Slovenska Banka Bystraica — Robert Fico, the populist prime minister of Slovakia, was shot several times on Wednesday and is critically injured, but his deputy prime minister expressed optimism that Fico will make a full recovery.
Weeks before an election, the attempted assassination shocked the small nation and sent shockwaves across Europe while the prime minister was addressing supporters at an event.
Tomas Taraba told the BBC, “I guess in the end he will survive,” and that he wasn’t in any danger of dying right now.
Defense Minister Robert Kalina told reporters at the hospital where pro-Russian leader Fico, 59, was receiving treatment that doctors battled for his life for several hours after the man’s abdomen was struck.
About 85 miles northeast of the capital, in the town of Handlova, five shots were fired outside a cultural center, according to government officials. The 16,000-person town that was once a coal mining hub saw Fico shot during a government meeting.
Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok and the defense minister briefed reporters on the assassination attempt. They stated that a suspect was in custody and that an initial investigation had revealed “a clear political motivation” behind it.
Fico has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond, but his return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American message led to even greater worries among fellow European Union members that he would lead his country further from the Western mainstream.
His government stopped arms transfers to Ukraine as he began his fourth term as prime minister, and opponents fear he will steer NATO member Slovakia, a country of 5.4 million people, away from its pro-Western path and toward the path taken by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
Thousands have frequently gathered to oppose Fico’s policies in Slovakia’s capital and other cities.
Fico was taken to a hospital in Banská Bystrica, 17 miles from Handlova, according to a message shared on his Facebook page. The reason for this was that getting to the capital, Bratislava, would take too long.
The attack occurs three weeks before elections to elect members of the European Parliament are held throughout the continent. There is growing concern that nationalists and populists like Fico may gain ground within the 27-member bloc.
However, politics as usual took a backseat as the country dealt with the shock of Fico’s assassination attempt.
Fico’s political rival, outgoing President Zuzana Caputova, stated on television that “a physical attack on the prime minister is, first of all, an attack on a person, but it is also an attack on democracy.” “Violence of any kind is not acceptable. Hateful acts follow the hateful rhetoric we have been exposed to in society. Let’s put an end to it, please.
Fico’s ally and incoming president Peter Pellegrini described the shooting as “an unprecedented threat to Slovak democracy.” We are endangering everything we have worked so hard to create over the course of 31 years of Slovak sovereignty if we carry pistols in public squares instead of polling places to voice our differing political opinions.
Deep social divisions have been highlighted by the recent elections that propelled Fico and his allies to power; these divisions have been made worse by the conflict in Ukraine, Slovakia’s eastern neighbor.
Fico’s return to power, according to political journalist Gábor Czímer of the Slovakian news site Ujszo.com, has revealed indications that “Slovak society is strongly split into two camps” — one that is friendly toward Russia and another that seeks closer ties with the EU and the West.
“However, I couldn’t have imagined that it would result in physical violence,” Czímer added.
The Slovak interior minister, Estok, told reporters outside the hospital that the political unrest had left the nation “on the verge of a civil war.”
“Please, let’s stop this immediately. Such hateful comments are being made on social networks today,” he said.
The assassination attempt alarmed US President Joe Biden, he said. “We denounce this horrifying act of aggression,” he declared in a press release.
The attempt on Fico’s life left NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg “shocked and appalled,” as he wrote on the social media site X. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, referred to it as a “vile attack.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, condemned the violence directed against the head of state of a neighboring nation.
In any nation, form, or arena, “every effort should be made to ensure that violence does not become the norm,” he declared.
The Parliament of Slovakia was suspended indefinitely. A planned protest against a contentious government plan to restructure public broadcasting—which they claim would give the government complete control over public radio and television—was called off by the two main opposition parties, Progressive Slovakia and Freedom and Solidarity.
Politicians are urged “to refrain from any expressions and steps which could contribute to further increasing the tension,” according to Michal Simecka, the leader of Progressive Slovakia.
Premier Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic wished the premier a speedy recovery. “There is no place for violence in society; we cannot tolerate it.”
Up until 1992, Czechoslovakia was made up of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
