Slovak PM in critical condition after assassination attempt

Robert Fico, the Prime Minister of Slovakia, is in a life-threatening condition in hospital after being shot in the abdomen, arm and leg in an attack in the central Slovakian town of Handlova.

A man has been detained but as yet there are no confirmed details about the attacker. According to the BBC’s local correspondent Rob Cameron, the attacker is 71 years old and from a local village. Outgoing Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova called the assassination attempt an “attack on democracy”.

Fico, whose political stance has become increasingly pro-Russian and anti-EU over recent years, was holding a meeting at the House of Culture in Handlova and was greeting supporters on the street outside the building when eyewitnesses say they heard three gunshots. 

There has been an outpouring of support from European leaders. Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said his “thoughts are with Robert Fico, his loved ones, and the people of Slovakia,” while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called it a “vile attack”. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said: “I was deeply shocked by the heinous attack against my friend, Prime Minister Robert Fico. We pray for his health and quick recovery! God bless him and his country!”

Fico, who co-founded the left-wing Direction – Social Democracy (SMER) party, has been Prime Minister of Slovakia three times, from 2006 to 2010, 2012 to 2018 and 2023-present. In 2018, he was forced to resign when he became embroiled in a scandal after a Slovakian journalist and his wife were murdered. The journalist revealed that a close aide of Fico’s had previously been a business partner of a member of the Calabrian mafia. Fico seriously mismanaged the accusations that his government had been infiltrated by the mafia. He held a tone-deaf press conference in which he stood behind a table, filled with one million Euros in cash, attempting to make fun of the corruption allegations.

When he came back into power last year, Fico closed the country’s anti-corruption office despite EU warnings and reversed Slovakia’s support for Ukraine, halting aid.

Of the attack, Peter Pellegrini, Slovakia’s president-elect, said: “An assassination attempt on one of the highest constitutional officials is an unprecedented threat to Slovak democracy. If we express different political opinions with guns in the squares, and not in polling stations, we endanger everything we have built together in 31 years of Slovak sovereignty.”

Pellegrini has also been accused of being pro-Russia and has called for “peace talks with Moscow”. According to Tomáš Valášek, a Member of the Slovak National Council, the country with Pellegrini and Fico at the helm “is poised between two possible futures”. One future closer to the EU and aligned with Brussels or another more akin to Hungary: “An angry, isolated member-state lashing out at the rest”.

Regardless of which direction it takes, no Slovakian wants political violence. 

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