BUDAPEST, Hungary – When a gunman shot Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico this week, it sparked shock within the central European nation – even because the pro-Russian chief himself warned that the nation was so divided that an assassination try was potential.
Slovaks have lengthy been divided over which path their nation ought to take; ought to it preserve conventional methods and a pleasant relationship with Moscow or undertake liberal values and push ever nearer to the West. However polarization over the nation's future has intensified just lately, fueled by politicians' vitriolic rhetoric.
The nation of 5.four million has been hit by main protests in opposition to Fico's insurance policies since his return to energy in September after he campaigned on a nationalist and Eurosceptic platform.
Slovakia, which joined the European Union and NATO in 2004, was one of many staunchest supporters of neighboring Ukraine when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Fico, in search of nearer ties with Moscow, promised to instantly cease arms assist to Kiev.
This modification fearful many Slovaks who had imagined a future in shut concord with the West and the European Union.
Slovakia was as soon as firmly behind the Iron Curtain as a part of Czechoslovakia. The Velvet Revolution, which started in 1989, ushered in the long run of communist rule, and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia – the Velvet Divorce – quickly adopted, bringing Slovakia independence in 1993.
Grigorij Meseznikov, a political scientist and head of the Institute for Public Affairs suppose tank within the capital Bratislava, mentioned Slovak society has since been divided attributable to financial and social inequalities which have arisen with the nation's transition to a democratic market economic system. Nonetheless, he blamed the rising hostilities lately on the hostile communication methods of Slovak politicians.
“Whereas polarization is a mirrored image of the actual dividing traces in society, confrontation is a perform of politicians, it’s a consequence of political fashion,” Meseznikov mentioned.
Slovakia’s “pro-liberal democratic forces” stand in distinction to Fico’s pro-Russian nationwide populism, which is characterised by “frightening hostility with radical rhetoric and blaming political opponents for it.”
The wave of protests that has swept Slovakia has contradicted a few of Fico's key insurance policies, together with his plan to reform the penal system and take management of Slovakia's public broadcaster.
Final month, the prime minister mentioned on Fb he believed rising tensions within the nation may result in the assassination of politicians and blamed the media for stoking divisions. He referred to as journalists and liberal Slovak politicians “rats.” He described a significant tv community, two nationwide newspapers and a information web site as his enemies and refused to speak with them.
However tensions didn’t start when Fico took workplace.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit Slovakia notably laborious, and plenty of Slovaks rejected vaccinations and lockdowns, resisting the then authorities's efforts to implement them. Fico, a vocal critic of Slovakia's pandemic response, was arrested by police in 2021 for organizing an anti-government rally that was banned underneath lockdown guidelines.
With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, variations intensified once more, pitting pro-Western Slovaks in opposition to those that favor a extra conciliatory stance towards Russia.
Authorities officers have criticized protesters and opposition politicians who communicate out in opposition to Fico's insurance policies, calling them subservient to a supposed Western liberal order led by the EU and america.
Jan Lipnican, a 27-year-old software program developer from Banska Bystrica – the place Fico remained hospitalized after the capturing – mentioned everybody was chargeable for dividing society.
“In Slovakia there may be probably not left or proper. It’s like populists versus progressives,” he mentioned. “Everyone seems to be pointing fingers at one another, they don’t need to work collectively. Everyone seems to be making an attempt to polarize.”
Zuzana Izakova, a Bratislava resident, mentioned Friday that society “should notice that we can not create such a hostile atmosphere and that there needs to be an act of self-reflection on each side.”
Nonetheless, Fico's political allies had been desirous to blame their opponents for the assault.
Inside Minister Matus Sutaj Estok mentioned Thursday that the suspect cited his dissatisfaction with Fico's insurance policies as a motive for the assault and that he just lately took half in an anti-government protest. Estok mentioned the person had been “radicalized” by liberal politicians and he accused the media of inciting a “politically motivated assault.”
“We’re getting ready to civil conflict,” Estok mentioned. “The assassination try on the prime minister is affirmation of this.”
Some Slovak leaders have tried to defuse tensions and keep away from blame. At a information convention on Thursday, outgoing President Zuzana Caputova portrayed the divisions as an issue for which all of the nation's leaders bear accountability.
“As a society, we stay in a time of a lot battle, however please don’t take it to the extent of hate,” she mentioned. “What occurred yesterday was an remoted act. However the tense environment of hatred was our work collectively.”
However others blame Fico's hostile narratives immediately for turning folks in opposition to one another.
“This society is split due to Robert Fico and his Smer occasion, they’ve divided and radicalized society, and I believe that is the results of all this,” mentioned Marian Kulich, a Bratislava resident.
“We live in a Russian data conflict in Slovakia,” Kulich added. “Russian propaganda has affect right here and folks consider the disinformation. Society has been divided for a very long time and this may radicalize it even additional.”
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Related Press reporters Stanislav Hodina in Prague and Bela Szandelszky in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia contributed reporting.