Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was left in a life-threatening condition after being shot by an assailant on Wednesday.
The 59-year-old took power for the fourth time last October. At that time, he pivoted the country’s foreign policy toward more pro-Russian views and promised to stop military support for Ukraine.
He has also initiated criminal law and media reforms, which have raised concerns about the weakening of the rule of law.
Over a three-decade career, Fico has deftly intertwined pro-European and anti-Brussels, anti-American nationalist positions.
He has done so while showing a willingness to change course depending on public opinion or changing political realities, but not without controversy.
In 2022, he was charged with organized crime offenses and faced interrogations after an investigative journalist, who was working on a story about the activities of the Italian mafia in his country and its links with people close to Fico, was murdered. shot in 2018.
The murders of Ján Kuciak, 28, and his fiancée Martina Kušnirová brought down Fico’s government at the time. However, the 2022 racketeering charges were later dropped and he was re-elected in 2023.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was left in a life-threatening condition after being shot by an unidentified assailant on Wednesday.
In addition to his current term as prime minister, Fico also led the government in 2006-10 and 2012-18, but has adopted more extreme positions in the last four years.
These include strident criticism of Western allies, promises to suspend military support for kyiv, opposition to sanctions on Russia, and threats to veto any future Ukrainian invitation to NATO.
Ruffling feathers in the UK, he also once said Britain must “suffer” from Brexit.
His coalition stopped official Slovak arms shipments to Ukraine and has spoken of what it called Western influence in the war, which only led to Slavic nations killing each other.
Fico has stood firm throughout his career, however, with promises to protect the living standards of those left behind in a country where conditions for many are only slowly catching up to those of Western Europe.
Many of his followers have relatively good memories of the communist era past.
‘Fico is a power technician, by far the best in Slovakia. At the moment he has no interlocutor,” said sociologist Michal Vasecka of the Bratislava Political Institute.
“Fico is always aware of opinion polls and understands what is happening” in society.
His campaign call of “Not a single round” for Ukraine appealed to voters in the nation of 5.5 million people, where only a minority in the NATO member country believes Russia is to blame for the Ukraine war. , started by Vladimir Putin in 2022.
Fico, whom analysts see as inspired by Hungarian Viktor Orban, has said he cares about Slovak interests and wants the war to end.
Robert Fico (center of photo) being carried by security officers to a car after being shot in Handlova, northeast of Bratislava, following a Slovak government meeting.
Security officers carry Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico into a car after a shooting, following a meeting of the Slovak government in Handlova, Slovakia, on May 15, 2024.
Police arrest a man after Fico was shot and wounded following the cabinet session outside his home in the town of Handlova, Slovakia, Wednesday, May 15, 2024.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is transported from a helicopter by doctors to the hospital in Banska Bystrica, where he will be treated after being shot “multiple times.”
Western allies and Ukraine say suspending military aid to kyiv would only help Russia.
“We see Viktor Orban as one of those European politicians who are not afraid to openly defend the interests of Hungary and the Hungarian people,” Fico told Reuters in emailed responses last year.
‘He puts them first. And that should be the role of an elected politician: to look after the interests of his voters and his country.’
Born into a working-class family, Fico graduated in law in 1986 and joined the then-ruling Communist Party.
After the fall of the communist regime in 1989, he worked as a government lawyer, won a seat in parliament under the new name of the Communist Party, and represented Slovakia before the European Court of Human Rights.
Fico has led the SMER-Social Democracy party since 1999, after founding it to oppose the center-right reformist cabinet.
He took advantage of dissatisfaction with liberal economic reforms to achieve his first electoral victory in 2006.
But he also kept the nation on track to adopt the euro in 2009 despite forming a government with nationalists.
His second cabinet won after another center-right coalition dissolved two years later, and a tough stance against immigrants helped him win re-election in 2016.
After that victory, he declared that he wanted Slovakia as part of the EU core with France and Germany.
Fico’s political fortunes faded in 2018 when journalist Jan Kuciak, who was investigating high-level corruption, and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova were murdered by a hitman.
This fueled massive anti-corruption protests and Fico was forced to resign. SMER lost power in the 2020 elections to parties that pledged to eliminate corruption, and its party split.
Fico arrives at a cabinet session outside his home in the town of Handlova, Slovakia, on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, hours before he was shot.
Polling below 10%, Fico once attempted to address voters’ fears during the coronavirus pandemic when he criticized the government’s health measures.
“He became the most prominent political representative of a movement against masks and vaccination,” said political analyst Grigorij Meseznikov.
At the same time, he took advantage of dissatisfaction over disputes in the ruling government and raised doubts about its pro-Western course, sounding pro-Russian narratives on social media that had spread throughout Slovakia.
Fico also rejected accusations of corruption that have dogged his party throughout his political career. He was charged with criminal conspiracy in 2022 to use police and prosecutor information on political enemies, charges he denied and which were later dropped.
The Prime Minister is now reportedly fighting for his life after being shot in the stomach and arm by a “71-year-old killer”.
The police officers threw the attacker to the ground as he tried to flee.
Fico was shot in Handlova, northeast of Bratislava, after a Slovak government meeting while greeting adoring crowds.
The shooting took place in front of the House of Culture, before a man, who according to news site Pluska is Juraj C, was quickly attacked and detained by security officers. Meanwhile, Fico was rushed by his detachment to receive medical attention.
A witness told the Slovak news site Dennik that Fico had left the building to greet people who had gathered to see him before “several shots were fired.”
Heartbreaking images of the near-fatal scenes show the prime minister falling to the ground as his security team rushed to collect his body.
They then shoved him into the back of a car, which sped away from the scene.
Slovak television showed images of a middle-aged man in jeans handcuffed on the ground. Separate footage from public television RTVS showed a person on a stretcher being removed from a helicopter and taken to a hospital.
Slovakia’s outgoing president, Zuzana Caputova, told reporters that “the police have detained the attacker.”
“I am shocked, we are all shocked by the terrible and atrocious attack,” she added.
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico arrives before the start of a summit of EU leaders at the European Council building in Brussels on October 26, 2023 (file photo)
“Today, after the government meeting in Handlova, there was an assassination attempt” against Fico, the government said in a social media post.
“He is currently being transported by helicopter to Banska Bystrica in life-threatening conditions, because it would take too long to reach Bratislava due to the need for urgent intervention,” the government statement added.
The director of the local Handlova hospital, Marta Eckhardtova, said: “Fico was brought to our hospital and treated in our vascular surgery clinic.”
She could not describe her injuries.