Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister of Slovakia Robert Kalinak, speaks during a media briefing together with hospital director Miriam Lapunikova (left), outside the F. D. Roosevelt University Hospital.
| Photo Credit: AP

“Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico is in a stable but serious condition on May 15, after being shot multiple times in an assassination attempt a day earlier,” a hospital official said.

Doctors are continuing to treat Mr. Fico in an attempt to improve his condition, Defence Minister Robert Kalinak told reporters outside the hospital in Banska Bystrica.

Also Read: ‘Cowardly and dastardly act’: PM Modi condemns attack on Slovak PM Fico

The government says five shots were fired at Mr. Fico on May 15 outside a cultural centre where he was meeting with supporters.

“A suspect was in custody and an initial investigation found “a clear political motivation” behind the assassination attempt,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said on Wednesday.

Mr. 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.

New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday condemned the attack on Slovakia’s PM Robert Fico, calling it a “cowardly and dastardly act”.

The Slovakian Prime Minister was critically injured in an assassination attempt on Wednesday.

Expressing shock over the attack, PM Modi posted on his X handle, “Deeply shocked at the news of the shooting at Slovakia’s Prime Minister, H.E. Mr. Robert Fico. I strongly condemn this cowardly and dastardly act and wish PM Fico a speedy recovery. India stands in solidarity with the people of the Slovak Republic.”

According to local media, the Slovak Prime Minister is no longer in a life-threatening condition after surgery.

The attack has been classified as a politically motivated assassination attempt, according to Slovak Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok.

Estok said that the assassination attempt was “politically motivated and the decision was born right after the presidential election”. He blamed “social media hate” for the attack.

Fico was wounded Wednesday afternoon after attending a government meeting in the town of Handlova, some 150 km northeast of the capital. He was shot by a 71-year-old man. According to eyewitnesses, the man shot the premier several times as he was greeting supporters.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Following the shooting of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, AFP looks at five other political leaders around the world targeted in armed attacks in recent years:

Shinzo Abe: Assassinated

In a drama that sent shock waves through a country with low gun crime, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who had resigned from his position in 2020 but remained a key political voice, was campaigning for his ruling party when a lone gunman killed him on July 8, 2022.

Abe’s accused killer targeted the former leader believing he had ties to the Unification Church, which he resented over massive donations his mother had made to the sect.

Jovenel Moise: Assassinated

Haitian president Jovenel Moise was shot dead in the middle of the night on July 7, 2021 in his private residence in Port-au-Prince by a band of 28 mercenaries.

His wife Martine was also shot but survived.

His death plunged an already lawless, gang-plagued Haiti deeper into turmoil.

Most of his attackers were former Colombian soldiers.

A US investigation revealed that two men at the head of a Miami security firm had devised a plan to kidnap Moise and replace him with a Haitian-American citizen.

Imran Khan: Attempted Assassination

On November 3, 2022, former Pakistani prime minister and ex-cricket superstar Imran Khan was hit by a spray of gunfire as his open-top truck made its way through a crowded street in the eastern city of Wazirabad. 

Khan, who had been ousted from power earlier that year after losing the support of the military, had been campaigning for a snap election.

The government said the assassination bid was the work of a lone wolf attacker, with police leaking a “confession” video by the junk-shop owner saying he acted because Khan’s rally had interrupted the Muslim call to prayer.

Cristina Kirchner: Attempted Assassination

On September 1, 2022, a man tried to shoot Argentina’s vice president Cristina Kirchner at point-blank range while she greeted supporters gathered outside her home in Buenos Aires — but the weapon failed to fire. 

Kirchner, a centre-left president from 2007 to 2015 who is an extremely polarising figure in Argentina, was at the time fighting corruption charges that had bitterly divided the nation between supporters and opponents of her Peronism movement.

Her attacker, a Brazilian man who grew up in Argentina, was seen on social media bearing tattoos associated with Nazi symbolism.

Jair Bolsonaro: Attempted Assassination

On September 6, 2018 Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro was stabbed in the abdomen on the campaign trail by an attacker later deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.

Former army captain Bolsonaro, dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics”, underwent abdominal surgery in the wake of the attack and went on to win the election.

He served a single term before losing his re-election bid to veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Left to right: The chairman of the “Voice” party Peter Pellegrini, the Chairman of the Smer party Robert Fico and the chairman of the Slovak National Party Andrej Danko before signing an understanding to form a coalition government in Slovakia, on October 11, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

A former Prime Minister of Slovakia, who plans to end the country’s military support for Ukraine, is poised to return to office after his political party signed a deal on October 11 with two other parties to form a coalition government.

The leftist Smer, or Direction, party captured 22.9% of the vote in Slovakia’s September 30 parliamentary election. The party’s leader, populist former Prime Minister Robert Fico, needed to find coalition partners to rule with a majority in the country’s 150-seat Parliament.

The memorandum signed on October 11 provides for a coalition of Smer, which holds 42 seats; the left-wing Hlas, or Voice, party, which placed third in the election and has 27 seats; and the ultra-nationalist and pro-Russia Slovak National Party, which has 10 lawmakers in the new parliament.

Mr. Fico’s former deputy in Smer, Peter Pellegrini, is the leader of Hlas. Mr. Pellegrini parted ways with Fico after the scandal-tainted Smer lost the previous election in 2020. Their reunion was a key to Mr. Fico’s ability to form a government.

It was not immediately clear when President Zuzana Caputova might swear in the new government. Mr. Fico said he hoped to represent Slovakia at the next summit of the leaders of European Union member nations, which is scheduled for late October.

As part of the coalition deal, Smer will get to appoint the Prime Minister and six other Ministers, opening the way for Mr. Fico to serve as Slovakia’s head of government for the fourth time.

Hlas will get to name the Parliament Speaker and seven Cabinet Ministers, and the Slovak National Party three Ministers.

The deal struck by the three groups means that the Progressive Slovakia party, a liberal, pro-Western newcomer that took second place in the election with 18% of the vote, will end up in the opposition. The party holds 32 seats in Parliament.

Mr. Fico campaigned on a pro-Russian and anti-American message. He has vowed to withdraw Slovakia’s military support for Ukraine, and his victory could further strain the fragile unity in the European Union and NATO.

He said he wants Slovakia to remain a member of the EU and NATO but with “full respect” for his country’s sovereignty.

“The protection of sovereignty and national interests of Slovakia will be the government’s priority,” Mr. Fico said. He pledged the protect his country against illegal migration that has been recently on the rise in Europe.

Mr. Fico’s critics worry that his return to power could lead Slovakia to abandon its course in other ways, following the path of Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and to a lesser extent of Poland under the Law and Justice party.

Bratislava:

A Slovak populist party that wants to stop military aid to Ukraine and is critical of the EU and NATO will be tasked with forming a new government after winning elections.

The Smer-SD party led by former prime minister Robert Fico scored 23 percent in Saturday’s vote, beating the centrist Progressive Slovakia at 18 percent.

“Slovakia and the people in Slovakia have bigger problems than (dealing with) Ukraine,” Fico told reporters on Sunday.

He added Ukraine was “a huge tragedy for all” and called for peace talks as “further killing will not help anyone”.

During the campaign, the 59-year-old vowed that Slovakia would not send “a single round of ammunition” to Ukraine and called for better ties with Russia.

President Zuzana Caputova, a former member of Progressive Slovakia and a longtime political rival of Fico, said she would task him with forming a new government.

“In the spirit of our constitutional tradition, tomorrow I will entrust the formation of the government to the winner of the election,” she said in a statement.

Analysts have said a Fico government could radically change Slovakia’s foreign policy to resemble that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

But Fico, a leftist former lawyer, said Sunday that Slovakia’s foreign policy focus would not change as “we are naturally EU members”.

“That of course doesn’t mean I can’t criticise things in the EU that I don’t like.”

Hungary is seen as a troublemaker in the EU, frequently criticised by Brussels for rule-of-law issues and hampering EU and NATO efforts to help Ukraine.

“In Robert Fico, Orban will get a new ally,” analyst Tomas Koziak from the Czech University of Political Sciences told AFP.

Orban himself congratulated Fico on X, formerly Twitter, “on his undisputable victory at the Slovak parliamentary elections”.

“Always good to work together with a patriot. Looking forward to it!” Orban wrote.

‘People are fed up’

Many ordinary Slovaks are less concerned about foreign policy and hope the new government will focus on the economy and squabble less than the last one.

Selling bread rolls in a Bratislava bakery, Jana Urbanova told AFP she expected the government to tackle “unbearable” inflation.

“Fico is experienced, he is a professional, isn’t he? I did not vote for him but I don’t think it matters that he won,” she said.

Tomas Hrivnak, 23, said he had voted for Progressive Slovakia and was “disappointed” but added that the result was “not the end of the world”.

“I think people are fed up with the former government of centrist and right-wing politicians, their quarrels and inability to run this country properly,” he said.

But another Progressive Slovakia voter, Eva Lichnerova, voiced concern.

“The biggest threat that I see is the diversion from the European Union, the shift towards Russia, the suppression of journalists’ rights and freedoms,” she said.

Ukraine aid

Smer has won 42 seats in the 150-member parliament and needs coalition partners for a majority.

Hlas-SD, which emerged in 2020 as a breakaway party from Smer, is a potential partner with 27 seats.

Its chairman Peter Pellegrini became premier in 2018 after Fico’s resignation amid nationwide protests following the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kusnirova.

Kuciak uncovered links between the Italian mafia and Fico’s government in his last article, published posthumously.

The two parties could team up with the nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS), which won 10 seats, for a parliamentary majority of 79 seats.

Fico has already ruled twice with the SNS, which is also opposed to military aid for Ukraine.

Slovakia is one of Europe’s biggest donors to Ukraine, relative to the size of its economy.

Surge in disinformation

Slovakia’s next parliament will also include the centrist OLaNO party of maverick former premier Igor Matovic, who got involved in a fistfight with a Smer member during the heated campaign.

The centrist Christian Democrats and the right-wing SaS also garnered enough votes to have seats in parliament.

The election campaign was tarnished by particularly high rates of online disinformation, often targeting Progressive Slovakia chairman Michal Simecka, a European Parliament vice-speaker.

Slovakia emerged as an independent country in 1993, following a peaceful split with the Czech Republic after Czechoslovakia shed four decades of totalitarian communist rule in 1989.

Although many Slovaks have experience with the Moscow-steered communist regime, analysts say many are vulnerable to pro-Kremlin disinformation.

Fico’s election campaign also featured rhetoric against the LGBTQ+ community and migrants, causing concern among non-governmental organisations.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)