The recent political history of Slovakia is also that of its prime minister, Robert Fico. And this has been marked by two shootings: the one that forced his resignation in 2018 and the one that almost killed him this week. The first attempted assassination in Europe in decades has shocked the Union at a time of high volatility. It is also a warning that polarization and rhetorical aggressiveness, deeply rooted in Slovakia, can crystallize into real violence.
On February 26, 2018, Ján Kuciak – a reporter who was investigating links between the Italian ‘Ndrangheta and senior government officials – and his girlfriend were found murdered. Slovak society rose up against the atmosphere of impunity and corruption that prevailed in the country and forced the resignation of the prime minister. Five years later, in October 2023, a radicalized version of Fico returned to power with a vengeance after an extremely toxic campaign that deepened divisions. Last Wednesday, a 71-year-old man shot him five times, according to the Government, in protest of the measures promoted in the first six months of Fico’s fourth term.
Polarization is not a phenomenon exclusive to Slovakia. Michal Vasecka, director of the Bratislava Institute of Politics think tank, believes, however, that it is deeper in this “artificial” country, where “there is no elementary consensus even on history.” This territory of 5.4 million inhabitants, which Vasecka defines as the confluence of three civilizations—Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans—provides episodes that could fuel several seasons of a thriller political. The beginning would be in the nineties, when the country emerged from the communist regime and emerged as an independent State after the velvet divorce that dissolved Czechoslovakia in 1993. The protagonist of these chapters would be former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, a former amateur boxer who governed the country between 1990 and 1998.
That decade of privatization was fraught with mafia practices, including bribery and murder. The newspaper archive contains bizarre episodes such as the kidnapping in 1995 of the son of the then president, Michal Kovác, Meciar’s arch-enemy, only to release him drunk in Austria and have him arrested, because he had a search warrant. The version that has remained in memory is that he was kidnapped by the secret services, which in turn subcontracted the murder of a key witness to the mafia. “That’s where the problems started. Those people from Wild East he stayed between us,” explains Vasecka in his office in the historic center of the capital.
“Slovakia has been polarized since the birth of the State,” says Grigorij Meseznikov, political scientist and president of the Institute of Public Affairs think tank. The division, he develops, is marked by different approaches to power. On one side were the national populists of Meciar—and now Fico—“who want to retain power almost automatically.” On the other, the so-called liberal democratic forces in the region. “It is easy to know which block each party is in when they are created,” he points out.
The privatizations of the 1990s also generated conflicts between winners and losers of the economic transformation, as recalled Juraj Marusiak, director of the Institute of Political Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Foreign policy, marked by the isolation caused by Meciar’s authoritarianism, also confronted the Slovaks at the end of that decade.
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Radicalization
Fico assumed political prominence in the country when he won his first mandate, in 2006. Gradually, the leader who attracted the post-communist vote also began to seek support on the right in the gap left by Meciar. After a couple of years in the opposition (between 2010 and 2012), he returns to lead the Government uninterruptedly until 2018. According to Vasecka, he continues to move to the right “until he jumps over the extreme right.”
When he resigns after the murders of the journalist and his girlfriend, everyone considers him amortized. The prime minister and his team feel aggrieved and unfairly treated. His party, Smer, hits rock bottom in the polls. Journalist Eva Mihockova, who directs the magazine Slovak Foreign Policy Association, after having worked in various media, remembers very well how his sources in Fico’s formation told him that their strategy was to become radicalized to expand the electorate.
In 2020, a coalition led by Igor Matovic, a center-right populist who leads the OĽaNO party (Ordinary People and Independent Personalities), and later by Eduard Heger, who arrive with the promise of cleaning up corruption, governs. The legislature, which was not completed, was marked by the covid pandemic, chaos and internal tensions.
The flawed fight against corruption led to the conviction and indictment of dozens of people related to Smer, including judges, police officers, businessmen and senior officials. Even Fico was accused of collaborating with a criminal organization and the party’s number two, the current Defense Minister, Robert Kalinák, was detained for three weeks, although a prosecutor dropped the charges against both.
“Fico realized that in the past, Smer had not focused on governance,” explains academic Marusiak. After a return marked by the desire for revenge in 2023, he began to take measures to control the police, the judiciary, NGOs and the media, inspired by leaders such as the Hungarian ultra-conservative Viktor Orbán. “For the most liberal part of society, this represents an attack on political freedom and the beginning of an authoritarian transformation of the country,” he says.
Russian influence and disinformation
Sociologist Jozef Zagrapan, also from the Slovak Academy of Sciences, explains in his office in a 1920s building that “the war in Ukraine has become another important element of division in politics,” with a Government more open to Moscow. than to Kiev. Meseznikov also points to “elements of toxicity encouraged especially in the last eight years by Russian external networks” as responsible for the social confrontation. Disinformation and conspiracy theories find fertile ground in Slovakia, where half of the population is inclined to believe them, according to a study by the think tank Globsec, which also points out that 38% are favorable to autocratic leadership. The division between the countryside and urban areas is also very marked in the country.
“Provocation and dehumanization of the opponent” run through Slovak political culture, as journalist Mihockova explains over coffee. “They work with emotions and any psychologist can explain that negative ones, such as fear or hatred, work better.” Vulgarity and insults are the order of the day.
At a rally, Lubos Blaha, a senior Smer official, now vice president of Parliament, encouraged the crowd to complete with the word curve (prostitute) a phrase referring to the president, the liberal Zuzana Caputová. Fico has referred to her as an “American agent” and a “rat,” the same term he uses to talk about other politicians, as well as “pig.” He routinely calls journalists “enemies,” after disqualifying them as “anti-Slovak prostitutes.” In the legislative campaign, former Prime Minister Matovic and Kalinák came to blows, although journalist Mihockova attributes this episode more to the former’s provocative personality, not so much to the character of the country.
The opposition regularly calls demonstrations to protest against the authoritarian maneuvers of the Fico Government. The media does its job of controlling power. But Mihockova assures that never with the aggressive language of Smer and other far-right parties. After the attempted assassination of Fico – which remains serious, but stable, as reported by Kalinák this Saturday – the most radical elements of the Government insist on blaming political adversaries and the press. Even the deputy prime minister and head of Defense, who represents the most pragmatic wing, maintains that they must apologize for creating the environment that has led to the attack by Juraj Cintula, 71, who was sent to provisional prison this Saturday after pleading guilty. before the judge.
The country is experiencing delicate times, but Mihockova emphasizes that it is a good sign that the street is calm. This Saturday, the only crowds in Bratislava were the groups of tourists who toured the castle and the old town following the guides. The journalist hopes that other countries take note: “This is the result of very aggressive words turned into action.”
Lukasz T, a 36-year-old filmmaker who withholds his last name, observes the attempted murder of Fico as part of a script “for an absurd and tragic film.” For him, the hatred that led to the murder of two people in an LGTBI bar in Bratislava in 2022 is similar to that which pushed Cintula to shoot the prime minister. The man, before continuing walking in the rain that soaks the capital, expresses a question that is widely shared these days: will Fico change after the assassination attempt? “I am so curious. It’s like the end of a season. He has contributed to fueling hatred and revenge. “Has he learned from his mistakes?”
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