We journalists in Bratislava send messages back and forth. “Where are the flowers?” someone wonders. “Isn’t there a place where people gather to show their support?” asks another.
One has gone to the hospital where Fico is being treated and reports back that it is barely noticeable that the country’s leader is in there, with gunshot wounds and in a critical condition.
An assassination attempt on a leader can unite a country. But if a country is as deeply divided as Slovakia, it can have the opposite effect. People do not have the strength to grieve or show support; all energy goes into brooding over the country’s direction.
– A year ago I was worried about the future, now I’m terrified, political scientist Pavol Hardoš tells me.
A populist at the tips of his fingers
I met Robert Fico during the election campaign last year. “A man of the people, his own people anyway,” I noted.
Fico seemed to enjoy meeting his party members. He hugged elderly women in dresses that looked like they were made during the communist era, shook hands with construction workers and patted election workers on the back.
But there is another side to Fico: the Social Democrat who governs with two far-right parties. The man who praises Putin and says that Ukraine is ruled by Nazis. The politician who is accused of corruption and who the opposition says is leading Slovakia in the same anti-democratic direction as Viktor Orban in Hungary.
Deep concern for the future
We do not know why the suspect, a 71-year-old man, brought his weapon – for which he had a license – to the cultural center in Handlová where Fico and his government were meeting. Maybe he was driven by a political conviction, maybe he suffers from mental illness.
But the opposition in Bratislava is already confident in how the government is handling the situation.
– If someone criticizes them, and there is a lot to criticize, they will use this as a defense and say: Don’t criticize us, don’t hate us, this is where your constant criticism has led, says Hardoš.
The concern is that demonstrations will be banned, freedom of expression will be restricted, criticism will be equated with violence, freedom of the press will disappear, and that the EU and NATO country Slovakia will become more like Russia.
Slovakia faces a troubled future.