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Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico appeared in public Friday night for the first time since he was shot almost two months ago, delivering a speech celebrating the country’s Slavic and Christian roots at craggy Devín Castle outside the capital Bratislava.
After railing against progressive ideologies in his 20-minute speech, Fico praised this week’s visits by Viktor Orbán to Kyiv and Moscow, where the Hungarian prime minister met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Orbán’s Moscow visit in particular drew almost universal condemnation from EU leaders, but Fico was not among the critics.
“If my health had permitted it, I would have liked very much to have joined him,” the Slovak premier said.
Fico was shot four times on May 15 by a retired security guard, Juraj Cintula, who said he opposed the policies of Fico’s government, including abolishing the Office of the Special Prosecutor, which handled the gravest corruption offenses, and halting military aid to Ukraine. Fico spent weeks in hospital and is expected to endure long-term health consequences.
Cintula, 71, who was already looking at 25 years for attempted murder if found guilty, now faces life in prison after his charges were upgraded on Wednesday to a terrorist attack.
Security was tight at Friday’s invitation-only event at Devín Castle, attended by government ministers, MPs, ambassadors and other vetted guests. Fico was driven by limousine into the castle courtyard, and received a standing ovation from his audience. His speech was televised to the public and media, who were kept beyond the castle wall. Fico departed the castle immediately after his address.
“The people who were here in the ninth century were our ancestors, and we are their descendants,” Fico said in his speech, referring to two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, Byzantine Christian missionaries who brought the gospel to Great Moravia in 863 A.D., including to Devín and other parts of modern Slovakia. July 5 is a national holiday in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic in honor of the saints.
“We included a reference in our constitution to … Cyril and Methodius,” Fico continued. “Slovakia is supposed to be democratic, sovereign, social and ecological, and although they didn’t write the exact words, it should [also] be normal. And that normalcy is ensured by the spiritual legacy of Cyril and Methodius,” he said.
The prime minister contrasted such cultural conservatism with “senseless” progressive and liberal ideologies, which he claimed “are spreading like cancer and are like poison.” He added that he intended to change the constitution to create an even stronger barrier to liberalism.
Following the speech, opposition leader Michal Šimečka, head of the Progressive Slovakia party, appealed to Fico “to stop insulting hundreds of thousands of Slovak voters who cast their votes in elections for freedom, equality and a better future for our nation.”
Fico, a leftist-populist who is currently in his fourth term as prime minister, was the improbable winner of a general election last fall after resigning following the 2018 murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová. In the interim, he was charged with organized-crime offenses along with his former interior minister, Robert Kaliňák, related to an alleged smear campaign against political opponents. The charges were later dropped.
While Friday night’s speech was Fico’s first time to appear in public since the assassination attempt, he had posted a pre-recorded video message in early June blaming the attack on his political opponents. In that 14-minute speech posted on June 5, Fico said he had forgiven his assailant.
