Protests in Slovakia: reports from Bratislava

Photo: Aleksej Tilman

“Enough with Fico!” reads a massive inscription projected onto the building facade of the transport ministry in Freedom Square, Bratislava. This happened during a protest on the evening of February 21st. The same words are chanted by approximately 12,000 people of all ages gathered on this beautiful winter day, accompanied by the chorus “Slovakia is Europe.”

“We need a change in our country,” Ivana and Katarina, two protesters in their thirties, tell Meridiano 13. “I don’t trust our prime minister. I’m afraid he might decide to pull us out of the European Union and NATO, handing us over to Russia,” echoes Ondrej.

This marks the fourth anti-government protest of the year in Bratislava and various cities across Slovakia. The demonstrations, sparked by Prime Minister Robert Fico’s visit to Moscow on December 23rd, have taken place every two weeks. Citizens taking to the streets oppose the government’s pro-Russian shift and express their desire for Slovakia to remain in the European Union.

“Our prime minister said that we might leave the EU, and we don’t like that,” says Matuš, a young IT student with a NATO flag. “NATO means security to me. Without NATO, I think we would be a very weak country,” he adds.

In Freedom Square, no political party banners are visible – only the flags of the EU, NATO, Slovakia and Ukraine. The organizers of the protests, the civil society groups Peace in Ukraine (Mier Ukrajine) and For a Dignified Slovakia (Za slušné Slovensko), have not aligned with any political party. Instead, their message focuses on the need to support the European Union (something that is not a given in Slovakia) and stand with Ukraine.

The February 21st protest falls on a significant anniversary for Slovakia. On this day in 2018, the investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová, both 27, were murdered in their home in Veľká Mača, near Bratislava. Their assassination shocked the nation, sparking the largest protests since the fall of the communist regime and triggering a political crisis that ultimately led to Prime Minister Fico’s resignation on March 15th. Few in 2018 would have predicted his return to the political spotlight with his victory in the 2023 parliamentary elections.

It was clear that Kuciak and Kušnírová were killed because of Kuciak’s investigations into political corruption in Slovakia. However, full clarity on the crime has yet to be achieved. The trial against the alleged mastermind of the murder, Marián Kočner – a businessman with suspected ties to Fico’s Smer-SSD party and organized crime syndicates, including the ‘Ndrangheta mafia group – is still ongoing.

That is why protesters in Bratislava chant “Shame, shame” in support of Kuciak’s parents and Kušnírová’s mother, who open the demonstration demanding justice.

Photo: Aleksej Tilman

The context of the protests in Slovakia

The wave of protests comes at an already delicate juncture for Slovakia’s ruling coalition. Internal disagreements and defections within two of Smer-SD’s allied parties – the moderates of Hlas-SD and the nationalists of SNS – have reduced the government’s parliamentary support from the 79 seats it secured in the 2023 elections to 75, making governance increasingly difficult.

“We are in a paradoxical situation where Fico has called on his allied parties to resolve their issues internally, or he will himself call for early elections with the backing of the opposition,” explains Fabio Turco, a journalist focused in Central Europe and the co-founder of the Centrum Report project, in conversation with Meridiano 13.

Fico, a highly experienced politician who has already served two previous terms as prime minister (2006–2010 and 2012–18), appears to be skilfully navigating these turbulent waters.

On January 21st, he pressured the opposition into withdrawing a motion of no confidence against him by presenting a parliamentary document alleging a coup attempt orchestrated by unspecified foreign forces. “The parliamentary session, which was supposed to vote on the no-confidence motion, was held behind closed doors to discuss this highly secret document that Fico had apparently possessed for some time; in protest, the opposition withdrew the motion,” Turco continues.

Fico claims that the ongoing protests and the assassination attempt against him in May 2024 are part of a broader scheme to undermine Slovakia’s established order. His return to power after 2018 is a clear demonstration of his political acumen.

As Jakub Ferenčík, a journalist at Czech Radio, tells Meridiano 13: “After the murder of Kuciak and Kušnírová, there was a promise of change in Slovakia.” The crime had become a symbol of deep-rooted corruption at the highest levels of the country’s politics since its independence in 1993.

According to Ferenčík, the desire for change was particularly represented by the election of Zuzana Čaputová as president in 2019. “People with liberal and progressive views saw her as a figure representing high civil values, in a sort of line of succession in Czechoslovak politics, following figures such as Tomáš Masaryk, Edvard Beneš, and Václav Havel.”

However, the expectations of seven years ago have gone unmet for several reasons. Both Turco and Ferenčík cite the failures of OĽaNO, the populist party that won the 2020 elections, and its leader, Igor Matovič. “When the Slovak opposition was in power from 2020 to 2023, whatever they did, they did it wrong. These were years marked by internal conflicts and calls for resignations,” says Turco.

OĽaNO found itself managing two major crises: COVID-19 (the elections that brought the party to power took place on the eve of the pandemic) and the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

All of this created widespread disillusion with politics among Slovaks. The promises of transparency and anti-corruption measures that had propelled OĽaNO to victory were unfulfilled, and the party became a symbol of incompetence.

Fico capitalized on this discontent, riding the wave of protests against COVID-19 restrictions and defending anti-vaccine positions. Then came the war in Ukraine.

Slovakia, a country of just over 5.5 million people (and an EU and NATO member since 2004), has a fragmented electorate. A 2023 Eurobarometer survey shows that only 37 per cent of Slovaks trust the EU, compared to 53 per cent who do not. Opinions on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are also divided. A 2024 survey commissioned by the GLOBSEC think tank found that only 41 per cent of Slovaks blame Ukraine and the West for the conflict, while 49 per cent see Russia as a security threat.

This ambivalent stance on the war in Ukraine is also evident at a visual level. In Bratislava, there are many Ukrainian refugees (by the end of 2023, they were almost 35,000, accounting for seven per cent of the city’s population). However, it is very rare to see Ukrainian flags, which are ubiquitous in neighbouring countries like the Czech Republic and Poland, displayed on the facades of public buildings, shops and restaurants.

Slovaks, especially those from older generations, tend to view Russia and the Soviet Union more favourably compared to other former Warsaw Pact countries. Several factors explain this discrepancy. Turco mentions the arrival of the Red Army in 1945 as a moment many consider a liberation from the fascist regime that ruled Slovakia from 1939.

Ferenčík attributes the differing perspectives between the Czech Republic and Slovakia in part to the memory of the Prague Spring and its suppression by Warsaw Pact troops led by the Soviet Union in 1968. “As demonstrated by the success of the 2024 film Vlny (Waves), the Prague Spring is still widely remembered in the Czech Republic but primarily as a Czech phenomenon. Slovaks are less attached to this memory and, broadly speaking, perceive the invasion as having been directed at the Czech part of Czechoslovakia.” For Czechs, the repression of the 1968 movements symbolizes Soviet crimes in the country, and the intervention of Warsaw Pact forces is closely associated with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Fico has exploited these divisions, presenting himself as a nationalist leader similar to Viktor Orbán. He adopted anti-western rhetoric and attacked his political opponents. He portrayed President Čaputova as a puppet of the CIA and George Soros. The intensity of these attacks led Čaputová not to seek re-election in 2024 – a race won by the Fico ally Peter Pellegrini.

While his predecessors in government had aligned with western positions on the war in Ukraine – approving sanctions and military aid to Kyiv (Slovakia was the first country to send its MiG fighter jets to the Ukrainian army) – Fico promised during his election campaign that he would not send “a single bullet to Ukraine”.

This context explains the electoral victory of Smer-SD in 2023. The party strengthened its ties with its more conservative base, while many opposition supporters simply did not vote. Nevertheless, Fico’s party, which became the leading political force with about 23 per cent of the vote, did not achieve a landslide victory. Progressive forces still demonstrated vitality, with Progressive Slovakia securing around 18 per cent of the vote.

Once in power, Fico adopted a more nuanced approach toward Ukraine. As Ferenčík wrote in an article for New Eastern Europe, the new government continued dialogue with Kyiv officials and maintained military aid to Ukraine. Fico aligned with European positions even on sanctions against Russia.

For this reason, his visit to Moscow in December came as something of a surprise. It had seemed that the prime minister was trying to balance anti-western rhetoric with a pragmatic policy aimed at securing European funding, which is crucial for Slovakia’s economy. Fico justified his visit to the Russian capital and his meeting with Vladimir Putin by citing the need to secure an agreement, eventually reached, on Russian gas supplies to Slovakia. However, the trip marked a sharp break from Brussels’ stance and triggered, as mentioned, the beginning of protests.

Possible scenarios

As is traditional with pro-European demonstrations (the same happens in Tbilisi), the February 21st protest in Bratislava ends with “Ode to Joy” and the national anthem, with the next gathering scheduled for two weeks later. “We cannot give up,” says Jakub, a 26-year-old programmer.

With all these factors at play, it is difficult to predict what might happen in Slovakia. While the weakness of the governing coalition and ongoing protests suggest the possibility of early elections or a government reshuffle, it is also true that a politician with Fico’s credentials is unlikely to feel isolated in the current international context.

The victory of Donald Trump and the legitimacy he is granting to Putin provide significant support for the Slovak prime minister. However, domestic dynamics remain crucial. Despite similarities to Orbán and attempts at authoritarian reforms, the Slovak premier does not wield the same level of power as his Hungarian counterpart. How the situation will fully unfold remains to be seen.

This article was originally published in Italian on the Meridiano 13 website and social media channels.

Aleksej Tilman is an Italian Communications Specialist with a strong interest in the Caucasus. He covers the region for Meridiano 13 and other outlets, including Q Code Magazine and Valigia Blu.

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democratic backslide, protest, Robert Fico, Slovakia