Even by the standards of Central Europe’s polarized politics, Slovak politicians stand out for their vitriolic rhetoric.
Just minutes after Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot and seriously injured on Wednesday, some of his supporters accused the opposition and media of having blood on their hands and threatened a crackdown.
“This is your job,” Lubos Blaha, deputy speaker of parliament and a senior member of Fico’s Semer party, told opposition members.
“I would like to express my deep disgust at what you have done here over the past few years. What kind of hatred have you, the liberal media and the political opposition, spread against Robert Fico? You built a gallows for him.”
The shooting death of a populist, pro-Russian leader was carried out by a politically motivated “lone wolf” attacker, the government said, rattling the country and raising concerns about the threat the toxic spiral poses to democracy. It’s raising questions. A few weeks before the European Parliament elections.
“This tragic event should serve as a lesson for all of us,” European Commission Vice-President Vera Yorova told the Financial Times. “Across Europe, we are seeing increasing polarization and hatred. . . . We need to understand that verbal violence can lead to physical violence.”
Many Slovaks saw the assassination attempt as the culmination of months of verbal attacks, disinformation campaigns and even fist fights between the liberal opposition and allies of Fico, who returned to power in October. I believe it was done.
Fico’s condition was announced Thursday as critical but stable after five hours of surgery for a gunshot wound.
In a rare sign of unity, outgoing Slovakia’s liberal president Zuzana Čaputova delivered a joint speech on Thursday with her successor, Fico’s Peter Pellegrini. “We are completely united in condemning all forms of violence,” Čaputova said. “Yesterday’s attack on Prime Minister Robert Fico is first and foremost a great tragedy for humanity, but it is also an attack on democracy.”
Fico’s government also promised to ease campaigning in the run-up to the EU elections if other parties follow suit.
Indeed, the shooting could allow Fico’s ruling coalition to reap significant benefits in June, both by garnering “clear sympathy votes” and by providing a springboard for accelerating its crackdown on opposition media. , said Mischa Glenny, director of the Vienna-based Institute of Science. Human science.
“While there are some risk-averse members of Fico’s coalition who are trying to moderate policies, the coalition must also hold back those who seek to escalate the situation in order to survive,” said Slovakia’s aide Juraj Mezhihorski. “There is a need to maintain Fico’s parliamentary majority,” he said. Professor of Social Data Science at Durham University.
Of particular concern is the reaction of the ultranationalist SNS party, which forms part of Fico’s three-party coalition. “At this stage, a political war has begun,” warned Andrei Danko, the commission’s chairman.
Danko also promised “changes to the media” that go beyond Fico’s planned overhaul of public broadcaster RTVS, which has been criticized as threatening the editorial independence of critics. ing. The Fico coalition recently pushed a bill in Congress that could strip non-governmental organizations of foreign funding.
At the same time, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo told the FT that vitriolic attacks and increased danger risked deterring people from participating in politics. “There is a French proverb that says, “When the haters disappear, only the haters remain.”
In Bratislava, residents said they were stunned by Fico’s shooting, but many blamed it on a sharp decline in political standards.
“I think it was only a matter of time before something like that happened because politicians are putting so much fuel on the fire. But that doesn’t mean it was easy to imagine that this could actually happen to the prime minister. That’s not the case,” said Michal Wengler, a 33-year-old teacher.
Fico’s shooting revived memories of another traumatic event in the Slovak psyche: the 2018 assassination of a 27-year-old investigative journalist and his fiance. Journalist Jan Kuciak was investigating allegations of collusion between government officials and organized crime. Fico was forced to resign as prime minister due to the uproar over the murder.
“It reminds us of the horror after the murders of Jan Kuciak and Martina Kušnirova. Today is the same again, when Slovakia receives negative news all over the world,” said Ivan, an opposition member of the European Parliament. Stefanec wrote about Slovakia. News site SME.
Grigory Mesedhnikov, political scientist and head of the think tank Institute of Public Affairs, said Slovakia’s “highly confrontational” politics was due to “incomplete democratic transformation” after the collapse of communism and such “problematic This may be due to the persistence of “values.” such as xenophobia and homophobia.
Mezhnikov, like other MPs, suggested that the ruling coalition could choose to further radicalize itself. Conversely, Mezhnikov said it was possible that Fico could use his near-death experience as a turning point to change his aggressive political approach, but he was “skeptical” that this would happen.
Fico made a successful return to power last year, in part by stirring up social tensions and accusing incumbent politicians of mismanagement and weakness. The election campaign was marked by a fistfight between Fico, the current defense minister, and the former prime minister.
In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Fico sent fighter jets to Kiev at the request of NATO without parliamentary approval, and fiercely criticized the then-Slovak government for violating national sovereignty. denounced.
Some of Mr. Fico’s most egregious attacks were directed at Mr. Čaputova. The popular liberal president said threats against his family were one of the reasons he did not seek re-election in April. Instead, Mr Fico’s coalition partner Mr Pellegrini was elected after running a campaign accusing his pro-EU rivals of wanting to send Slovak troops to Ukraine.
Durham University’s Mezhihorski said: “I don’t want to put the odds in stone, but the risk of things getting much worse is very serious.”
Additional reporting by Alice Hancock in Brussels
