Election results in Slovakia do not bode well for Ukraine

Robert Fico after winning the elections in Slovakia Photo: Michaela Nagyidajova/Bloomberg

As the anti-communist Velvet Revolution swept Czechoslovakia In the fall of 1989, Robert Fico , then a member of the Communist Party, said he “didn’t even notice” the democratic moment taking place in his country.

Over the next three decades, Fico rebranded himself. turned from a communist into a self-proclaimed social democrat and won parliamentary elections in Slovakia three times.

His victory in the fourth vote, confirmed on Sunday, was the result of another sharp turn: having once determined that Slovakia's future lay at the «core of the EU», he decisively opposed the European consensus on Ukraine and instead favored Moscow's direction.

Having become the winner of the elections, Fico will try to form a coalition, which is inevitable in the Slovak political system. He will find allies in Glas, the third-place party of his former protégé Peter Pellegrini, and the Slovak Nationalist Party, a former coalition partner that narrowly squeezed into parliament. This makes the prospect of forming a government led by FICO almost inevitable, but with only a slim majority of four in the 150-seat chamber.

If he succeeds in forming a coalition, Fico will not shy away from radical changes both internally and and in international politics. During the election campaign, he spoke out against EU sanctions against Russia and promised that Ukraine would not take “another bullet” when he returned to power. For a country that has until now been one of Ukraine's staunchest supporters, this would mark a sharp turnaround.

Pro-Kremlin propaganda

The result is already playing into pro-Kremlin propaganda. The Russian publication Pravda called Fico “a politician completely loyal to Moscow, whose party resists the liberal agenda of the globalized West.”

This victory is all the more unusual because Fico's political future has been hanging in the balance in recent years. The former prime minister was forced to leave his post in 2018 after journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee were brutally murdered. He was later accused of leading a criminal organization; several of his former colleagues were jailed for bribery and tax fraud; and his party fell to its knees, with public support in the single digits.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic, during which Fico attacked the government's lockdown policies, coupled with the specter of a ruling center-right government in disarray, fueled his comeback .

It is true that Fico has proven in the past that he is pragmatic on the European stage, supporting Brussels on issues that benefited him and differing on others, such as migration policy.

But Fico is a master of reinvention. With his current electorate on the Eurosceptic side, he will be more comfortable siding with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán than ever before.

Moreover, if the ruling PiS party wins the Polish elections in October, it will could lead to the revival of the Visegrad Club as a counteraction to “illiberal” policies within the EU.

However, unlike other Visegrad Group countries, Slovakia is a member of the eurozone. EU fiscal rules and the country's growing deficit will slow down Fico's government. The stick that Brussels has against Bratislava is ultimately stronger than the one it has against the governments in Budapest or Warsaw.

Serious consequences for Slovakia

The far-reaching domestic consequences of these should not be overlooked elections. .

Fico has already promised to end ongoing anti-corruption investigations and abandon the role of the special prosecutor's office in investigating abuses of power. The danger is that there is little to stop him from attacking the integrity of the courts and the media, jeopardizing the rule of law.

Behind Mr Fico's resurgence lies a deeply polarized society exposed by this election. The Progressive Slovakia party, which came in second with almost 18 percent of the vote, campaigned as a liberal, pro-European and modernizing political force. He won overwhelming majorities in the two largest cities.

These elections ultimately showed the dividing line — not only in Slovakia, but throughout the region — between voters who find solace in the politics of resentment and younger generations. who are pro-European and hungry for change.

Anton Spisak is a senior fellow at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. He was born in Slovakia and writes personally