Pro-Russian coalition government underway in Slovakia

Pro Russian coalition government underway in Slovakia
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full screen The leader of the populist party Smer, the pro-Russian ex-prime minister Robert Fico, photographed in the capital Bratislava. Archive image. Photo: Darko Bandic/AP/TT

Former Prime Minister Robert Fico, who leads Slovakia’s social democratic populist Smer party, has found coalition partners and says he is ready to form a government. Fico has come to an agreement with the ultra-nationalist and far-right SNS as well as HLAS-SD, a breakaway party from Smer led by Fico’s former party mate Peter Pellegrini.

– We have agreed to form a government together, states Fico and adds that he wants it to happen as quickly as possible.

Robert Fico is known as a pro-Russian politician who has been compared to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. During the election campaign he promised to drastically cut support for Kiev, the day after the election he said that his country has “bigger problems” than Ukraine.

Slovakia went to the polls on September 30. Smer received over 23 percent of the votes.

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