On 26 January, on Liptovský Mikulash, it was empty, as usual in the evening, especially in winter. Even The celebrated bear He hasn't gone out yet. Only under the church of Santa Claus, at the end of the promenade at the marketplace square, a rather large crowd gathered.
– You cannot do everything! – shouted the activist speaking from the grandstand, directing his words to the government of Prime Minister Robert Fica, who was at the head of the left-wing, populist SMER party, was just demolishing the full strategy of changes that was introduced under the slogan “For Fair Slovakia” after assassination of investigative writer Jan Kuciak. You're not gonna get Slovakia back in the corrupt swamp!
The assembled applauded and shouted the same. It seems, however, that cursed, it would seem, for political centuries Fico, who after 4 years with a bang returned to power, can do whatever he wants. He wants, for example, to guarantee himself and his organization colleagues are not liable for the crimes of his erstwhile governments that he is accused of? There you go.
In February, he led the parliament to vote on the amendment of the Criminal Code, which eliminates the so-called. The peculiar Prosecutor's Office, a unit specifically set up to deal with corruption issues among the most crucial politicians in the state, as well as in institutions which are hard to control, specified as police or courts. The peculiar Prosecutor's Office besides dealt with Fica himself, concerning the creation of an organized criminal group at the top of the Slovak authority.
It is worth noting that the lawyer General Maroš Žilinka has dismissed this procedure in circumstances which raise, to be fair, reasonable doubts.
Daniel Lipšic, the erstwhile head of the peculiar Prosecutor's Office, convinced for nothing that the effectiveness of the institution managed by him was over 90%. For nothing, opposition MPs boycotted the vote. The amendment has passed. And it's done in accelerated mode.
Voters will forgive a lot
I ask Tomáš Valášek, erstwhile Slovak ambassador to NATO and erstwhile head of Carnegie Europe, and now Deputy Progressive Slovakia – the largest opposition organization – how can SMER voters be able to accept so apparent and vulgar that politicians supply themselves with impunity. Especially since 1 of the first decisions of the fresh government was raising your own salaries. And that's not a large deal, due to the fact that from 9,000 euro for all minister, 10,000 for the Deputy Prime Minister and even more for the Prime Minister.
Shortly afterwards, in January 2024, Prime Minister Fico bought himself a million euro flat in Bratislava (from a associate of his own party), without being eager to explain how he had paid for these luxuries. In 2021 his firm was robbed In Bratislava, 50,000 euros disappeared. In Fico's films revealed by the press, he says that he did not study it to the police due to the fact that he did not want to explain why he had so much money.
The opposition and its supporters protested against the amendment of the Criminal Code. What about all that SMER voters? – According to the polls, even 70 percent of them do not support this – says Valášek. – But politicians voted change no substance what. The calculation is to do it quickly, at the beginning of the term. The parliamentary election is 3 and a half years away. In six months, everyone will forget. In fact, even now, despite small support for individual decisions, the SMER fell by just 1 or 2 percent points in the polls.
Everyone steals
SMER in the run did not hide what he was going to do, no 1 was surprised. How did he justify his plans? – They repeated that there were violations behind the erstwhile government. That dozens of people were falsely accused without any evidence of guilt. There have been, yes, decisions of the courts that were challenged, but were mainly of a procedural nature. They said the defendants didn't have adequate access to their own lawyers.
A man in Liptovský Mikulas challenged protesters against Fica and, indeed, from a safe distance, shouted that the opponents were “American agents”, and who refused to introduce himself to me, gave a simpler answer.
– all power steals, and Fico at least does not pretend to be modest and does nothing for money," he replied. What he takes, he takes, but the remainder of the money stays in the country. For Slovaks, not for American Jews.
Okay, this is how the eternal problem highlighted by populists, whose name is "all politicians steal", is solved, but how does Fico get – and someway it does – to those 70 percent of voters who disagree with specified setting?
When talking to Valášek, I wonder if the buffer was expected to be a insignificant organization of Voice – the Social Democracy of erstwhile Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, which he founded after a loud disengagement of the SMER from power 4 and a half years ago, after the social shock of the death of corruption tracking corruption at the advanced levels of Kuciak's power and a wave of protests. After the 2023 election, Pellegrini entered, along with the nationalists of the old-time from the Slovak National Party, into a coalition with SMER. He is simply a clear adequate favourite in the March presidential election that it is actually possible to presume his triumph in advance.
“Pellegrini’s support rose compared to the election day 4 months ago, but we [Progressive Slovakia – ed.] besides went up, despite the fact that another opposition parties’ support fell,” Valášek says.
– Is everything Slovakia gained through the anti-corruption movement that initiated the death of Kuciak lost? – I ask. Not everything. After all, sentences have been passed, people are in prison. any of these sentences may be abbreviated, but not revoked. Today, we know much more about what happened during the SMER governments and the corrupt strategy that built this formation. The cases dealt with by the peculiar Prosecutor's Office will now be distributed to another prosecutors. So I would not say that all is lost, but it will surely be harder to bring to justice those who were active in corruption in Fica's time.
Proputinowskie produkty SMER
The European Commission is, of course, afraid about the changes that the Fica government is implementing. She is besides afraid about what many mention to as a pro-Russian phrase in global politics, cultivated by parties forming part of the ruling coalition.
Prime Minister Fico himself claims that Ukraine is "not a full sovereign country", due to the fact that it is "fully dependent on the US", and the origin of the Russian invasion was the "crazy" part of Ukrainians. He besides demands the cessation of Vladimir Putin's "false demonization". Andrej Danko, vice-president of the Slovak Parliament, believes that Russia is not the aggressor, defends only its interests, and that "Russians have come to these areas in the sense that they are helping their nation".
Şuboš Blaha, vice-president of parliament from SMER, and at the same time an alt-left philosopher and lecturer, regularly publishes prokremlian and anti-Ukrainian content on his profile on the Telegram. all decision he tries to make an atmosphere of scandal. In the media, among others, there was that image President Zuzana Čaputova (named by Fic "American agent") in his parliamentary office, he replaced Che Guevara as a portrait, and that he gave an interview to Russian state tv writer Rossija1, in which he supported anti-EU and anti-Ukrainian slogans appearing in protests of Slovak farmers (their communicative mostly coincides with the communicative of the protesters in Poland). In the same interview, he praised the times erstwhile Slovakia could buy ‘the gas from Russia’ alternatively than, as is now, ‘the gas from America’.
Blaha is besides 1 of the people who push populist-left SMER, rather conventional for a transformative central and east Europe kleptocratic organization of power, into a much more sexy, at least in any environments, a frame supporting left (and sometimes and right) alt-left populists. SMER seems to be sympathetic ( judging by social media entries for example) and at least part of the editorial board of the Polish left-wing "New Citizen", although they do not agree with him radically on the war in Ukraine.
Blaha interprets the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in the context of "the fight of the little developed peripheries with the centre utilizing them", but not peculiarly nuances these issues, seemingly not seeing either the difference in the quality and attractiveness of Russian and Western democracy, or the independent choices of countries that are in 1 or another sphere of influence. For example, on 19 March 2024, he thanked the Telegram “representing Slovakia to brave, young people, antifascist peace-loving” who participated in this year’s planet Youth and Student Festival in Sochi, whom “were visited by president Putin and Minister Lavrow” and, for that, he called the members of Progressive Slovakia “hienas”. These young people, Blaha claimed, simply “love Russia, its culture and history”, and only for this reason “are criminals to liberals”, and “Ukrainian flagrants endanger to kill them just due to the fact that they want peace”.
Slavaxitu will not be
Fico himself fraternized with the pro-Russian (or at least a sitting ellipse on the barricade with a strong raised towards the Kremlin) Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, and with the Ukrainian side yes, he met, but with large grace and just beyond the Slovak border, in the interwar 20th century to Czechoslovakia of Uzhhoroda.
Fico, however, is not curious in actively engaging in conflict on the Russian side. He uses anti-Ukrainian rhetoric mainly to have cards he can sacrifice in a dispute with the European Commission, afraid about changes in the regulation of law. If it is calculated politically – let go. Provides humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, agrees to implement civilian projects with Kiev.
Tomáš Valášek, who was a typical of Slovakia on NATO, asked if his country was coming down from the Euro-Atlantic and EU road, until he shuffled. Oh, come on. Yes, they do harm our reputation in the West, but leaving Western structures is not an option, as is the case with Poland under Mr Kaczyński. We're about to have the same experience you've experienced. Fico is besides intelligent to endanger Slovakia's membership of the European Union, due to the fact that the form of the free marketplace that he allows to be part of an alliance is simply a golden goose.
He adds that Poland has a advanced home demand, a turning economy. “That is why you did not have a single 4th of recession during the 2009–2010 crisis. The economical structure of Slovakia is totally dependent on exports and imports. We are a country where quite a few cars are made, another car companies are building factories, and on the horizon there is Volvo investment in an electrical machinery factory. Fico needs a strong economy, for example, so as not to gotta introduce deep reforms that would hit everyone's pockets. It will so keep the "EU minimum" needed to be a country that attracts investment. Leaving the Union would mean scaring investors. Just look at the economical impact of the brexit.
In the country of Central Europe, which inactive has a post-communist and so suspicious opinion, the effects could be even more severe. “That’s why Fico will do what Orbán does: he barks a lot and fights less,” Valášek says. – But besides it harms Slovakia, due to the fact that if, like Hungary or formerly Poland, we are mainly a blocking force, as in the case of the migration pact, then how will another countries of the Union respond when, in view of events in Ukraine and in the US, giant subsidies will appear for the arms manufacture and Slovakia will come to the table asking for a part of cake?
It should be added that the Slovak arms manufacture inactive earns on arms sales for Ukraine. Fico repeatedly emphasized that his country He won't arm Kiev anymore., but (just like a racial liberal) does not head Slovak companies doing so.
However, the anti-Ukrainian communicative in Bratislava has already led to a deterioration in relations with Prague. The Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced that he suspended the yearly intergovernmental consultation. The drop that poured the spell was a gathering of the Slovak abroad Minister Juraj Blanar with the head of the Russian MFA Sergei Lavrow. Fico makes the fickles, passing the blame on the Czechs. According to him, the Slovak government is “talking only about peace” and the pro-Ukrainian Czech government is “interested in supporting the war in Ukraine”.
Uncorrupted left, but there are liberals
Anxiety in Europe besides Ficy's next plan, akin to the 1 that Orbán carried out in Hungary, and in Poland to any degree Kaczyński – is about improvement of public media in the spirit of politicization.
On the opposition side of the Slovak political scene is dominated by the democratic, progressive and pro-Western, but alternatively liberal communicative of Progressive Slovakia.
“We’re getting better and better,” Valášek says. "And given the attendance at our protests, it seems that the trend will continue. We are working well with another opposition parties, i.e. chadeks from the Christian-Democratic Movement and Liberals from the Freedom and Solidarity Party. This undermines the explanation that liberals and conservatives cannot cooperate. We have any differences of opinion, for example, erstwhile it comes to gay marriages, but the regulation of law is invaluable.
Long march before the Slovak Liberals. Before those who dream of the uncorrupt and pro-western left – even longer.
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