The pro-Russian populist wins the legislative elections in Slovakia

If a governing coalition were to be formed, Robert Fico would take over the government of the NATO and EU member country for the third time. During the election campaign, he promised to cut aid to Ukraine and protect Putin from an International Criminal Court order. Former Prime Minister Robert Fico’s populist Direction-Social Democracy (Smer-SSD) party has won early legislative elections in Slovakia. Avowedly pro-Russian, he opposes aid to Ukraine during the war.

According to the final results released this Sunday (01/10) by the Slovak Statistics Office, Smer-SSD obtained 23.3%, ahead of progressive liberal Slovakia (17.1%), Vice President of the European Parliament, Michal Simecka.

Given that no party obtained an absolute majority in the national parliament, the country’s future could depend on Voz-Social Democracia (Hlas-SD), which came in third place with 14.9% of the votes.

Its leader is former prime minister Peter Pellegrini, a dissident from Smer-SSD but who shares Simecka’s pro-Ukrainian position. Another potential partner in a governing alliance with Fico is the ultranationalist Slovak National Party (SNS), which won 5.7% of the vote.

Strongly pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine

Robert Fico was already prime minister from 2006 to 2010 and from 2012 to 2018. If he manages to form a coalition and return to power, after a five-year interregnum, he has already pledged to “immediately cease any provision of military aid to Ukraine “.

This would imply a change in the foreign policy of Slovakia, a member of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which has provided substantial aid to Kiev since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.

“The war in Ukraine began in 2014 when Ukrainian fascists killed civilian victims of Russian nationality,” Fico said in a recent video, in a likely reference to the events of May 2 of that year, in the context of the Maidan protests .

The populist also said he would not authorize the detention of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in accordance with the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant, if he ever came to Slovakia.

The messages resonated in a country where, according to a survey by the Globsec institute, only 40% of the 5.4 million inhabitants hold Russia responsible for the war.

“Fico always follows opinion polls, he understands what is happening,” says sociologist Michal Vasecka of the Bratislava Institute of Politics. He defines the 59-year-old jurist by training as “an energetic technician, by far the best in Slovakia, who for the moment has no equal”.

During the election campaign, the central European country was the target of intense disinformation campaigns, with opinion studies showing that half the population is willing to believe fake news.

After the collapse, with a vote of no confidence in December, of the fragile anti-corruption coalition in power since 2020, Slovakia is currently governed by an executive of technocrats, led by banker Ludovit Odor, which currently boasts the highest inflation rate in the ‘EU, 10%.

at (AFP,Reuters,Lusa,DPA)

Source: Terra

Rose

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