Two days after the attempted assassination of the Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico, the feeling in Slovakia is that the situation is so fragile that it could slide into violence at any moment. It is thought by anonymous citizens of Bratislava, theorized by political scientists and expressed by personalities such as the elected president, Peter Pellegrini. Together with the outgoing president, her rival Zuzana Caputová, the head of state promotes a great gesture of political unity that reduces social tension and hatred after the frustrated assassination.
“Let’s calm the situation to prevent, God forbid, something from happening today, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow as part of the revenge of one side against the other,” said Pellegrini, leader of Hlas – a split from Fico’s populist Smer party and his government partner—in an interview Thursday night. Caputová and Pellegrini have called the leaders of all parliamentary forces to a meeting at the presidential palace next Tuesday to launch a message of unity that they hope to translate into a joint statement. “It is our task as political leaders to find the right way to manage Slovakia in a different way than what existed before this tragic event,” Pellegrini stressed.
In Bratislava, some workers were busy this Friday replacing the broken glass of advertising supports in an underground passage in Hodzovo Square, where the Grassalkovich palace is located, where politicians are summoned. “Someone got drunk,” explains the boss, who does not attribute the destruction to political events, but to the euphoria after the national team’s victory against Poland in Wednesday’s match at the Ice Hockey World Cup, which the Slovaks are following. with fervor.
It rains in the capital and citizens move quickly in an atmosphere of apparent normality, only altered by groups of students celebrating the end of the selectivity exams. Katarina L., a 45-year-old woman who works in the cultural field, but prefers not to give more details, she is not a fan of the prime minister, although she states that the attack, which she rejects, left her in shock. shock. Now he fears “that the prime minister’s colleagues will worsen the polarization.”
The future president, who will take office when Caputová’s term expires on June 15, said that the prime minister asked him to try to calm the situation when he visited him on Thursday at the hospital in the city of Banská Bystrica, where he was transferred after the attack. Fico underwent surgery again this Friday in a two-hour operation to remove necrotic tissue around the wounds caused by the four bullets that hit him, according to Defense Minister Robert Kalinák, together with the director of the medical center, Miriam. Lapuníková. The doctor explained that the intervention had gone well, although the leader is still in the ICU, stable but still very serious.
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The authorities continue the investigation into the aggressor, Juraj Cintula, 71, for whom the Prosecutor’s Office has requested preventive detention. The detainee shot the Prime Minister after a government meeting in Handlová, when he approached to greet a group of supporters. Meanwhile, more details are becoming known about the aggressor’s past – with an ultra-nationalist and pro-Russian past -, such as that he was signed by the communist regime due to his activism when he was a miner.
Kalinák, deputy prime minister and Fico’s right-hand man, assured in front of the Roosevelt hospital in Banská Bystrica that his party has not yet decided whether it will attend the meeting. The head of Defense tried to convey a message of normality by assuring that the Government continues working, that the next Council of Ministers will be held next Wednesday and that the country continues to have a prime minister who is, despite the seriousness, aware and active. “With limitations”, obviously.
Pragmatists versus radicals
The deputy prime minister, also responsible for Defense, represents the most pragmatic sector of the Government. On Thursday, together with the head of the Interior, Matús Sutaj Estok, he also asked for a national reflection on the hatred and polarization that have been the breeding ground for the attempted assassination. In that appearance, political scientist Grigorij Meseznikov seemed to see a sign of change in the simple fact that Kalinák answered a question from the newspaper Denniknone of the four independent media outlets that Smer has banned.
Meseznikov, president of the independent analysis center Institute of Public Affairs, hopes that this more moderate wing will manage to calm both Fico’s enraged followers and the most radical group in the government coalition. “Everything will depend on who prevails,” he says with a shrug in his office, located in a building with a large Rainbow flag on the facade, which houses organizations linked to the Open Society Foundations created by philanthropist George Soros. NGOs that are the next target of the Government’s reforms, which plans a rule on foreign agents inspired by similar Russian and Hungarian laws.
Members of the ultranationalist SNS party, of the government coalition, and other far-right parties continue to stir up hatred with the help of related media. After Andrej Danko, leader of SNS, directly accused the opposition and the liberal press of being guilty of the assassination attempt, Pavel Lupták, deputy of his party, insisted on pointing to “the radicalization of society by progressive fundamentalists and the interference of globalists led by the United States.” The party has not yet decided whether it will respond to the presidency’s call for concord.
The ultra Stefan Harabin, former president of the Supreme Court, who came third in the first round of the presidential elections in March, advocates outlawing and dissolving Progressive Slovakia, the main opposition party. The leader of this formation, Michal Simecka, regretted this Friday that some politicians continue with attacks and disqualifications “at a time when the prime minister is still in the hospital fighting for his recovery, and people need to hear a clear signal of reconciliation.” ”. Simecka made these statements after filing a complaint this Friday about the death threats that both he and his partner and his daughter have received. The Minister of the Interior, Matús Sutaj Estok, reported that the police are investigating at least 45 people for supporting the attempted assassination of Fico and for threats to both members of the opposition and the ruling coalition.
Hate speech after the attempted murder of Fico also skyrocketed on the internet. The startup Slovak elv.ai, which follows the network profiles of 60 media outlets and public institutions, observed up to 71,818 comments on Wednesday, with a rate of hate messages of 21.62%, well above the 13.62% that had been reported. recorded on the worst day since measurements were made.
Uncertainty
Juraj Marusiak, director of the Institute of Political Science at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, fears that messages from radicals like Harabin will further contribute to the deterioration of social stability. These are days of uncertainty, however. For now, and he says this cautiously, he believes that the Minister of Defense, who is leading the Executive, “is being peaceful.” “It is to be expected that Robert Fico’s recovery will take some time. It will be important to closely follow how the Government and Smer handle it,” he says about Kalinák, who is also vice president of the party.
Another analyst who prefers not to give his name – something that is repeated these days and is another example of the unrest – however, questions the intentions of Kalinák and the sector considered more moderate. “They are having difficulties. “They know they have to be responsible and appease, but still, they continue to blame the press.”
The Slovak press is also looking for answers that resolve the unrest that the country is experiencing. Everything will largely depend on which version of Robert Fico emerges from this episode and what plans he has, and no one has that answer. For now, all there is are the mixed signals from yours truly. Will the country calm down or become more radicalized? The examples of the United Kingdom and Poland do not give much hope, headlines an article by Dennikn. The murder does not bode well for the future of liberal democracy, writes a political scientist who is an expert on the far right in the newspaper SME.
On the street, Adam, a 26-year-old financial analyst who is not a supporter of Fico, is not optimistic either: “The unrest is going to continue and something worse could happen,” he fears. Bohumil Kost, a 70-year-old retired army officer, who does not reveal who he voted for in the last elections, is confident, however, that the situation will not boil over, but he is not categorical either: “It is difficult to judge whether everything will calm down. ”.
The future president insists that the attempted assassination must mark the beginning of a new era in the country. “We must send a signal that we want [la política] in the future it will once again be more civilized, based on arguments, on facts, without vulgar insults, without inciting citizens to resistance or, God forbid, to violent activities,” says Pellegrini. On Tuesday it will at least be clear who is signing up for the gesture of harmony in the presidential palace.
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