Slovakia’s Uncertain Future After The Assassination Attempt On Fico – Analysis

By Robert Beck

(FPRI) — The recent assassination attempt of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico represents the nadir of a long-developing crisis of societal polarization in the small, Central European nation. As the first European Union (EU) president or prime minister seriously wounded in an act of political violence in over twenty years, Fico is, in many ways, the prime instigator of the toxic political culture in Slovakia that contributed to the shooting. 

Well before Prime Minister Fico was gunned down on May 15, 2024, in the village of Handlová in west-central Slovakia, the witches’ brew of hateful rhetoric demonizing political opponents had become standard fare on the country’s societal stovetop. Furthermore, since retaking power in late 2023, Fico’s policies have evinced vehement resistance from the Slovak opposition who fear their nation is racing toward a Hungary-like illiberal democracy.

How, then, did an otherwise successful post-Cold War democracy in the center of the European continent descend into its current state of dangerous, tribal politics? Equally profound is the question of what the attempt on Fico’s life means for the country’s future. Can Bratislava’s disparate political camps mend fences in the wake of the assassination attempt? 

Deepening Fissures

The logical starting point for an analysis of Slovakia’s current familial dysfunction occurred during Robert Fico’s last stint as the country’s prime minister. In February 2018, investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend, Martina Kusnirova, were found murdered in the town of Veľká Mača in western Slovakia. At the time, Kuciak had been close to completing a story on the activities in the Slovak Republic of Italian organized crime elements with ties to senior members of Fico’s government. 

The brutal extermination of a government critic energized the Slovak opposition, resulting in sustained protests that quickly pressured Fico to resign his prime ministership on March 18, 2018. The following five years saw a succession of leaders in Bratislava—Peter Pellegrini, Igor Matovič, Eduard Heger, and caretaker Ľudovít Ódor, who steered the country on a generally pro-Western, moderate path. 

Fissures deepened in Slovak politics in 2019 with the presidential election of Zuzana Čaputová, a dynamic, liberal lawyer and environmental activist who became the Slavic nation’s first female head of state. At the time, the Czech daily Lidove Noviny, paraphrasing Slovak media, characterized her election as a new culture of decency in politics. Unfortunately, her rise to power unleashed a darker, more venal element on the Slovak right with politicians from both Robert Fico’s Smer party and the populist brethren in the Slovak National Party (Slovenská národná strana/SNS) routinely launching personal attacks on Ms. Čaputová. Some of the criticism bordered on slander with Fico in May 2023, accusing the president of being an “American agent.” 

The verbal assaults on Čaputová, which included death threats against her and her family, played a significant part in her decision in 2023 not to stand for a second term as president. Given her position as the leading figure of Slovakia’s pro-Western political establishment, this was a difficult pill to swallow for those opposed to Robert Fico and his populist tribe. 

Russia-Ukraine War Escalates Partisan Divide

As it did in many of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) frontline states, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 proved to be a turning point—German Chancellor Scholz’s “zeitenwende”—in Slovakia. Contrary to Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states, the war ripped asunder the already frayed fabric of Slovak political discourse, ultimately leading to snap elections in the fall of 2023. 

While the caretaker government of Ľudovít Ódor supported EU and NATO policies in support of Ukraine in the lead-up to those elections, the campaign became, to an extent, a referendum on Bratislava’s position on the conflict. In that vein, Fico and his then-opposition comrades in Smer and SNS missed no opportunity to spread fear—particularly in rural areas—of Slovakia being dragged into the bloody carnage to the east.  

Similarly, Andrej Babiš used the same scare-mongering tactics in the Czech presidential election campaign in early 2023. The Czechs rejected Babiš’s inflammatory rhetoric, electing instead Petr Pavel, a pro-Ukraine former senior NATO official, to the presidency. The anti-war message resonated more strongly in Slovakia, however, leading to Robert Fico’s return to the prime ministership for a third time in October 2023. 

Though in many ways the Czechs and Slovaks are close Slavic brothers, stark differences remain. The western lands of the former Czechoslovakia tend to be more urban, less religious, and heavily influenced by their Teutonic neighbors to the west and south. Conversely, in Slovakia, the populace is more rural, conservative, devout Catholic, and sociopolitically shaped by their Hungarian and Eastern Slavic neighbors. Simply stated, both lands were historically part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The Czechs largely represent the Austro characteristics, and the Slovaks represent the Hungarian customs from that bifurcated realm. 

Thus, the fall 2023 elections significantly exacerbated the yawning chasm in Slovak politics with the democratic opposition, led by Michal Šimečka, feeling betrayed by the unscrupulous disinformation tactics used by Robert Fico and his Smer colleagues to portray them as warmongering, American lackeys. Simultaneously, the new prime minister saw his campaign strategy as a winning hand on which he intended to capitalize. His subsequent policy initiatives since the 2023 parliamentary victory put the country on a steep glide path to internal combustion. 

Fico’s Policy Agenda Pushes Slovak Opposition Over the Edge

Upon returning to power in late 2023, Robert Fico has pursued three main agenda planks that have weaponized the country’s political divide. First, as noted above, the new Slovak leadership has reversed the previous government’s pro-West stance regarding the war in Ukraine. As noted in The Visegrád Four: From Troubled to Broken, the consequences of that reversal have been felt beyond the nation’s borders, with adverse effects in Bratislava’s relations with both Poland and the Czech Republic. Fico’s pro-Russian tilt regarding the Ukraine conflict further exacerbated already tense relations with President Čaputová who pursued an openly pro-Kyiv stance following the outbreak of hostilities.

Domestically, the new regime, stealing a page from Viktor Orban’s ongoing effort to institutionalize “illiberal democracy” in Hungary, has aggressively assaulted the independence of Slovakia’s judiciary and press. Specifically, in February of 2024, the government pushed through judicial reforms that disbanded a special prosecution branch charged with investigating high-level criminal activity, exactly the type of malfeasance that tainted Fico’s last government. Not surprisingly, the reform law spawned widespread demonstrations, with opposition leaders and European officials lambasting the judicial changes as an attempt to protect the prime minister’s political and business associates from investigation.  

In yet another blow to any hope of reconciling the nation’s partisan divide, the Fico government potentially eviscerated the independence of Slovakia’s public radio and television services (RTVS in Slovak), approving a plan in April 2024 to create a new broadcaster, Slovak television and radio (STVR). According to the plan, which was passed by parliament on June 20, 2024, STVR’s director will be controlled by the government, thus calling into question the organization’s autonomy. 

The press drama in Bratislava provoked widespread condemnation both within the country and from the EU. Věra Jourová, the vice president of the European Commission, warned in March of 2024 that the proposed law could mean the “end of independent Slovak public media.” Following parliament’s passage of the program, the current director of RTVS, Ľuboš Machaj, commented that “it was a dark day for the media sector as well as civil society in Slovakia.” 

It is no wonder, therefore, that the fractured society was ripe for an outburst of violence. Tragically, a 71-year-old retiree, ostensibly angered by the government programs described above, made an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Fico.  

The Unsettled Road Ahead

The true mettle of a country is not measured in the tragedies it faces, rather in its capacity to recover from the vicissitudes of national trauma. Initial comments and rhetoric from leading Slovak politicians since the Fico shooting do not engender optimism in the polity’s cohesive future. Slovakia’s Minister of the Interior, Matúš Šutaj Eštok, warned in a press conference following the attempt on Fico’s life that the act was politically motivated and was proof that the country was perched on the edge of civil war.  

Andrej Danko, chair of the Slovak National Party, the far-right coalition partner of Fico’s ruling Smer party, made comments even more inflammatory in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. Danko lashed out at the liberal press, claiming that they were to blame for the country being on the brink of political war. At the same press conference, Peter Žiga, deputy chair of the Slovak Parliament, declared that the attack was “the result of whipped-up emotions and a society divided into two implacable camps.”

In a more positive sign, the outgoing and incoming Slovak presidents, Zuzana Čaputová and Peter Pellegrini made a joint statement soon after the shooting, appealing to all Slovak political parties for peaceful dialogue. Furthermore, Michal Šimečka, the leader of the main Slovak opposition party, Progressive Slovakia, strongly condemned the shooting and rejected accusations that the shooter was a member of the party. 

For his part, Prime Minister Fico sent mixed signals in early June in his first comments on the attempt on his life. While claiming no hatred and forgiving his attacker, he then quickly chastised the opposition, stating that the assailant “was only a messenger of evil and political hatred.” Suffice it to say that he was not exactly “reaching across the aisle” to bury the hatchet. 

Consequently, the small Slavic nation wedged in the interstitial geographic space between the Germanic and Russian worlds remains a land divided, dangerously split into two increasingly antagonistic camps with starkly polarized views of the country’s path forward. Barring a phoenix-like resurgence of mature, collaborative dialogue across the broad spectrum of the nation’s competing political interests, Slovakia risks further fragmentation and violence for the foreseeable future.

• About the author: Robert “Bob” Beck served overseas for nearly 30 years, as a member of the US foreign policy community, in embassies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He has a BA in Soviet and Eastern European Studies from the University of Maryland and an MA in International Relations from Boston University. 
• Source: This article was published by FPRI