Three-times Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was engaging with his supporters in front of the local House of Culture (Dom kultúry), at the former coal-mining town of Handlová in central Slovakia on 15 May 2024, when he was shot five times at close range by a man who was detained on the spot and later identified as Juraj Cintula. Mr. Fico was initially treated at a local hospital before being flown by helicopter to the regional capital of Banská Bystrica. He then underwent a five-hour-long operation at the F.D. Roosevelt University Hospital, followed by a second operation two days later, and is now recovering from his ordeal. This was the first attempt to assassinate a European political leader in twenty-one years, following the murders of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, in March 2003 and September 2003 respectively. The assassin’s actions were widely condemned by world leaders from across the political divide. Mr. Fico’s assailant, a 71-year-old amateur poet and former security guard at a shopping centre in the western Slovakian town of Levice, was initially considered a “lone wolf”, not affiliated to any particular political party. However, on 18 May, the government announced that a “third party” might have been involved in the assassination attempt.
Following the attempt on Fico’s life, Slovak lawmakers voted unanimously on 20 May 2024 to condemn politically motivated violence. They approved Resolution 295 of the National Council of the Republic of Slovakia (Narodna rada Slovenskej republiky), calling on political parties, civic organisations, and the media to support the country’s democratically elected government.
Robert Fico, leader of the left-wing nationalist Smer (Direction)-sociálna demokracia (SD) party, formed a coalition government after the parliamentary elections on 30 September 2023, having won 42 of the 150 seats in the National Council of the Republic of Slovakia He then entered into a partnership with the centre-left Hlas (Voice)-SD party and the right-wing Slovak Nationalist Party (SNS, Slovenská národná strana). The incumbent populist Prime Minister can be considered a nationalist, Eurosceptic, and pro-Russian politician, with strongly held views on such matters as gender identity and LGTBQ+ rights, coupled with a distrust of the liberal media. Fico founded Smer-SD in 1999, and previously served as Prime Minister between 2006 and 2010 and from 2012 to 2018. Hlas-SD party leader Peter Pellegrini subsequently won the April 2024 presidential elections, and will take over this June from President Zuzana Čaputová, a liberal and pro-Western member of the Progressive Slovakia (Progresívne Slovensko) party.
Fico had previously resigned as Prime Minister in March 2018, in the aftermath of mass street protests in Bratislava following the murders on 21 February of Ján Kuciak, an investigative journalist with the online news outlet actuality.sk, and his archaeologist fiancée Martina Kušnírová. At the time of his untimely death, Kuciak was investigating the involvement of the Ndrangheta, a Calabrian organised crime syndicate, in the affairs of eastern Slovakia.
The Slovak Republic is a relatively inconspicuous sovereign state in central Europe, with a population of just around 5.4 million. It is the direct result of the amicable “Velvet Divorce” in Czechoslovakia, which took effect from 1 January 1993 and simultaneously created the Czech Republic. Demands for Slovak independence were driven by the newly-formed Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS, Hnuti za demokratické
Slovensko), led by Vladimir Mečiar, a populist politician who was to become the first Prime Minister of an independent Slovakia. The Declaration of Independence of the Slovak Nation had been adopted by the Slovak National Council in July 1992. The decision to dissolve the federal republic of Czechoslovakia was then taken jointly by the Czechs and Slovaks in October 1992 and approved by the Federal Czechoslovak Assembly on 11 November. Czechoslovakia had first become an independent entity on 28 October 1918, only to be split up during the Second World War, when the First Slovak Republic was a client state of Nazi Germany, under the leadership of a Catholic priest, Monsignor Jozef Tiso. As hostilities were ceasing, Czechoslovakia was once again reunified in April 1945.
The Czechs and Slovaks are both Western Slavs and speak mutually comprehensible Slavic languages, albeit with some differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. Despite this shared heritage and a history of peaceful coexistence, the Czechs and Slovaks are ethnically and culturally different. Slovakia is a predominantly Catholic and socially conservative country, while Czechia is a secular nation with a high proportion of non-believers. The Slovaks, within the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Czechs of Bohemia and Moravia have also embarked on separate historical journeys. The Czechs thus developed cultural affinities with the Germans and the Austrians, while the Slovaks became closer to the Hungarians and the Poles. Slovak independence was ultimately a consequence of economic and political inequalities in a Czech-dominated federation. Separate development appears to have paid dividends, with Slovakia ranked among the fastest growing OECD economies, although more recently economic growth has slowed down and inflation risen, partly because of the COVID pandemic and the energy crisis.
Multiple media reports, as well as Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok’s fears of “civil war”, all confirm the intensity of political polarisation in Slovakia. Although the Slovak Republic joined the EU and NATO in 2004, and despite its early support for Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, there is considerable pro-Russian sentiment in the country, especially in rural communities and among older Slovaks. While the precise reasons behind the attempted assassination of Fico have yet to be determined, ongoing differences between pro-Western and pro-Russian Slovaks, fuelled by an ongoing culture war, seem likely to dominate the political landscape in Slovakia for the time being. But as often demonstrated in the past and across the world, mutual respect and measured dialogue remain the best ways to overcome hostile rhetoric and politically motivated violence.
Ashis Banerjee