Slovakian Fico is back after being shot. And so are the country’s protesters. – DNyuz

BRATISLAVA — Is Slovakia the new Hungary? Thousands of protesters who descended on the capital’s National Uprising Square this month are certainly worried that their country is rapidly heading in an illiberal direction.

“Under (Prime Minister Robert) Fico we are worried about our European future,” said Sebastian, a 17-year-old IT student holding an EU flag and giving only his first name.

For two consecutive nights, protesters – many of whom were young – chanted “truth” and “thank you” at representatives of cultural institutions that have borne the brunt of the government’s recent actions.

The protesters included opposition politicians, journalists and employees of non-profit organizations, who gathered to protest the government’s tougher measures against the cultural sector and other reforms that they say will reverse the country’s anti-corruption efforts.

They also worry that under Fico, who campaigned for power again on a pro-Russian, anti-American platform, their country is next in line to turn into an illiberal state similar to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.

The protests were the first since the attempted assassination of Fico in May.

The prime minister, who blamed “an activist from the Slovak opposition” for the attempt on his life, was shot at close range with four bullets in Handlova, central Slovakia. The 59-year-old leader suffered life-threatening injuries to his abdomen and underwent multiple surgeries.

Fico said he was targeted for attacks over his refusal to provide military aid to Ukraine and his promotion of “a sovereign and confident Slovak foreign policy.”

The Slovak prime minister made his first public appearance since the July assassination attempt, and protests against his rule have also resumed. The crowd at National Uprising Square called on him to criticize his government’s divisive reforms of the judiciary and police institutions — and its razing of the media and cultural sectors.

Thousands also demanded the resignation of Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová, a former presenter for the Slovan internet TV channel who recently fired top figures at the country’s largest arts institutions. Šimkovičová has also slashed funding for independent cultural institutions and transformed the country’s national broadcaster, RTVS, into a new entity under political control.

Such repressive measures against the media and the judiciary are known from steps taken by Hungary or Poland in recent years, although Poland has corrected its illiberal course since the election of Donald Tusk’s pro-EU government last year. Similar trends can also be seen in Italy, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s media policy, and in Bulgaria with its new anti-LGBTQ+ law.

“This government is trying to separate Slovakia from the free world, they are coming together with countries and politicians who are isolated (like Orbán),” said Ivan Korčok, the pro-Western candidate who lost to Fico ally Peter Pellegrini in this year’s presidential election. Korčok took selfies with protesters as he spoke to POLITICO.

In the ruling coalition’s latest crackdown on the cultural sector, the government dismissed National Theatre director Matej Drlička and art historian Alexandra Kusá, who had been director of the National Gallery for 12 years. Kusá said she was not given a reason for her demotion to the post of curator.

Fico’s Smer Party (Management) says the reason for her demotion was clear.

“Finally someone has the courage to show those neoliberal clowns posing as artists that the Slovak government is not obliged to support their progressive mafias and that instead the government will pursue sovereign policies and support real national art,” said Ľuboš Blaha, MEP for Smer.

Change of direction

After surviving the illiberal government of Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar in the 1990s, Slovakia elected a pro-Western government in 1998, putting the country back on track for NATO and EU membership, which it gained in 2002 and 2004 respectively.

But after eight years of brutal reforms and creeping corruption, the electorate turned to Fico, a social democrat, in 2006. Apart from a brief period out of power in 2010-12, the pragmatic Fico governed the country as the mainstream EU leader for 12 years.

However, in 2018, Fico was removed from office in the largest protests since the country’s independence in 1993. Protesters took to the streets in their tens of thousands to protest the killing of journalist Ján Kuciak and his partner Martina Kušnírová, and to call for the cabinet to resign. Kuciak had been investigating ties between Fico’s government and Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta mafia.

But after a new interregnum with another divided centre-right government, Fico returned to power in 2023 on the back of a pro-Russian, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-EU campaign that also included refusing to send weapons to Ukraine.

“There is little doubt in most European capitals that Fico is pursuing an agenda that runs counter to the EU’s core value of the rule of law,” said Anton Spisak, a Slovak academic at the Centre for European Reform think tank.

In March, Fico ordered the closure of a special prosecutor’s office that was handling the country’s most serious corruption and organized crime cases, some of which involved politicians and business associates with ties to Smer.

In recent months, critics have also condemned the government’s controversial reorganization of the country’s public broadcaster, Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS), and its replacement with a new body headed by political appointees. Since his election victory, Fico has also suspended communications with four independent media outlets, saying they lacked objectivity.

But even his political opponents do not compare Fico to Orbán.

When it comes to media independence, Slovakia is “not even close to Hungary,” argued Michal Šimečka, a former MEP who leads the liberal opposition party Progressive Slovakia, which organised the August 13 protest.

Spisak, the academic, also pointed out some nuances.

“While Fico’s tactics resemble those of Orbán, I think the crucial difference between them lies in their underlying motivations,” Spisak said. “Orbán is interested in an ideological agenda that underpins his position, and for this he finds an enemy in the liberal internationalist order that is most clearly expressed in the EU institutions. Fico is more interested in revenge and ensuring that his future is not jeopardized again.”

Since the assassination attempt in May, Fico has doubled his government’s repression, Šimečka said.

“He has become more aggressive in his rhetoric, more divisive.”

The story Slovakia’s Fico is back after being shot. And so are the country’s protesters. first appeared on Politico.