2023-10-02 16:28:20
The Slovak President entrusted the formation of the new government to the populist Robert Fico this Monday, October 2, following the victory of his party, Smer-SD in Saturday’s legislative elections. Robert Fico’s party, Smer-SD, obtained 23% of the vote, and beat the centrist party Progressive Slovakia (PS, 18%), during Saturday’s vote. “I understand that the election results are associated with various concerns for many people,” said Zuzana Caputova, herself a former PS official. However, “the task of the head of state is to respect the result of the democratic elections,” she argued.
Slovakia also accused Russia this Monday of “interference” in the legislative elections and summoned a Russian diplomat following statements by the head of Russian foreign intelligence who spoke of Washington’s “interference” in domestic politics Slovak.
During the campaign, Robert Fico, 59, vowed that Slovakia would no longer send “a single bullet of ammunition” to Ukraine and called for better relations with Russia. The former Prime Minister recently declared that “the war in Ukraine began in 2014 when Ukrainian fascists killed civilian victims of Russian nationality”, echoing unproven Russian claims. On Sunday, he estimated that his country of 5.4 million inhabitants had “bigger problems” than aid to Ukraine, while until now Slovakia, a member of the EU and the NATO has been a major European donor to Ukraine, as a proportion of its GDP.
“We believe that Ukraine is a huge tragedy for everyone. If Smer is tasked with forming a cabinet… we will do our best to hold peace talks as soon as possible,” Robert Fico told the press.
People’s choice
This Monday, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba assured that kyiv respected “the choice of the Slovak people”. “But it is too early to say how the result of these elections will affect Slovakia’s position,” he said on the sidelines of a European ministerial meeting in Kiev.
To govern Robert Fico, already Prime Minister in the years 2006-2010 and 2012-2018, will need a coalition to have the majority in Parliament of 150 seats, his party having obtained 42 seats. The left-wing Hlas-SD party, formed around Smer dissidents, is one of the potential partners. Hlas, which won 27 seats, is led by Peter Pellegrini, who became prime minister in 2018 when Robert Fico was forced to resign following national protests after the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée.
Jan Kuciak revealed links between the Italian mafia and Fico’s government in his last article published posthumously. The two parties could team up with the nationalist SNS party which obtained 10 seats, to benefit from a majority of 79 seats. According to the Kremlin, it is “absurd” to describe Mr. Fico’s party as “pro-Russian”. “We are facing a situation where any politician who is inclined to think about the sovereignty of his country, to defend the interests of his country, is considered pro-Russian. This is absurd,” the spokesperson told journalists of the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov.
Rise of disinformation
Analysts say the new government could radically change Slovakia’s foreign policy to bring it closer to that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Viktor Orban himself congratulated Robert Fico on X, formerly Twitter, “for his indisputable victory in the Slovak parliamentary elections”. “It is always good to work with a patriot. I look forward to doing it!” Orban wrote on Sunday.
The Slovak Constitution does not provide a deadline for the formation of a new government. However, the president is required to convene the first session of parliament within 30 days of the publication of the official election results.
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