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BRATISLAVA — Is Slovakia the new Hungary? Thousands of protesters who descended on the capital’s National Uprising Square this month are certainly worried their country is heading rapidly in an illiberal direction.
“Under [Prime Minister Robert] Fico, we are worried about our European future,” said Sebastian, a 17-year-old IT student holding an EU flag, who gave only his first name.
Over two consecutive evenings, protesters — many of them young — chanted “truth” and “thank you” to representatives of cultural institutions that have borne the brunt of the government’s recent actions.
The demonstrators, who included opposition politicians, journalists and nonprofit employees, came together to protest a government crackdown on the cultural sector as well as other reforms they say will reverse the country’s anti-corruption efforts.
They also worry that under Fico, who campaigned to return to power on a pro-Russia, anti-American platform, their country is next in line to become an illiberal state along the lines of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
The protests were the first since a May assassination attempt on Fico.
The prime minister, who blamed “an activist of the Slovak opposition” for the attempt on his life, was shot at close range with four bullets in Handlova, central Slovakia. The 59-year-old leader sustained life-threatening injuries to his abdomen and underwent multiple surgeries.
Fico said he was targeted because of his refusal to provide military aid to Ukraine and his promotion of “a sovereign and self-confident Slovak foreign policy.”
The Slovak PM made his first public appearance since the attempt on his life in July; protests against his rule have now resumed as well. The crowds on National Uprising Square called him out for his government’s divisive reforms of the judiciary and police institutions — and for taking an ax to the media and cultural sectors.
Thousands also called for the resignation of Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová, a former presenter for internet TV disinformation channel Slovan, who recently dismissed senior figures at the country’s major arts institutions. Šimkovičová has also slashed funding for independent cultural institutions and transformed the country’s national broadcaster, RTVS, into a new entity under political control.
Such crackdowns on the media and the judicial branch are familiar from steps taken by Hungary or Poland in recent years, although Poland has corrected its illiberal course since the election last year of Donald Tusk’s pro-EU government. Similar tendencies can also be seen in Italy, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s media policies, and in Bulgaria with its new anti-LGBTQ+ law.
“This government is trying to detach Slovakia from the free world, they are getting together with countries and politicians which are isolated [like Orbán],” said Ivan Korčok, the pro-West candidate who lost to Fico ally Peter Pellegrini in this year’s presidential election. Korčok was taking selfies with protesters as he spoke to POLITICO.
In the ruling coalition’s most recent crackdown on the cultural sector, the government dismissed National Theater Director Matej Drlička and art historian Alexandra Kusá, who spent 12 years as director of the National Gallery. Kusá said she was not given a reason for her downgrade to the post of curator.
Fico’s Smer (Direction) party says the reason for her demotion was clear.
“Finally somebody has the courage to show those neoliberal clowns who pretend to be artists that the Slovak government is not obliged to support their progressive mafias and instead the government will enact sovereign policies and support real national art,” said Ľuboš Blaha, a member of the European Parliament for Smer.
Change of direction
After surviving the illiberal reign of Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar in the 1990s, Slovakia elected a pro-Western government in 1998, putting itself back on track for NATO and EU membership, which it secured in 2002 and 2004 respectively.
But after eight years of relentless reforms and creeping corruption, the electorate turned in 2006 to Fico, a social democrat. Apart from a short period out of power in 2010-2012, the pragmatic Fico governed the country for 12 years as a mainstream EU leader.
In 2018, however, Fico was driven from office amid the largest protests since the country’s 1993 independence. Demonstrators took to the streets in their tens of thousands to protest the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his partner Martina Kušnírová, and to call on the cabinet to resign. Kuciak had been investigating ties between Fico’s government and Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta mafia.
But after another interregnum featuring another fractious center-right government, Fico returned to power in 2023 on the strength of a pro-Russia, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-EU campaign, topped with a refusal to send weapons to Ukraine.
“There is very little doubt in most European capitals that Fico is pursuing an agenda that is at odds with the EU’s core value of the rule of law,” said Anton Spisak, a Slovak academic at the Centre for European Reform think tank.
In March, Fico ordered the closure of a special prosecutor’s office that had dealt with the country’s most serious corruption and organized crime cases, a number of them involving politicians and business allies connected to Smer.
In recent months, critics have also denounced the government’s controversial revamp of the country’s public broadcaster, Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS), and its replacement with a new body led by political appointees. Since his election victory, Fico has also suspended communication with four independent media outlets, claiming they were not objective.
But even his political opponents draw the line at comparing Fico to Orbán.
When it comes to media independence, Slovakia is “nowhere near Hungary,” argued Michal Šimečka, a former MEP who leads the liberal Progressive Slovakia opposition party, which organized the Aug. 13 protest.
Spisak, the academic, also pointed out some nuances.
“While Fico’s tactics resemble those of Orbán, I think the crucial difference between them lies in their underlying motivations,” Spisak said. “Orbán is interested in an ideological agenda on which his position is built, and for this he finds an enemy in the liberal internationalist order that manifests most clearly in the EU’s institutions. Fico is more interested in revenge and ensuring his future wouldn’t be jeopardized again.”
Since his May assassination attempt, Fico has doubled down on his government’s clampdown, Šimečka said.
“He’s become more aggressive in his rhetoric, [more] divisive.”
