Slovak society is in shock after a 71-year-old man fired 5 photographs on the prime minister, Robert Fico, whereas he was greeting a small crowd after a gathering.
Some members of the coalition authorities instantly blamed the opposition and the media for encouraging anger in direction of Fico, who has been implementing reforms that threaten media and judicial freedom.
Happily, Fico has survived, however the fallout from the assault will nonetheless be extreme. Many can be reminded that the repercussions of one other homicide, of reporter Ján Kuciak and his companion Martina Kušnírová in February 2018. It was this crime that set in course the chain of occasions that might make Fico the politician he’s immediately.
Fico was prime minister at the moment, too. However as a result of the truth that the homicide investigation led dangerously near his political circles, he was compelled to resign.
In a wave of public indignation, lawyer Zuzana Čaputová, who needed to battle in opposition to political corruption, determined to run for the workplace of president. In March 2019, to everybody’s shock, she turned the primary feminine president in Slovak historical past. Within the second spherical of those elections, she convincingly defeated the candidate of Fico’s centre-left Smer occasion.
Fico was humiliated by his compelled departure and Čaputová’s victory, however he didn’t intend to surrender and depart politics for good. He wasn’t even deterred when his personal occasion break up in two in 2020, along with his former ally Peter Pellegrini main the splinter occasion Hlas SD.
Alamy/AP
Fico is essentially the most seasoned participant in Slovak politics. He turned prime minister for the primary time in 2006 and the present administration is his fourth stint within the position. Till 2018, regardless of some reservations, he was not thought of a politician tending to extremes. He was even prime minister when Slovakia joined the euro in 2009.
Nevertheless, he started to radicalise an increasing number of throughout his years in opposition. He more and more criticised the investigation into Kuciak’s homicide, the western orientation of his nation and, above all, Čaputová as president.
It seems to have change into clear to Fico that he would lose help from average Slovaks due to his excessive views, however he has been cautious to not alienate both the far left or the far proper. On one hand, he, personally, has roots within the communist occasion, and on the opposite, he has been cautious to not alienate the acute proper. Doing so would shut the door to the potential of future coalition cooperation.
By radically rejecting liberalism, Fico appeals to extremists from each the proper and left. In line with him, the actual extremists are the individuals selling membership of the European Union, Nato, and help for Ukraine.
Čaputová: an embattled president
In June of final 12 months, Čaputová introduced that because of the threats and abuse she and her household had endured, she not had the energy to proceed in politics. She determined not run for a second time period as president. However the timing of her announcement, a very long time earlier than the presidential contest and only some months earlier than parliamentary elections, seems to have been a strategic error.
Sensing a possibility within the president’s weak point, Fico and Smer have been in a position to win the parliamentary election, forming a brand new authorities coalition with Pellegrini’s Hlas SD and the extraordinarily nationalist Slovak Nationwide Occasion.
Even now, as Fico lies in hospital, Čaputová stays in workplace. She is within the strategy of handing over to her successor – the exact same Peter Pellegrini who was as soon as a part of Fico’s occasion. However he doesn’t start within the position till June. In the meantime, Čaputová should attraction for calm in Fico’s title.
Fico’s election victory on an intolerant platform and antagonism in direction of the president he was imagined to be working alongside on the time of the assault, mixed with the centre-right’s failure to offer an alternate, has left Slovak society polarised to an unprecedented diploma.
Paradoxically, it was Fico who predicted the results of all this most precisely. In a speech revealed on Fb this April, he solid himself as sufferer and declared that he wouldn’t be stunned if the hatred in direction of him led to the homicide of a authorities politician.
He has survived, however Fico has nonetheless change into a martyr to “liberal tyranny” for his supporters – no matter the truth that everybody, together with all of Fico’s critics, have unequivocally condemned the assault.
The murders of Kuciak and Kušnírová stay unsolved. Fixing the case of the failed assassination of the prime minister will apparently be a lot quicker and simpler, given {that a} man has already been charged.
Nevertheless, it’s extra seemingly that efforts to level the finger throughout the political divide will dominate Slovakian discourse for the foreseeable future. And it will come on the expense of a full dialogue about what components led to this disaster within the first place, and the way finest to keep away from them sooner or later.
