‘Emergencies’ have all the time been the pretext on which the safeguards of particular person liberty have eroded.
F. Hayek
The assassination try towards Slovak prime minister Robert Fico on 15 Could 2024 shocked Slovakia and attracted consideration from all over the world to this small central European nation. But the inhabitants’s pure expression of grief and the prudent and calming phrases of the president and others had been trumped by the virulent response of main politicians. On the ground of the Slovak parliament, simply an hour after the occasion, members of Fico’s occasion Smer in addition to MPs belonging to the far-right Slovak Nationwide Get together had been accusing the opposition and the media of being solely accountable for the assassination try.
That set the tone for Slovak society’s response to this tragedy. As an alternative of being an event for reflection and reconciliation, the assassination may sadly change into a automobile for additional radicalization. For whereas the would-be murderer was a ‘lone wolf’, the political pressure earlier than and after the capturing has been a part of Slovak politics for the previous 20 years. And Robert Fico has performed a decisive function on this confrontation.
Again to the 90s
Following its break up from the Czech Republic in 1993, Slovakia struggled to take care of a gentle democratic course. Vladimir Mečiar, its strongman premier all through the Nineties, established an more and more authoritarian rule till his defeat within the pivotal election of 1998, after which Slovakia switched again onto a democratic monitor, efficiently becoming a member of the EU and NATO in 2004. However since final September’s normal election, there have been issues that democracy and the rule of regulation in Slovakia are once more in peril.
The results of the 2023 normal election produced a slim, four-seat majority for a three-party coalition led by Robert Fico, who thereby grew to become premier for a fourth time. Though his earlier three governments, beginning in 2006, had been closely criticized for corruption and abuse of energy, there had by no means been any sense that the rule of regulation itself was below risk. The rationale for the change since final 12 months’s election is related to the 2018 homicide of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová.
Nationwide Council of the Slovak Republic. Supply: Wikimedia Commons
The investigation into the killings, which had been carried out within the type of a mafia hit, led to the arrest of businessman Marian Kočner, who was charged with ordering and paying for them. Kočner has since been acquitted twice, however the case is ongoing. Decrypted digital correspondence revealed his highly effective affect over quite a few officers within the Fico administration on the time of the killings. Corrupt oligarchs appeared to be invincible, protected by the powers that be. The succession of lawyer generals, in a position to cease or dismiss any investigation, served as a final resort to hide shady enterprise dealings with members of presidency.
Political corruption is especially damaging as a result of it devours residents’ belief in equity and accountability and, in the end, undermines the legitimacy of democratic societies. It has marked and marred each post-communist society in Europe. However not like in Czech Republic, for instance, there was little effort in Slovakia to take authorized motion. As an alternative, there was an unstated settlement amongst successive governments to not prosecute their predecessors.
The turning level on this malaise got here with the large public protests after the homicide of Kuciak and Kušnírová. The squares round Slovakia had been full, the strain grew, and requires an finish to the situations below which such a homicide may happen finally led to Fico’s resignation. Peter Pellegrini, on the time Fico’s trusted political ally, took his place. Fico’s political profession appeared completed and the recognition of Smer, his occasion, plummeted. On the normal election in 2020, Smer was ousted from authorities; quickly afterwards, Pellegrini and some others jumped ship to create a brand new occasion, Hlas.
Off the hook
The 2020 election produced a shock victory for the maverick populist Igor Matovič, who received votes by specializing in the rampant corruption of earlier Fico governments. As soon as Matovič had shaped a coalition, regulation enforcement businesses obtained the inexperienced mild to conduct full investigations, pursue arrests, and lay expenses towards lots of of people. The suspects included a number of former police chiefs, a senior prosecutor, about fifteen judges and even Fico himself (though the costs towards him had been later dropped on the orders of the lawyer normal).
Many Slovaks had been glad to see the embezzlers and corrupt officers being arrested, but in addition horrified by the extent of corruption and its backing and reference to high political figures. Steadily, the online started closing across the leaders of the previous authorities, together with Fico. And but, 5 years after his downfall, he managed to show his fortunes round. What occurred that allowed his occasion to recuperate and safe the biggest share of the vote within the 2023 normal election?
For one, Matovič and his coalition proved exceptionally inept, notably in dealing with the covid pandemic. The federal government was additionally caught up in fixed bickering. Matovič’s erratic persona, his tendency to demonize anybody who disagreed with him, together with the media, made his campaign to place legal politicians behind bars much less like an try and reassert the rule of regulation and extra as a canopy up for his incompetence.
Threatened by his coalition companions, Matovič resigned in March 2021, nominating as his successor his uncharismatic occasion colleague, Eduard Heger, whereas retaining his highly effective place as finance minister. The more and more paralysed authorities, which finally misplaced its majority, refused to name an early election. Ultimately, president Zuzana Čaputová dismissed the federal government and put in a caretaker administration, pending an election.
Matovič and his successor had been a straightforward goal. Fico managed to persuade a bigger and bigger phase of the general public that he and his cronies weren’t perpetrators, however victims of a witch-hunt by an incompetent authorities. Though the police, investigators and the Particular Prosecutor Workplace (ÚŠP) did a wonderful job in investigating and prosecuting political corruption, sentencing quite a few outstanding figures, their occasional missteps had been repeated advert nauseam and exaggerated by the opposition and the artful attorneys representing outstanding accused figures.
Different main sources of instability had been the financial uncertainty after the pandemic, alarmism about refugees from the Center East and, lastly, the horrors of the warfare in neighbouring Ukraine. Exaggerating the threats, Fico and the opposition, with the help of the press, blamed the federal government for the mismanagement of those exterior crises. However their best ire was reserved for Čaputová, the president, who was each well-liked at house and admired overseas for her competence and composure. The vicious and chronic private marketing campaign towards her and her household finally led her to determine to not run for a second time period.
Rise to energy
Born in 1964, Fico was a Communist Get together member till 1989. When the communists rebranded themselves as social democrats and shaped the SDĽ, Fico adopted. Younger, bold and rising in political prominence, he resigned from the SDĽ in 1999, then a part of the governing coalition, when it refused to pursue a change within the regulation that will have allowed him to change into normal prosecutor earlier than the age of 40.
The creation of Smer in 1999 is shrouded in delusion – and still-unanswered questions. The official motive for its basis was that Slovakia wanted a contemporary social democratic occasion because the nation headed in the direction of EU membership. A extra believable model is {that a} group of rich privatizers wanted a political automobile for growth and safety of their unlawful enterprise actions. They designated a advertising and marketing skilled and slightly murky determine, Fedor Flašík, to determine a brand new occasion. Fico – younger, well-liked, skilled and, if want be, rhetorically aggressive – appeared the perfect candidate to guide it.
What adopted will not be completely clear. However finally, Fico’s reputation and energy – which derived extra from his political abilities than Flašik’s advertising and marketing prowess – led him to carve his personal path and independence, notably after he grew to become prime minister in 2006.
Nonetheless, he didn’t sever his reference to the initiators and sponsors of Smer. Probably the most outstanding amongst them, together with Jozef Brheľ and Miroslav Výboh, remained in his orbit, having fun with state contracts and safety. After 2020, their prosecution – together with that of a number of dozen different Fico associates – led to a metamorphosis in Smer’s technique and coverage. Fico realized that until he returned to energy, he and his cronies can be in everlasting hazard. Decided to regain energy at any value, he used populist rhetoric and smear campaigns towards cops and prosecutors concerned within the investigation of political corruption prior to now.
Fico grew to become more and more liable to spreading conspiracy theories and anti-western rhetoric, whereas criticizing the EU and NATO. He praised Putin and attacked Ukraine to win the belief of far-right voters. His technique was to instigate concern of and rage towards imaginary exterior and inner enemies of Slovakia. On this, he needed to outbid rightwing nationalist events, together with neo-Nazi outfits, that had been already trawling in the identical waters. The nadir of this new divisive technique was Fico’s private assaults on president Čaputová. On one notorious event, the Smer occasion hack and self-proclaimed Marxist ideologue Ľuboš Blaha led an enraged crowd in a chant accusing Čaputová of being an ‘American whore’. Standing subsequent to him on the stage, Robert Fico smirked in delight.
With Slovakia heading for early elections in 2023, Fico’s divisive politics at house steadily remodeled right into a equally hostile method to Europe. As an alternative of craving appreciation within the firm of European socialist and liberal leaders, as had been the case a decade in the past, Fico sought the corporate of Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán – testifying to how cynical his anti-Hungarian insurance policies and rhetoric had been prior to now. To safe his maintain on energy, Fico desires of unexpectedly emulating in Slovakia what Orbán has achieved over twenty years. When Smer shaped a coalition authorities with the far-right Slovak Nationwide Get together after the September 2023 election, the Get together of European Socialists (PES) predictably suspended its membership, together with that of Hlas.
The 2023 election
Fico’s victory within the September 2023 election was neither preordained nor conclusive. His former ally Peter Pellegrini and his occasion Hlas had been main till a number of months earlier than the elections in opinion polls. It was assumed that Pellegrini can be deciding and selecting the coalition companions. He had repeatedly declared that he wouldn’t kind a coalition with Smer so long as Fico was its chief. This was logical, provided that Pellegrini and a bunch of different MPs had left Smer in 2020 because it was trailing in reputation. Fico will need to have felt betrayed and abandoned by somebody whose complete political profession had been enabled solely by advantage of being related to him.
Many observers had been satisfied that the alliance between these two politicians was extremely unbelievable. In addition to, Michal Šimečka, the younger, Oxford-educated deputy chairman of the European Parliament had change into the top of the more and more well-liked left-liberal occasion Progressive Slovakia. For a lot of, a steady liberal democratic coalition, which included Pellegrini’s Hlas, appeared believable.
On quite a few events Pellegrini expressed a want to be a part of some type of liberal democratic coalition. Nonetheless, the conservative bloc was too suspicious of him to have interaction in severe pre-election negotiations. Excluding Šimečka, who mentioned he was keen to barter after the elections, all the opposite events stamped Pellegrini as Fico 2.0.
The 2023 normal election introduced seven events into the Slovak Parliament. It was a results of proportional voting with a 5 % threshold. Hlas was in a position to create majority in both a liberal-conservative or nationalist-populist coalition, making Pellegrini a kingmaker. The conservative bloc despatched a sign that he can be supplied the place of the prime minister in a possible coalition, regardless that Hlas received fewer seats than Progressive Slovakia (PS).
However as an alternative, Pellegrini and Hlas rapidly determined to hitch Smer and the Slovak nationalist occasion (SNS), in return for a promise that the coalition would help him within the upcoming presidential elections. Fico thus returned as prime minister, elevating expectations of revenge and an overhaul of the political panorama. That story has been unfolding ever since, with the tragic twist of the assassination try.
Slovakia remodeled
Slovakia’s newest parliamentary and presidential elections, each of which had been marked by unusually divisive and hostile campaigns, have moved Slovakia from being a rustic with an admired president and a really pro-Ukrainian place into mainly the alternative. The brand new authorities has launched into radical modifications which were a key focus of Fico since 2020 – designed to make sure his impunity and to exonerate, defend and pardon his cronies and former colleagues who’ve been charged, prosecuted and in some instances imprisoned.
Because it had promised throughout its marketing campaign, the primary hasty strikes of the brand new coalition included considerably growing pensions and varied social welfare measures, with out contemplating the large financial deficit they might trigger. However the actual purpose of the coalition got here subsequent. Its key steps had been to paralyse the Nationwide Felony Company (NAKA), dismiss the nationwide police chief and submit a invoice abolishing the Particular Prosecutor’s Workplace (ÚŠP), which oversaw prosecutions of high-level corruption.
On the similar time, two attorneys that had represented a number of oligarchs prior to now drafted a invoice radically amending the legal regulation. Many of the invoice had been drafted by the earlier administration, however the brand new model included two proposals that had been adjusted to guard and free these charged or sentenced for financial corruption. The invoice additionally shortened the limitation interval for some legal acts. Conveniently, this meant that many corruption expenses at present below investigation can be instantly dropped. The invoice additionally abolished many financial offences and elevated suspended sentences to as much as 5 years for financial crimes amounting to tens of tens of millions of euros. This contradicted the European Fee’s situations on the post-COVID Restoration Fund allotted for Slovakia. The EC has since been reviewing the authorized amendments.
One other invoice abolished the Particular Prosecutor workplace (ÚPŠ), merely stating that the Common Prosecutor’s Workplace and native prosecutors’ branches had been to any extent further authorised to convey expenses of financial corruption. Sarcastically, the ÚŠP was created in response to widespread embezzlement of EU funds again in 2004.
Fico’s coalition pushed via these modifications utilizing a fast-tracked legislative process allowed just for emergencies. Outrageously, it justified this by citing ‘human rights abuses’ – code for the prosecution of Fico’s allies and his associates.
They can’t get all the things!
The opposition insisted that there was no motive to hurry up such a significant sequence of authorized modifications and unexpectedly known as for a public protest in entrance of the federal government workplace. To its shock, 1000’s of demonstrators confirmed up. All through December 2023, the protests grew, spreading to different cities across the nation. At one level there have been 30,000 residents on the central squares of Bratislava. There was a name for lawmakers to think about their responsibility and duty. Given the coalition’s slim majority of 4 votes, there was a hope that some MPs, particularly from Hlas, could be swayed.
However the coalition held and the payments handed. President Čaputová, whose veto might be overridden by a easy majority, selected to signal the regulation and as an alternative to problem it earlier than the Constitutional Court docket. Whether or not this technique was one of the best ways to proceed is questionable. Instantly after Čaputová despatched the signed Legislation to the Court docket, the protests ceased and the sudden power of civil society stalled. The modifications to the Felony Legislation have been suspended, however it’s not sure how the Constitutional Court docket will proceed.
One of the crucial frequent slogans through the protests was ‘They can’t get all the things’, referring to the upcoming presidential election in March/April 2024. Pellegrini’s opponent was the previous Minister of Overseas Affairs and former diplomat Ivan Korčok. He ran as an impartial candidate however was endorsed by the opposition and at protest rallies. His probabilities had been unsure, however the hope was that he may pull a shock victory.
The presidential race once more noticed a smear marketing campaign and obstruction ways. Because the Charmain of the Slovak Parliament, Pellegrini known as the election as early as attainable, as a way to profit from his political workplace and media presence. There was a large marketing campaign towards Korčok on social media and the tabloid press, which belongs to numerous oligarchs. For instance, Korčok was known as ‘the candidate of warfare’ for his help of the struggling Ukraine. Hungarian TV broadcasted an interview with Pellegrini eight occasions through the 48-hour moratorium earlier than the election. It reached half 1,000,000 Hungarians residing in Slovakia, whose votes had been decisive.
Following Pellegrini’s victory, fears mounted among the many opposition, its supporters and the mainstream media that Slovakia was headed in an more and more intolerant path. However it was additionally clear {that a} substantial portion of society agreed with Fico’s insurance policies and didn’t thoughts if the coalition ‘obtained all the things’.
What then triggered that majority, nevertheless slim, to help Fico, Pellegrini and their ultra-nationalist allies? There are a number of explanations. The primary is that Igor Matovič’s divisive and erratic rule uncovered his insurance policies, together with the prosecution of corruption, to Fico’s marketing campaign. The second is that disinformation sources, together with Russia, have sown confusion and concern within the minds of the general public, whose financial circumstances are unsure and fluctuate from area to area. The third rationalization is that it’s straightforward to instigate concern and rage by claiming that exterior forces and their native brokers are undermining Slovakia. In a rustic the place civil society is fragile and unstable, quite a few politicians in Slovakia foster this normal discontent for their very own profit.
The assassination
We’d by no means piece collectively what motivated Juraj Cintula to aim to assassinate the prime minister of Slovakia on 15 Could. The little info we’ve got is usually inconclusive and unreliable. Nothing gives a decisive private, political or ideological motive for the deed. Cintula appeared to have been appearing on his personal, though the rampant disinformation sphere noticed quite a lot of instigators: from Russia to the USA and Slovak democrats (with some claiming that the assassination was all faked).
What we all know is that Cintula had prior to now been important of immigrants and Roma, had praised the ‘Slovak Defenders’ (Slovenskí branci), a paramilitary rightwing group, and had tried to floor a celebration known as ‘Motion towards Violence’. He had even revealed some prose and poetry and headed an area literary circle. Apparently, he was pissed off with Fico’s insurance policies in the direction of Ukraine. However he didn’t have a historical past of violence. This disillusioned and perhaps narcissistic particular person most probably lived in an informational bubble, believing that he needed to take justice into his personal palms.
Maybe probably the most disturbing consequence was the response of Fico’s coalition companions. The primary response got here from Luboš Blaha, the identical MP who had prodded the gang to shout vulgarities about Čaputová. Solely an hour after the assassination try, Blaha blamed the liberal media and opposition for the capturing. The chief of the Slovak Nationwide Get together, Andrej Danko, declared that it was the beginning of a ‘political warfare’ in Slovakia and that the federal government would act swiftly towards media and politicians of the earlier authorities.
In distinction, all of the opposition events in addition to all of the editors of the primary newspapers, information web sites and TV stations expressed their horror at what had occurred. President Čaputová and president-elect Pellegrini issued a standard assertion interesting for calm and alluring all political events to the Presidential Palace for a roundtable dialogue, in an expression of nationwide unity. The assembly didn’t happen as a result of Smer and the Slovak Nationwide Get together refused to take part.
Slovakia at a crossroads
Slovakia is but once more at a crossroads. On many events since its independence, the nation has confronted the same dilemma. As a society, it has moved ahead, modernized and matured. Slovakia’s membership of the EU and the NATO ensures its financial prosperity and safety greater than at any earlier time in its historical past.
However sadly, it has not generated many political statesmen. Robert Fico has had many alternatives throughout his lengthy service to politically stabilize and economically enhance Slovakia. Often he has taken them. However extra usually, he has triggered division, confrontation and instability.
Like each populist authorities all over the world, the one at present ruling Slovakia doesn’t even try to enhance the dire financial scenario. The issue will not be solely the finances deficit, but in addition the shortage of any technique to stimulate the economic system, or to enhance situations for overseas funding. Many of the authorities’s power is dedicated to the consolidation of energy and the domination of public establishments, whereas intimidating media shops which are important or merely goal. The media is constantly blamed by authorities ministers for being immediately accountable for the hostile political ambiance. And, sadly, this pattern has accelerated after the assassination try. This makes the scenario in Slovakia at present unstable, even explosive.
Fico’s political legacy will rely on how he makes use of the tragedy politically as soon as he returns to his place as premier, assuming he ever does. His present legitimacy, the overall benevolence in the direction of him and the hope that he’ll govern once more, make him, paradoxically, extra highly effective as ever. His actions throughout this nationwide emergency are awaited with nice anticipation; and by some with nice trepidation.
The person trauma attributable to the pictures fired within the small city of Handlová have led to a trauma for the entire of Slovakia. Within the foreseeable future, each the private and the political outcomes are unsure.
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