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The author is an associate research fellow at the Centre for European Reform.
“A small country is one whose very existence is always in doubt,” Milan Kundera wrote after Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia in 1968. The recent shooting death of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico highlighted this vulnerability in this Central European country of 5.4 million. But the greatest threat to Slovakia today comes from within: the polarization of its society.
The assassination attempt on Fico is unprecedented in Slovakia, but it follows a series of high-profile incidents. In 2018, the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancé sparked the largest protests since the 1989 Velvet Revolution, and more recently a homophobic attack in Bratislava left two young people dead. Slovakia's outgoing president, Zuzana Čaputová, chose not to seek re-election last year, in part due to death threats against herself and her family.
Fitcho became prime minister in 2006 on a left-wing platform but was soon embroiled in a corruption scandal. After he stepped down in 2018, several of his closest aides faced criminal indictments. Last September, Fitcho made a comeback by tapping into public sentiment to win parliamentary elections.
His administration has not shied away from controversy. In just six months, it has abolished the special prosecutor's office tasked with investigating high-profile corruption cases, softened penalties for white-collar crimes, and distanced itself from the Western foreign policy consensus on Ukraine and China. Still, political dissent must be tolerated in a democratic society. Political violence in any form should not be tolerated.
The Fico attack should prompt reflection on what has brought Slovakia to this point. Slovakia has long been divided between liberal-minded, pro-Western urban voters and older, poorer rural Slovaks nostalgic for the pre-1989 era, and Slovak politicians have long exploited this rift. Recent elections have turned from a battle of political ideologies into a clash of values and worldviews: a desire to align with Western political positions on the one hand, and disillusionment with post-1989 trends and the cultural situation in Central and Eastern Europe on the other.
What bodes ill for reconciliation are the developments that followed the attack. Calls for calm from Prime Minister Čaputová and her successor, Peter Pellegrini, brought about a brief period of unity. But ultranationalists in the ruling coalition blamed the attack on a “witch hunt” against Fico by the liberal opposition and the media. The government, too, does not seem to be shying away from pressing ahead with its policies. Since the attack, it has passed a law putting the arts council under political control and pressed ahead with plans to dismantle the state broadcaster, all while ignoring the country's most serious challenges. Slovakia faces the euro zone's biggest deficit this year, and new EU fiscal rules mean its dire finances require cuts of 1.5% of GDP.
This leaves the opposition facing the near-impossible task of challenging government policies without becoming embroiled in a destructive blame game. The EU also faces a difficult choice: the European Commission, which previously warned Fico about the consequences of his government's actions, must decide whether to freeze €3.7 billion from the EU's post-pandemic recovery fund. Suspending these funds now might strengthen Fico's nationalist appeal, but ignoring his transgressions would hand a helping hand to nationalist populists elsewhere in Europe.
What Slovakia, a small country plagued by major internal conflicts, needs now is political leadership that will restore decency in its public life. Rejecting political violence was a necessary first step. But Slovaks across the political spectrum must also recognize that this attack is no excuse to suppress legitimate criticism of government policies. How Slovakia navigates this delicate balance will be a test of its strength as a nation.
