaced as PM by his party protégé Peter Pellegrini — Fico appeared to be heading for the political wilderness.
After a humiliating election defeat for their leftist Smer party, Pellegrini abandoned him, forming a new centre-left party, Hlas.
But the Covid crisis created fresh opportunity for Robert Fico. He began appearing at mass demonstrations against the centre-right government’s restrictions to counter the pandemic.
Those demonstrations became increasingly unruly and ugly. Fico stood at the head of them, rousing the angry crowds with megaphone in hand, even being arrested at one point. Already the, he wa.s playing with fire!
As Covid faded from the headlines, he found a new cause – Ukraine.
The September 2023 election was won – partly – on a pledge to send “not one more round of ammunition” to Kyiv, promising to reverse the Slovak government’s policy of arming Ukraine with artillery shells, heavy weapons and even fighter jets.
And after he won those elections, forming a coalition with Peter Pellegrini – the man who had betrayed him – as well as the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party – he doubled down on that policy.
In February as the world marked the Ukraine conflict’s second anniversary, Fico reiterated his opposition to the West’s policy of arming Kyiv.
There was no military solution to the conflict he said, and – cynically — sending weapons to Ukraine would only fill more graves in the country’s cemeteries.
Russia would never relinquish Crimea, or the parts of the eastern Donbas region it had annexed, and instead Kyiv should lay down its arms and sue for peace, he said.
He thus favoured an appeasement policy toward Russia.
Vladimir Putin, Fico said, had been “wrongly demonized” by the West.
During the six months he has been in office this time, he and his coalition allies have taken a sledgehammer to Slovakia’s institutions.
Reform of the criminal justice system included abolition of the Special Prosecutor’s Office, set up 20 years ago to investigate serious crime and corruption.
The office had been overseeing the Kuciak murders, and six years on, securing a conviction now seems more distant than ever.
The national broadcaster – RTVS – is to be shut down in June and replaced with a new body with a new director.
Fico says RTVS cannot be objective as it is in permanent conflict with his government, and this ‘unsustainable’ situation can only be rectified by replacing it.
Observers – including the opposition, the European Commission and the European Broadcasting Union – have warned the move would be a blow to media freedom in Slovakia.
Parliament had been debating the proposal in earnest last week Wednesday morning when news of the shooting broke. An opposition demonstration against the proposal was quickly cancelled.
If the 59-year-old political veteran Fico pulls through, he will likely draw new strength from this attempt on his life.
Amid the calls for calm and an end to the hateful rhetoric, his closest political allies are already laying the blame squarely on the liberal opposition and the media.
One coalition ally – deputy prime minister Andrej Danko – said the country was heading for “political war”.
The political temperature has certainly risen in Slovakia since he formed what is his fourth administration in October 2023.
But this shooting propels the country into wholly uncharted territory (BBC).
Expert Opinions
In CNN’s Global Briefing, Fareed Zakaria writes that Slovakia’s prime minister himself is controversial (May 16).
The Washington Post is of the opinion that Fico has been “a polarizing figure in his country and within the European Union.
His “rhetoric in recent years has been laced with fringe conspiracy theories, and he has pushed to replace Slovakia’s public broadcaster “with a new channel under greater government control,’ the Washington Post authors note.
Warning that confusion and pro-Russian disinformation could follow the assassination attempt, Michael Toomy writes for The Conversation that “Fico is considered one of the most pro-Russian political leaders in Europe.”
However, it’s Slovakia’s overall climate of political division [where Fico is mainly responsible], that is drawing the most attention.
Political economist and Central-Europe expert Sona Muzikarova writes in the Atlantic Council roundup: “Slovakia’s politics and society are unprecedentedly polarized, which to some extent is the result of a pervasively uncivil political culture, amplified by social media, as well as citizens’ digital and civic illiteracy. What happened is a testament to the worrisome state of Slovakia’s democracy.”
At Brussels Signal, Pater Caddle writes: “While the gunman’s motives remain unclear, many allies of the Slovak PM have opted to blame the media and the ruling left-nationalist Government’s opposition for the attack.”
The Hatred Has to Stop
Politicians in Slovakia have unanimously condemned last Wednesday’s attack on PM Robert Fico.
Still, after months of anti-government protests in the capital there was shock but limited compassion from Bratislavans.
It was more or less business as usual in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, the day after the assassination attempt.
Anyone who expected the country to a standstill would have been mistaken (DW/Deutsche Welle, May 17).
It was as if nothing had happened!
That attitude seems widespread in the liberal, pro-European Slovakian capital that for months has been the centre of anti-government protests.
These were triggered by the government’s restrictions on the legal battle against political corruption and nepotism, as well as its attempts to wield more control over public television and radio.
For years, the opposition, now led by the liberal Progressive Slovakia (PS) party, has won elections by large margins in Bratislava.
‘Now the War Begins’
One of parliament’s frequently stormy sessions was underway when news of the assassination attempt hit, making politicians even more emotional.
“This is your doing,” Lubos Blaha, deputy speaker of parliament shouted at the opposition.
Blaha is known for his anti-liberal, anti-Western and pro-Russian outbursts, and has been known to spread conspiracy theories.
Andrej Danko, the leader of the governing coalition’s nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS) also threatened to take action, saying: “Now the war begins.”
Ivan Miklosko, the 77-year-old veteran of Slovakian politics, former parliamentary speaker and a member of the opposition Christian Democratic Movement said firmly: “We have to stop this hatred” (DW/Lubas Palata).
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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