More than a quarter of a century has passed since the United States called Slovakia, an island of authoritarian malaise surrounded by vibrant emerging democracies, “the black hole in the center of Europe.” Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s insults in 1997 against a country that later joined NATO and the European Union are still heart-wrenching.
But some in the central European country were shocked by last week’s attempt assassinate their prime ministerRobert Fico, and the wild political accusations that followed, IIncludes civil war warningwondering if Ms. Albright was right.
“We are back in a black hole; I’m not sure we can get out of it,” said Roman Kvasnica, a prominent Slovak lawyer who denounced a political culture in which threats and personal insults are commonplace. In his own legal work, he faced numerous threats, including a warning from a tycoon accused of ordering the order that he would be “shot in the head.” In 2018, an investigative journalist investigating government corruption was murdered.
Angry at his country’s divisive struggle to establish the rule of law and resist the temptation of strongman leadership, the lawyer displayed a Vaclav Havel, symbol of democratic idealism, on the wall of his country house in western Slovakia. Mr Havel served as the first president of post-communist Czechoslovakia, which split amicably into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic in 1993.
Kwasnica said Mr. Havel was a former playwright whose works helped bring down the Berlin Wall and who later served as president of the Czech Republic. He drew attention to the path not taken by Slovakia, which ruled for much of the same period.the rule of Vladimir Mechar, An early pioneer of nationalist-tinged populism and a master of fomenting polarization.
Hopes among Slovak politicians of overcoming a vicious feud faded on Sunday after President-elect Peter Pellegrini announced that efforts to bring the opposition to a table to agree on “ground rules for decent political struggle” had failed. He said recent days had shown that “some politicians are simply unable to demonstrate basic self-reflection, even after a tragedy of this magnitude.”
Deputy Prime Minister Peter Kalinak, who runs the government in the absence of the seriously wounded Fico, has added to the unease by backing away from officials’ previous insistence that the gunman was a “lone wolf.”
“The situation seems to be worse,” Kalinak told a news conference in the capital Bratislava on Sunday. He said the new evidence suggested “some form of assistance in concealing clues and that a third person acted in favor of the perpetrators.”
“All of this is shocking and for many of us it would be a lot easier if we could only talk about one person,” he added.
The only person charged so far in the case is a 71-year-old amateur poet, former coal miner, stonemason and supermarket security guard. People who know him in his hometownAn official in Levice, central Slovakia, said the man, whose name is only Juraj C., often wavered between conflicting reasons and was not affiliated with either of the main political camps. A strong connection.
But according to people who know him, he harbors a deep dissatisfaction with the system, which is not uncommon in Slovakia.
Of all the Central and Eastern European countries that emerged from communist rule in 1989, Slovakia has the highest proportion of citizens who believe liberal democracy poses a threat to their identity and values, at 43%, compared with 15% in neighboring Czech Republic .To a A regional poll released this month by Globsec, A research group based in Bratislava. Support for Russia has dropped sharply since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but 27% of Slovaks view it as an important strategic partner, the highest level in the region.
Grigory Meseznikov, director of the Institute of Public Affairs in Bratislava, said this view highlights a profound paradox in Slovakia, which by many standards has transitioned from communism model of success. It has become a manufacturing center for German car manufacturers, developed a vibrant and diverse media environment, and integrated with the European Union as the only country in the region to use a common currency, the euro.
But Messeznikov said many Chinese — especially those living outside the big cities — feel left behind, resentful and “more susceptible than elsewhere to conspiracy theories and threats to liberal democracy.” The impact of the argument.”
The situation is much the same in many other former communist countries, allowing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of neighboring Hungary to establish an increasingly authoritarian system. But Slovak politics is particularly toxic, filled with wild conspiracy theories and bile.
The foundation was laid in the 1990s, when Mechaal formed one of the country’s two main political blocs: a coalition of right-wing nationalists, business cronies and anti-establishment leftists. Messeznikov said all thrived on denouncing centrist and liberal opponents as enemies willing to sell out their national interests to the West.
“Meciar was a pioneer,” he said. “He is the poster child for authoritarian national populism, as is Fico.”
Mr Fico was shot dead on the day parliament was meeting to approve sweeping reforms to public television to remove what his ruling party sees as unfair bias in favor of political rivals, something Mr Mejia sought to silence media critics in the 1990s. A repeat of the effort. .
The legislation is part of a package of measures that the European Commission said in February could cause “irreparable harm” to the rule of law. They include measures to limit corruption investigations and impose Russian-style restrictions on non-governmental organizations that critics have decried. The government opposes military aid to Ukraine and LGBTQ rights, is often at loggerheads with the European Union and, like Orban, supports friendly relations with Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia.
Fico, a fixture in Slovak politics for more than two decades, returned to power last September, and in the run-up to the election he and his allies took an increasingly hostile stance toward the United States and Ukraine while making sympathetic remarks. For Russia.
Their comments were often reminiscent of remarks by Mr Mecial, who in the 1990s refused to accept demands that if Slovakia wanted to join the EU, it had to change its ways and use Russia as another safe haven : “If they don’t want us to join the West, we’ll join the East.”
Dominik Zelinski, a researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, said that despite the current intense political conflict, there is no risk today that Slovakia will once again “become a complete outsider” and leave the EU and NATO.
But, he added, “the framework used by society and its elites to interpret the conflict remains the same: a choice between the Western path and being a bridge between East and West, and a choice between liberal democracy and illiberal autarchic government.”
When Fico first became prime minister in 2006, he was on the left, but needing help forming a stable government he turned to the Slovak National Party, a nationalist group that had earlier aligned with Mecial.
Party leader Andrej Danko, who is now part of Fico’s new coalition government after September’s election, said the attempt on Fico’s life represented “political tensions” between the country’s two countries. The Beginning of the War”. Opposing camps.
The government has responded to accusations by critics of stoking dangerous tensions and hostility towards the media, claiming it started the fight by blaming Mr Fico and his allies for investigating the murder of a journalist in 2018.
“Not only Robert Fico, but all of us have been labeled as murderers,” Deputy Prime Minister Kalinac told a Czech newspaper on Saturday, referring to the case. “If I were to measure it now by the standards they had then, I would say they were murderers.”
Iveta Radikova, a sociologist who campaigned against former Prime Minister Fico, said Slovakia’s plight was part of a wider crisis with roots that went far beyond early missteps under Mecia.
“Many democracies are heading towards black holes,” and countries such as Hungary in the East are heading towards black holes. Dutch The West has succumbed to the appeal of national populism, she said. “This shift is happening everywhere.”
Sara Cincurova and Marek Janiga contributed reporting from Bratislava, Slovakia.
