2024-04-17 02:09:25
This was discussed on the Žiniai radio show “Gyvenu Europė” with the deputy chairman of the European Affairs Committee of the Seimas, conservative Audronis Ažubalis and the founder of the investigative journalism center “Siena” Šarūnas Černiauskas.
Skeptical of Ukraine, pro-Russian – such epithets can be heard about the new president of Slovakia. Mr. Ažubali, what does this tell us about the mood in Slovakia and would you say that this election for Bratislava was a choice between East and West?
– Probably nothing surprising – pro-Russian sentiment has existed in Slovakia for a long time, it has not disappeared anywhere since the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire(…). On the other hand, being in the Warsaw Pact, on the red side, also had a certain influence (…). I wouldn’t call it completely pro-Russian, I would call it a cynical choice – exploiting the voters, their sympathies, speaking obvious nonsense. The motto of this president-elect was – we will work together and be friends with both the East and the West. This is completely absurd, because it is time for Europe to make a choice: it cannot be on the same side with the aggressor and with the democratic Western world at the same time. But the nation usually likes such things – “here is a man who does not want war, wants peace, does not want to involve us in war” – after all, this war card was widely used and quite successful, even by falsifying photos of Ukrainians and “dressing” them in Slovak military uniforms. So the threat and fear of war was used in full force.
Although the pro-Western candidate who lost the election, I. Korčok, has repeatedly said that it is not even the president in Slovakia who decides whether the country goes to war – that is done by the government with the parliamentary majority.
Mr. Černiauskas, you are sure that after seeing what Slovak Prime Minister Roberto Fico is eviscerated – now we will see even worse things, if the candidate he supported won the presidential election. Why?
– Although the president does not have any magical powers in Slovakia, now we have all the political power concentrated in one hand – de facto it is Robert Fico. We are in contact with our colleagues in Slovakia, with aa, the Jan Kuciak Center of Bright Memory – our colleagues are sincerely worried, because now it is their turn, now there will be repression. We are really intensively communicating with them and now the mood is such that for some time the new Slovak government may seem quite flexible in the European context, there will be no such malicious sabotage of things as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is doing – but only for a short period. Because they need to clean up domestically – and the media will be one of the first, if not the first, targets. Because R. Fico was previously out of power because of the media – because of Jan Kuciak’s murder. Journalists revealed his connections with the mafia, all the affairs of the oligarch Mariano Kočneri, who actually controlled the state – and this was a huge blow to R. Fico. And he knows – free speech can torpedo him again, in the same way, from the prime minister’s chair. As a result, the predictions are now that there will be a copy of the law on foreign agents and other repressions (…).
(…) Mr. Cherniauskas, are the European Union and its sympathizers the most disappointed by these results, while V. Putin is the most happy?
– Well, there were probably many shouts of joy in Moscow when the results of the second round were announced. Because after the first round, it still seemed that maybe the people of Slovakia woke up – because it is not clear where they slept when they voted for R. Fico again, whom they themselves removed from the post of prime minister. But the second round showed that those sympathies are what they are. Yes – this is really good news for Russia, really bad news for the European Union, but at the same time it is a very serious alarm signal for all of us. Because such movements – let’s look at the rhetoric of certain politicians and in Lithuania – are copy-paste the same thing – “we will bring peace”, “we will be friends with everyone” – and even more than one presidential candidate says this (…). In fact, this is a very, very serious alarm and the same voters, I believe, should listen very carefully to what the candidates say about relations with Russia and Belarus. If the candidate says that “we will be friends with everyone” – it is not, you know – the candidate is friends with only one. And that should be understood when making a decision at the ballot box.
2024-04-17 02:09:25