Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico. Photo: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty.
By John Miles – May 17, 2024
Western media has “explained” the shocking incident by Fico’s independent political position, which demonstrates the pressures faced by foreign leaders who refuse to toe the NATO party line.
Slovakia remains at a political standstill as the country awaits news of the health of Prime Minister Robert Fico.
The Slovak leader, who was elected head of the country’s parliament in October, was shot on May 15 in a brazen assassination attempt while greeting supporters in the town of Handlová. The gunman fired five shots at the Prime Minister at close range, striking him in the shoulder and abdomen. Fico was immediately airlifted to a nearby hospital in the city of Banská Bystrica and underwent surgery under a medically-induced coma as doctors described his wounds as “life-threatening.”
Fico survived the five-hour operation, but officials continue to describe his condition as “serious.”
The incident has shed light on the tenor of the political discourse in Slovakia and throughout Central and Eastern Europe as the question of military support for Ukraine’s war against Russia remains a highly contentious issue. The gunman, Juraj Cintula, confessed to interrogators that he targeted Fico over opposition to the Prime Minister’s political policy. Fico has repeatedly rejected calls for the country to send armaments to Kiev.
The Slovak Prime Minister had previously warned about the potential for polarization in the country to boil over into political violence, claiming in a video message just over a month ago that the rhetoric of opposition media outlets could result in “the murder of some of the leading government politicians.”
Mindia Gavasheli, the editor-in-chief of Sputnik’s US bureau, joined the Fault Lines program Thursday to offer insight on the situation from the ground in the Slovak capital of Bratislava.
“The biggest issue here in Slovakia is how the government is going to handle its relations with the media,” said Gavasheli, offering background on the political controversy that has engulfed the country in recent weeks. “Slovak [public] radio and television, as Fico claims, is filled with loyalists to the previous government… The ruling coalition was preparing to introduce a law to reshape how the state-owned media works, and that caused a lot of outcry here.”
Fico’s allies immediately blamed the controversy over the issue for instigating the attempt on the Prime Minister’s life.
Opposition politician Zuzana Čaputová, the country’s outgoing president, recorded a message with president-elect Peter Pellegrini of Fico’s party urging calm and calling for an end to the “hateful rhetoric” she claimed had overtaken Slovak politics.
“However, it doesn’t feel like the deputies in the parliament got the message,” said Gavasheli as political tensions in the country remain high.
The assassination attempt comes as protests rock the Georgian capital of Tbilisi over a planned foreign agents registration law mirroring legislation in the US and various other countries. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, like Fico, is often labeled in Western-aligned media as “authoritarian” and “pro-Russian.” Kobakhidze has charted a similar course to Fico on the Ukraine proxy conflict, promising his government’s “firm” commitment to humanitarian support for Ukrainians but rejecting calls to provide arms to controversial President Volodymyr Zelensky.
As in Slovakia, Kobakhidze’s independence on the issue has led to controversy, with the Georgian Prime Minister recently criticizing the tenor of coverage from US-backed media outlets. Kobakhidze has accused the US and its allies of color revolution tactics, attempting to overthrow or politically damage the leader in retribution for his claimed “pro-Russian” stance.
Similar media narratives have surrounded Fico, who is stigmatized as a relic of Slovakia’s Soviet-aligned past for his opposition to the arming Ukraine. British newspaper The Guardian described Fico’s Slovakia as “close-minded, corrupt and out of sync with the liberal west.”
“Like [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán, Fico spreads pro-Russian propaganda and tries to muzzle independent media,” wrote the liberal tabloid outlet two weeks ago, characterizing Fico’s attempts to reform state media as an authoritarian power grab.
Whether in Georgia or Slovakia, the narrative remains the same. Citizens are left with the option between the ostensibly open, liberal and free West or the stigmatized, “pro-Russian” leadership of those who question whether it is in their country’s interest to support a proxy war hundreds of miles away.
Ukrainians faced a similar choice in 2014, when Western countries characterized the overthrow of another “pro-Russian” leader as a victory for liberal values. The country has been engulfed in violence ever since.
Years later, voters in Georgia, Slovakia, and elsewhere naturally seek to choose a different path. They will first have to overcome objections from the West and their media allies, who insist on respect for freedom and democracy—as they define it.
(Sputnik)
