“Slovakia needs to be built from scratch”

Zuzana Kovačič Hanzelová and Michal Vašečka during a panel at the Freedom Games in Łódź in 2024. Photo: Aureliusz M. Pędziwol

AURELIUSZ M. PĘDZIWOL: Did it surprise you that Slovakia reinstated Robert Fico, whom it had rejected twice before, to the government?

MICHAL VAŠEČKA: It was predictable that after three years of chaos and incompetent management of the country during the pandemic by the then Prime Minister Igor Matovič, his party would not win the 2023 elections. What did surprise me, however, was that Robert Fico, declaring himself a social democrat, took the path of extremism and collaboration with neo-fascists after losing the 2020 elections, crossing with his Smer (Direction) party all the red lines that democratic politicians are not allowed to cross. It is perhaps not without significance that Fico was a member of the Communist Party until 1989. Fico and his political friends mobilized the people and radicalized them using disinformation, scaremongering and the stigmatization of the opposition. It has turned out that for many of them this has become their main competence, just what they do best. And it is people like this who are obstructing the functioning of the state today. The state is not working now.

A lot of mistakes were also made by the coalition that governed before.

This is true. Admittedly, the Matovič and Heger cabinets were in power from 2020 under the conditions of the pandemic and war in Ukraine, but above all they were the most chaotic Slovak governments since 1989. It was all this chaos and all the irrational decisions taken during those three years that won Fico so many supporters.

So what is it like for Slovakia? It voted for Mečiar in the early 1990s, but was finally able to turn away from him in 1998. Four times it elected Fico, but twice it overthrew him. What do sociological studies say about this?

They say precisely that this narrative can vary. Once it is the message of Mečiar or Fico, with all the attributes of that. Other times it is the civic and pro-western narrative of an elite that has managed to preserve democracy in spite of the fact that the greater part of Slovak public opinion is anti-American, anti-western, pro-Russian and authoritarian.

And it was this second Slovakia that elected Zuzana Čaputová to the presidential office…

And before that Andrej Kiska. There are a few thousand people in Slovakia who can be called elites, in the normative sense. These people have managed for 35 years not to allow the country to be completely hijacked and dragged somewhere far to the East. Membership of the European Union and NATO undoubtedly makes this difficult. The price when it comes to this is high. This state is not functioning well. In a sense, however, it has been hijacked and has broken with the policy set out during the Velvet Revolution and by Prime Minister Dzurinda from 1998 to 2006. He pushed through all the important reforms and brought the country into NATO and the Union. As a result, today the biggest challenge is no longer the dilemma of whether Slovakia will be a liberal democracy or merely a procedural one, but the threat that instead of functioning, even if with difficulties, it will only struggle to survive. Or it will function, but as an authoritarian state.

This is not just a Slovakian challenge.

Agreed. But when you look, for example, at a country’s economy, at its infrastructure, Poland, for example, is developing all the time. Sometimes faster, other times slower, but nevertheless. And this is true regardless of whether Tusk or Kaczyński is in power. Slovakia, on the other hand, which used to be richer than Poland, is today going through a deep regression. So, we have two problems, political and economic, and Fico is neither prepared nor able to do anything about one or the other within the democratic system.

And the third problem is the attitude towards Ukraine?

Yes. Slovakia is more pro-Putin, pro-Russian and, above all, much more prone to conspiracy theories than other countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

Michal Vašečka in Bratislava in 2021. Photo: Aureliusz M. Pędziwol

Even more so than Bulgaria. At least that is what the GLOBSEC TRENDS polls show.

Russian propaganda was remarkably effective in Slovakia for many years. It has succeeded in confusing a large part of Slovak society. Followers of conspiracy theories are already a majority in Slovakia. Of course, there are populations like them in all countries, but the scale is different.

So what should the Slovak opposition, in which a liberal party is the strongest, do? It is interesting, by the way, that a big part of the Slovak electorate votes for the populists while another, also not a small part, votes for the liberals.

Progressive Slovakia, which is a liberal party, already has 24 per cent support according to some polls. This is really a lot, given that liberalism does not have much of a tradition in Slovakia.

And the other liberal party, SaS, or Freedom and Solidarity?

This one has about five per cent.

In total, however, it is almost 30 per cent. What does this mean?

That Progressive Slovakia is now waiting for the Fico government to make mistakes.

Is that enough?

It is enough to win the elections, but it may not be enough to be able to form a government. Progressive Slovakia wants to show that Fico does not know how to govern, which is true. He always governed after someone who consolidated the finances and the state. When he came in, the table was lavishly set. And he gave it all away.

That was the case when he first came in 2006, after eight years of Dzurinda’s rule, which was a time of a great economic boom. After four years, the right wing regained power, but only for two years. Did it manage to get Slovakia back on its feet again?

No, but when Fico returned in 2012, the country was sufficiently consolidated again. And the first and second time he took power, the weather was sunny and pleasant. But now it is bad, very bad.

And his budget is falling apart.

Everything is falling apart for him, the whole country. Progressive Slovakia can therefore count on success. The problem, however, is whether the democratic parties have a chance of winning a majority in parliament. They have been getting around 40 per cent in the polls for a long time. Optimists say that Fico does not have a significant majority in parliament after all. The thing is, however, that the three parties that could have supported him did not get in. Had they got in, his government could theoretically even have a constitutional majority.

Which parties are these?

The far-right Republic had almost five per cent. The pro-Orban Hungarian coalition was also very close to five per cent. And finally, there is the populist Sme rodina (We Are Family), which got two and a half per cent. So, Fico has the potential to form a government after the next election too, against the possibility that a democratic party like Progressive Slovakia might win it.

And could Mečiar and Fico be followed by another tribune who will again draw crowds?

Such a risk exists. We don’t know his name, we don’t know what his party will be, but it will certainly be anti-European and authoritarian.

Because Slovaks want a strong-arm government?

Exactly. The result of the 2023 elections was no exception, and this was not the only reason that the Matovič government became a disaster for Slovakia. The point is that such a strong-handed policy is wanted by a large proportion of Slovaks. Maybe even a majority. Yes, Slovaks want a leader. And maybe even a saviour.

And their attitude to Russia’s war against Ukraine? Does it coincide with what Fico preaches?

He has a problem, because before the elections he kept saying that he was against the war in Ukraine and at the same time also against the Ukrainian government. Fico is trying to play all sides and be a friend of everyone: Moscow, Brussels, Washington and Berlin. He also wants to continue speaking in front of his voters, most of whom are openly anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian.

“We want to be a bridge, because Slovakia is neither in the East nor in the West”?

Exactly. It’s just that such a strategy is good for a time of sunny weather, when nothing is happening and for us no values count except one: to survive as best we can. But now there is a war and whoever says he is friends with everyone is not really anyone’s friend. Nobody considers him an honest partner. Slovakia today is a country that nobody talks to. This time, the policy towards all four corners of the world that Fico is trying to pursue is no longer working out for him. Probably because, in the end, he turned out to be a pro-Russian, pro-Putin politician. And pro-Trump.

Slovakia lost two partners from the Visegrad Group, but gained one. An anti-EU and anti-NATO coalition was born in the EU and NATO: Orbán and Fico. What might this result in?

There are differences, however. Orbán is playing this game openly. With the AfD in Germany, with Marine Le Pen in France, with Georgia Meloni in Italy. And he even built a think tank in Washington to influence the Republican Party. At the summer school in Romania, which he visits every year and always fires off something strong there, he said this time something to the effect that Europe is over and the future of the world is in Asia. That is why we Hungarians will cooperate with Asia, because that is where our ancestors came from.

This is not Fico’s position. Foreign policy has never interested him, he doesn’t get into any games. He just wants to govern. And it has to be said that he is succeeding. Some people thought Brussels would be unhappy…

I think it is?

Maybe it is, but the effects are not visible. Fico is behaving in a way that is unacceptable from Brussels’s position, but there are no consequences. The money from the European funds continues to flow.

Barbora Krempaská, Łukasz Grzesiczak, Zora Jaurová, Zuzana Kovačič Hanzelová and Michal Vašečka at the 2024 Freedom Games in Łódź. Photo: Aureliusz M. Pędziwol

So Europe should figure out how to deal with people like Orbán and Fico?

Yes, because it hasn’t dealt with Orbán for a dozen years now. Or with Fico for a year.

And soon they will be joined by Andrej Babiš.

And soon there may be both Andrej Babiš in the Czech Republic and Herbert Kickl in Austria. I understand that no one is allowed to be relegated from the Union, these are the rules of this club. But if someone in this club does not abide by the accepted norms, it is absolutely necessary to apply sanctions against him. Because otherwise he will continue to do so. Orbán and Fico will continue to act the way they do.

Does the Slovak opposition have any ideas to stop Fico, especially in the context of Ukraine? Do Slovak experts have any? Michal Vašečka, for example?

Progressive Slovakia is waiting for Fico’s mistakes to show that he does not know how to govern. In the meantime, it is necessary to act more radically. Go back to the beginnings. For 32 years after the creation of an independent Slovakia, we can see that it has not been a very successful project. Slovakia was created without the consent of its citizens, without a referendum, and Mečiar has created oligarchs who still rule the country, just as oligarchs rule Russia. Something has to be done about this, just waiting for mistakes is not enough. The way out I see is to build Slovakia from scratch, to build a new ethos of the state. In France they have the Fifth Republic, in Poland there is the Third Republic. The Slovaks would also have a third.

Is anyone already working on such a project?

There are some ideas from intellectuals, but not enough. Slovakia needs structural changes above all in the sphere of ideas and values, and the political and institutional changes that follow from them. The Second Slovak Republic was established without the consent of its citizens. Its foundations include manipulation, lies, disregard for the people, dishonesty, lack of trust. Civil society has already let us know three times what it thinks about this. Actually, four times, because in November 1989 people united under the banner of “Societies against Violence”, in 1998 they spoke out against Mečiar’s manipulations, in 2018 they demonstrated “for a decent Slovakia”, and this year they are demanding respect for the agreements made with our allies that guarantee our pro-western orientation. In fact, it can be said that the people of this country themselves have already laid the ideological foundations for the Slovakia of the future. Now a political force has yet to be born that will be able to transform these ideas into a new state and institutions and give the country a chance to truly succeed.

Michal Vašečka has worked for years on ethnic issues and the study of populism and extremism. He studied at Masaryk University in Brno and the New School University in New York. Since 2017, he has been the director of the Bratislava Policy Institute, and since 2012 he has represented Slovakia at the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) and at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. He is chairman of the editorial board of Denník N, one of the leading daily newspapers in Slovakia.

Aureliusz M. Pędziwol is a journalist with the Polish section of Deutsche Welle.

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democracy, democratic backslide, institutions, Oligarchy, Robert Fico, Slovakia