The life of the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, is no longer in danger after having undergone emergency surgery after suffering an assassination attempt this Wednesday at the exit of a government meeting in the Slovak city of Hanlová. The attacker, arrested during the shooting, shot Fico, 59, five times while he greeted several residents on the street who had approached the cultural center where his cabinet had met. “I was very shocked,” Slovak Deputy Prime Minister and Environment Minister Tomas Taraba told the BBC, “fortunately, as far as I know, the operation went well, and I suppose he will survive in the end. He is not in a life-threatening situation at this time.” According to Taraba, one bullet pierced Fico’s stomach and a second, a joint.
The assassination attempt, which has shocked Slovak society, has led to unanimous condemnation from the international community, from Washington to Moscow, passing through Brussels, headquarters of the community institutions, and the United Nations. The country’s authorities are now investigating the motive for the attack and whether there was any negligence in the security measures deployed around the head of the government at the time of the shooting. The shooter was able to unlock his weapon practically at point-blank range, separated from Fico only by a retaining fence.
The Minister of Defense, Robert Kalinak, stated this Wednesday in a press conference that Fico had suffered “serious multiple trauma” due to the impact of several projectiles. His colleague in the Interior, Matus Sutaj Estok, had previously reported and while the prime minister was being operated on in a “very complicated” operation that his life was still in danger. The Slovak Government has described the assassination attempt as “politically motivated.”
The authorities identified the suspect as Juraj Cintula, a 71-year-old writer, member of the Association of Slovak Writers, of the Dúha Literary Club from Levice, his city. In the past, according to the Slovak newspaper Dennikn, the attacker had worked as a security guard at a shopping center and legally possessed the weapon. Eight years ago, according to this same medium, he announced on the Internet that he was collecting signatures to found the Movement Against Violence party. “Violence is usually a reaction of people, as a form of expression of ordinary discontent with the state of things. Let us be dissatisfied, but let us not be violent,” he wrote then.
According to the accounts of several witnesses to the attack, after hearing several explosions, the prime minister fell to the ground and was transferred to a vehicle to be taken to a hospital. He was subsequently transported by helicopter to the regional capital, Banska Bystrica, for urgent treatment. His condition was too serious for him to be taken to Bratislava, the country’s capital, about 200 kilometers away from where the assassination attempt took place.
Fico returned to power in Slovakia after the parliamentary elections on September 30 with a pro-Russian and populist message. In 2018, he was forced to resign as prime minister after protests that led to the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his partner, Martina Kusnirova, when the reporter was investigating connections between people close to Smer, his party, and the Italian mafia. , as well as government corruption scandals.
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political hatred
In his appearance this Wednesday, Minister Sutaj Estok described the day as “the worst day of Slovak democracy.” And he addressed a call to reduce tension to the leaders, media and citizens of the country that he had already made on his Facebook profile: “Our common task is to stop spreading political hatred immediately.” “Everyone should look in the mirror today and review how they have inflamed the problems. We have to change,” he claimed in a speech in which the polarization experienced by the country, a member of the European Union and the euro zone, was evident.
This call for calm did not prevent the Minister of the Interior himself from addressing the journalists present to hold them responsible for what happened. “Many of you were the ones who sowed this hatred,” he said.
For his part, the vice president of the Slovak Parliament, Lubos Blaha, announced the suspension of the parliamentary session scheduled for this Wednesday in the capital, Bratislava, located about 150 kilometers from the event. “This is your fault,” Smer member Blaha told opposition members in Parliament. For their part, the opposition deputies have responded with shouts and boos to Blaha, considered one of the men close to Fico. The opposition had called for a series of demonstrations for this Wednesday to protest against the closure of public radio and television. However, once the news of the attack became known, he chose to suspend the protests.
The elected president of Slovakia, Peter Pellegrini, was also forceful and on his social media profile he sent a message in which he regretted that what happened “is a threat to everything that has adorned Slovak democracy until now,” and he acknowledged feeling horrified. to know how far political “hatred” can lead. Pellegrini’s rival in the last presidential elections, former Foreign Minister Ivan Korkok, demanded an exhaustive investigation into what happened, while calling for “moderation” when issuing statements of responsibility. or accusations.
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