The president of the national-populist party Smer-SD and winner of the legislative elections, Robert Fico, announced on Wednesday October 11 an agreement with the far-right parties SNS and left-wing parties HLAS-SD on the creation of a future coalition . “We have agreed to form a government together,” he told the press, adding: “This is the basis of the coalition agreement, which we want to conclude as soon as possible. »
On Monday October 2, Slovak President Zuzana Caputova entrusted the formation of the new government to the populist candidate, opposed to military aid to Ukraine and considered pro-Russian. Smer-SD came first with almost 23% of the vote, ahead of the centrist Progresivne slovensko (PS) party, which received 18% of the vote.
Aged 59, Robert Fico ran his entire campaign promising to align Slovakia’s foreign policy with that of its Hungarian neighbor. His program speaks of “rejecting military aid to Ukraine” because it “only prolongs the conflict”, of opposing “sanctions which hurt Europe more than Russia” or to “normalize relations” with Moscow. Robert Fico assures that he wants his country to remain a member of the European Union and NATO, but his return to power – he held the post of prime minister twice between 2006 and 2018 – will put an end to the policy of the outgoing pro-Western government, which went so far as to give the Slovak army’s Mig-29s to Ukraine.
A campaign marked “fake news”
During his post-election press conference on Sunday October 1, Robert Fico estimated that his country of 5.4 million inhabitants had “more important problems” than aid to Ukraine. “We believe that Ukraine is a huge tragedy for everyone. If Smer is tasked with forming a cabinet…we will do our best to hold peace talks as soon as possible,” he said.
According to the Kremlin, it is “absurd” to characterize Smer-SD as “pro-Russian.” “We are facing a situation where any politician who is inclined to think about the sovereignty of his country, to defend the interests of his country, is considered pro-Russian. This is absurd,” said Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
This campaign was also marked by sometimes violent provocations from the Fico camp – one of the Smer-SD vice-presidents went so far as to hit an opponent – ??and by “fake news” widely spread on social networks. Robert Fico’s main lieutenant, Lubos Blaha, banned from Facebook for spreading lies during the Covid-19 epidemic, continued to spread pro-Russian messages on other social networks or with other Facebook accounts. The European Commissioner responsible for transparency, the Czech Vera Jourova, also noted that the campaign had been the subject of “unprecedented messages of disinformation”, with “a high level of flooding of the information space from the far right, but also from pro-Kremlin sources”.
Sudden and massive arrival of migrants
The campaign was notably marked by the unprecedented use of deep fake against the liberal camp, with the dissemination of false discussions generated by artificial intelligence to discredit its candidate. In addition to spreading anti-Western messages, these accounts often display narratives opposed to LGBT or migrant rights, two subjects extensively discussed by Robert Fico.
The latter was furthermore served by another disturbing element reminiscent of the worst Russian destabilization campaigns: the sudden arrival of tens of thousands of migrants on Slovak territory, just a few weeks before the election. While the migrants, the vast majority Syrian, were previously seeking, after crossing Hungarian territory, to reach Germany from Austria, they suddenly took a different path, since the end of August, passing through Slovakia. The authorities have never really managed to explain this change in migration route, but several pro-European Slovak politicians have accused the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, of having sought to influence the elections in this way, something Budapest has defended.
Robert Fico was forced to resign as prime minister in 2018 after nationwide protests following the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova. Jan Kuciak revealed links between the Italian Mafia and the Fico government in his last article published posthumously.