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Wounded Slovak PM – a brief bio

Who is Robert Fico, the Slovak PM shot in apparent assassination attempt?

17:07, 15.05.2024
  ej/rl;   the Guradian,Bloomberg, The Slovak Spectator
Who is Robert Fico, the Slovak PM shot in apparent assassination attempt? Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, has been shot and wounded in an apparent assassination attempt in the town of Handlova, around 150 km north of the capital, Bratislava.

Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, has been shot and wounded in an apparent assassination attempt in the town of Handlova, around 150 km north of the capital, Bratislava.

Photo: Janos Kummer/Getty Images
Photo: Janos Kummer/Getty Images

Podziel się:   Więcej
Local media reported that the 59-year-old head of government was hospitalized after being hit in the abdomen following the firing of four shots. Slovak TV said a suspect had been detained.

Robert Fico has been a divisive figure in European politics since long before becoming prime minister following parliamentary elections in 2023, which he fought largely on a platform of promising to cease aid to Ukraine. He has been openly critical of the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and her policies related to the war in Ukraine and has said he would veto any attempt by Kyiv to join NATO.

Fico is seen as a populist and an admirer of Vladimir Putin, whom he has said he would not allow to be arrested under an international warrant if he came to Slovakia. Under Fico, Slovakia has aligned itself much more closely with Moscow and has also become an ally of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán government.

Fico has faced criticism in Europe for allegedly stifling investigations, curtailing media freedoms, and undermining civil groups. He has received praise from the Kremlin, however, with Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov crediting Fico’s government for “having its own opinion about the situation in the world.”

The Slovak prime minister has been at the center of several diplomatic spats, including with the British ambassador and Dutch officials. In March, the Czech government suspended talks between Prague and Bratislava over foreign policy differences and France has also excluded Slovak officials from talks about the framework of a possible peace deal in Ukraine.

An outspoken figure, Fico has gone as far as calling the country’s president, Zuzana Čaputová, a “U.S. puppet” and Slovak journalists “dirty anti-Slovak prostitutes.”

Robert Fico is currently in his fourth term as prime minister of Slovakia. He first took office in 2006, two years after the country’s accession to the EU, and served until 2010, returning to the helm twice more, in 2012 and 2016, but was forced to resign just two years later over the murder of an investigative journalist and the journalist’s fiancée, which led to mass demonstrations.

Born to a working-class family in 1964, Fico became a lawyer and later started his political career in the Communist party in what was then Czechoslovakia. Following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, he joined the Slovak Democratic Left (SDL) party, becoming deputy chairman in 1998. In 1999, he left the SDL and founded the Direction – Social Democracy (Smer) party, which he has led ever since. He has served as prime minister in total for longer than any other politicianruler in Slovakia’s history.
źródło: the Guradian,Bloomberg, The Slovak Spectator