The assassination try on Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico on Could 15 has despatched a shockwave by way of Europe. Sadly political assassinations aren’t unparalleled on this a part of the world – certainly, Slovakia itself continues to reverberate from the 2018 assassination of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak, an act which led to the collapse of a earlier Fico-led authorities.
Nevertheless, assaults of this way on politicians are uncommon (exterior of post-Soviet international locations). There has not been an assault on a determine as high-level as Fico in a number of many years. The suspect within the capturing has been arrested, nevertheless it stays far too early to take a position a couple of potential motive. With that mentioned, it’s nearly sure that this may have an enormous affect on Slovak, and even European Union, politics.
Even earlier than the occasions of Could 15, the political ambiance in Slovakia has been fairly fraught. Fico and his Smer get together have largely dominated the political scene within the nation because the 2000s. Earlier than his present time period, which started in 2023, he led the federal government from 2006 to 2010, and from 2012 to 2018.
Fico is ostensibly a centre-left politician. However in some ways his populist and nationalist politics extra intently resemble these of Viktor Orbán, the far-right authoritarian prime minister of Hungary. Smer is a member of the Occasion of European Socialists within the European Parliament however its membership was suspended in late 2023 due to its rightward drift.
Notably (once more alike Orbán), Fico is taken into account one of the crucial pro-Russian political leaders in Europe. He ran his 2023 election marketing campaign on a platform of ending Slovakia’s monetary and army assist for Ukraine.
Russian media retailers have instantly seized on this to accuse Ukraine of masterminding the assassination try in opposition to Fico. Margarita Simonyan, the editor of RT, claimed Ukraine “must be blamed” for the capturing. Importantly, no proof has at the moment been uncovered linking Ukraine to the assault. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has personally condemned the assault and expressed his hope for Fico’s restoration – and solidarity with the folks of Slovakia.
There are each home and regional implications within the wake of this assault. For Slovakia, it’s possible that tensions within the nation can be ratcheted up. Election campaigns have more and more been fought in charged environments because the first time Fico got here to energy in 2006 in a coalition with two intolerant and nationalist events, the Slovak Nationwide Occasion and the Motion for a Democratic Slovakia.
This was significantly the case within the 2023 elections, the place the alignment of Slovakia on the Russia-Ukraine Warfare was a principal concern. In a Eurobarometer survey round that point, the warfare was rated as an important situation going through the nation, however with almost 50-50 splits in assist for both offering or opposing help to Ukraine.
This polarisation has already begun to play out in the way in which politicians – each on the facet of the federal government and in opposition – have responded to the tried assassination.
Inside minister Matúš Šutaj-Eštok alleged that the assault was clearly “politically motivated” and that the nation stood getting ready to “civil warfare”. Worryingly, in a rustic with a latest historical past of violence in the direction of journalists, each Šutaj-Eštok and his colleague Lubos Blaha have blamed the nation’s “liberal media” for sowing “hatred”.
AP/Alamy/Denes Erdos
Given these feedback, and the parlous state of media freedom all through the Visegrad area – which incorporates the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – it might not be stunning to see some type of crackdown.
Earlier than the assault, Fico was already rolling out plans to position the Slovak nationwide broadcaster below governmental management, sparking protests from the general public. There will even rightly be issues concerning the potential for Slovak democracy to return below stress. Once more, right here, Fico had been engaged in a disagreement with the nation’s supreme courtroom earlier than the assault, and had warned that he was monitoring the physique intently.
Exterior of Slovakia, the assault could be very more likely to turn into one other entrance within the ongoing info warfare between Russia on one facet and the EU and Ukraine on the opposite.
The reality or accuracy of Russia’s accusations about Ukraine involvement could successfully show to be irrelevant. Within the modern ambiance, disinformation has been confirmed to be stubbornly troublesome to problem and rebut.
Coming because it does amidst each a significant Russian offensive within the east of Ukraine and the campaigns for European Parliament elections, the assault on Fico has the potential so as to add a larger sense of instability to an already contentious atmosphere.
