Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, 59, was shot on Wednesday and is now in intensive care. The perpetrator appears to be a 71-year old writer Juraj Cintula. Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said that he believed the man – now in police custody – was acting alone.
The fallout since the shooting raises some alarming questions about the state of Slovakia as well as the international media response.
Although the current territory of Slovakia has come through an extremely turbulent century since the collapse of the Habsburg Empire it has demonstrated a remarkable ability to settle its internal scores (which the Fico affair appears to be – more on that in a moment), without political assassinations. The last Minister of state to be assassinated was the (Czechoslovakian) Minister of Finance Alois Rašín, in 1923.
Fico had been a polarising figure in Slovakia for many years. The unexplained assassination of two journalists opposed to his agenda in 2018 played a large part in his loss of power that year and continues to haunt his party – despite their strong comeback last year. But this time is different, as Fico vetoed military aid for the Ukraine, public perception of him as an appeaser of Moscow resonates not just with those opposed to him at home, but now the entire political sphere of the West.
Fico, a former Communist Party Member, has avoided the ‘far right’ label – though he is regularly smeared with the ‘populist’ and ‘nationalist’ dismissals for his nationalist and strict immigration agendas. Since Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, however, Fico’s innate suspicions of the West and leanings toward Moscow have cast him as something of a traitor in many Western minds and, since pushing to end the Ukrainian conflict rather than send more arms to Kiev, the lone wolf assassination attempt is not as derided as much, perhaps, as one might expect.
’It’s worth thinking about who this individual is,’ said Sky News military analyst Professor Michael Clarke, as Fico was being rushed to Banská Bystrica hospital riddled with five bullet holes. Clarke – an advisor to several Parliamentary Select Committees, continued that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ‘dig their toes in against aid to Ukraine or against any sort of sympathy with Kiev. That’s very divisive in Slovakia. It’s divisive within the EU, so it’s not surprising that this sort of event might take place.’
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov slammed the attack on Fico as ‘really a great tragedy’ and, as Fico’s condition is carefully monitored (he reportedly has regained consciousness speak few sentences), Slovakia seems unified in shock that this could happen. Should Fico make a full recovery, however, one might expect his movement to gain the advantage not just of near martyrdom, but proof of Western insouciance for a democratically elected leader and a NATO ally.
It might be worth Professor Clarke thinking about what sort of success it would be if Western consensus simply shrugged at lone gunmen settling its scores against divisive political figures
