On Sunday, October 1, Former Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico’s party won the Slovakian parliamentary elections with nearly each of the votes counted throughout the Central European country.
The election was predicted to be a close race between Robert Fico’s populist SMER party and the centrist Progressive Slovensko (PS). However, with 99.98 per cent of 6,000 polling stations counted, SMER-SSD led with 23%, and PS trailed with 17%.
The 59-year-old, two-time former Slovakian PM, is now widely expected to become Slovakia’s prime minister for the third time. Fico is said to have mounted a political comeback after campaigning on pro-Russian lines and promised to withdraw support for Ukraine’s ongoing conflict.
Fico promised to remove Slovakia’s military backing for Ukraine in Russia’s war if his bid for re-election would be successful. Even during the campaigns, he was unequivocal in his opposition to backing Ukraine.
Notably, Slovakia was the first country to supply air defences to Ukraine during the invasion. Fico has demanded that the Slovakian government stop delivering weapons to Kyiv, and he has vowed categorically that if he succeeds in office, the country will not send another round of ammunition. “Instead of sending arms to Kyiv, the EU and the US should use their influence to force Russia and Ukraine to strike a compromise peace deal,” he was quoted as saying.
Slovakia had provided Ukraine with everything from Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to S-300 air defence systems, helicopters, and armoured vehicles. It also took in a large number of refugees from the war-torn country. However, now the country would no longer extend support to Ukraine.
It becomes important to note that Fico has served as prime minister of Slovakia twice before this. One of his terms continued from 2006 to 2010 and he again ruled over the state between 2012 to 2018. Apart from his opposition to extending support to Ukraine, Fico has also been vocal about his views regarding the assaults by the Muslim community.
In the year 2016, on New Year’s Eve, around 90 women had reported complaints after they were robbed and sexually molested by young and drunk men. Two women had also reported that they were raped. Around 500 police complaints were filed and 40% of these complaints mentioned that the women were sexually assaulted by men who had a migration background, mainly from North Africa and Arab.
After this, Fico made a statement saying that no Muslim migrant would be allowed in the country. “Government has always been opposed to the EU forcing the member states to accept refugees with diametrically opposed values and ways of life and different relationship to women. Muslim refugees are impossible to integrate,” he had said.
Also in the year 2015, Fico addressed the Muslims in the country indicating that they were infiltrating the religiosity of the country and building several mosques within the nation.
“If Slovakia is a country with the dominance of the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church is the second strongest therefore we should not easily tolerate that 300 or 400 Muslims will come here, they start to construct mosques and start to change the character, culture and values of our state,” he had said.
In the year 2016, Fico publicly faulted the 2016 Paris attacks on ISIS and Syrian refugees attacking German women on Muslim immigration to Europe and, more broadly, on the presence of Islam in European countries, with him and his party chalking up the increase in violence to the rising Islamisation of the continent.
He further stated that his government monitored every Muslim on its territory. During his campaign in the same year, under the banner of ‘We’re protecting Slovakia’, Fico had stated that “thousands of terrorists and Islamic State fighters are entering Europe with migrants”.
“I can tell you we will never bring one single Muslim to Slovakia,” he had declared. Fico had also approved legislation prohibiting Islam from receiving governmental recognition. As a result, Slovakia is the only EU member state without a mosque.
