Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico is dragged to his car after he was shot today.
Published May 17, 2024
Yesterday, a ‘lone wolf’ gunman attempted to assassinate the “pro-Trump” Prime Minister of Slovakia, PM Robert Fico. Fico is reportedly in critical but stable condition after five shots were fired at point-blank range. The AP cites “unconfirmed media reports” that it was a “71-year-old retiree” and “amateur poet” responsible for the attempt.
Unconfirmed reports online also suggest that the shooter was 71-year-old Juraj Cintula, a left-wing activist and a member of the “Movement Against Violence” organization. A video shared on X appears to show a beat-up Cintula giving a brief statement while in police custody.
ABC News quickly published an article titled, “Who is Robert Fico, the populist Slovak prime minister wounded in a shooting?” after the events yesterday.
In it, they claim that Fico was a “member of the Community Party before the dissolution of communism” and went on to be elected to “Slovakia’s parliament in 1992 as a member of the Party of the Democratic Left.”
Fico would become the chairman of the Smer party in 1999. The Smer Party is described as “left-populist,” while noting that Fico himself has been compared to “right-wing politicians like the nationalist prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban.”
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SOURCE: www.thegatewapundit.com
RELATED: Suspect charged in attempted assassination of Slovakia leader
Video appears to show moment Slovakia’s prime minister was shot
Published May 17, 2024
Slovakian police have charged a man, described as a politically motivated “lone wolf,” with the attempted murder of Prime Minister Robert Fico, who is seriously ill in hospital after an assassination attempt that shocked the eastern European nation.
Fico was conscious and able to speak on Thursday afternoon, according to his long-time ally and the Slovakian President-elect Peter Pellegrini who visited him in the hospital.
He said the prime minister was still in serious condition after being shot five times from a close range and undergoing surgery.
The assassination attempt rocked the central European country and sparked global condemnation. Slovakia’s Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok said the suspect told law enforcement officers that his action was motivated by his disagreement with the government and its reforms.
The 59-year-old populist leader, who returned to power last year and whose controversial policy changes have sparked protests in recent weeks, was attacked on Wednesday after an off-site government meeting in the town of Handlova.
Šutaj Eštok said the police was pursuing only one investigative theory – that the attack was politically motivated.
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SOURCE: www.cnn.com
RELATED: Robert Fico: why the attempted assassination of Slovakian prime minister could fuel the information war between Russia and Europe
Bodyguards bundle Fico into his car after the shooting. Alamy/Radovan Stoklasa/AP
Published May 16, 2024
The assassination attempt on Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico on May 15 has sent a shockwave through Europe. Unfortunately political assassinations are not unheard of in this part of the world – indeed, Slovakia itself continues to reverberate from the 2018 assassination of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak, an act which led to the collapse of a previous Fico-led government.
However, attacks of this manner on politicians are rare (outside of post-Soviet countries). There has not been an attack on a figure as high-level as Fico in several decades. The suspect in the shooting has been arrested, but it remains far too early to speculate about a possible motive. With that said, it is virtually certain that this will have a massive impact on Slovak, and even European Union, politics.
Even before the events of May 15, the political atmosphere in Slovakia has been quite fraught. Fico and his Smer party have largely dominated the political scene in the country since the 2000s. Before his current term, which began in 2023, he led the government from 2006 to 2010, and from 2012 to 2018.
Fico is ostensibly a centre-left politician. But in many ways his populist and nationalist politics more closely resemble those of Viktor Orbán, the far-right authoritarian prime minister of Hungary. Smer is a member of the Party of European Socialists in the European Parliament but its membership was suspended in late 2023 because of its rightward drift.
Notably (again alike Orbán), Fico is considered one of the most pro-Russian political leaders in Europe. He ran his 2023 election campaign on a platform of ending Slovakia’s financial and military support for Ukraine.
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SOURCE: www.theconversation.com
