Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, was in “life-threatening” condition after being shot on Wednesday, according to his government.
A statement posted to Fico’s Facebook page said he was being transported to a hospital by helicopter and that the “next few hours” would be decisive.
The incident took place in the town of central town of Handlova, where the prime minister had attended a government meeting at the Palace of Culture. News video showed him striding with his entourage toward members of the public who were standing outside. He was shaking hands with people, reaching across a chest-high metal barrier, when a man in a white button-down shirt appears to start shooting at close range. The attacker can be heard firing five shots before being tackled by security officers.
Slovakia’s outgoing president, Zuzana Caputova, said police detained the presumed shooter.
“An attack on the prime minister is first and foremost an attack on a human being. But it’s also an attack on democracy,” she said. She urged people to refrain from “hasty judgments” before more information is known.
The president-elect, Peter Pellegrini, who takes power next month, said the attack represented “a threat to everything that up till now adorned 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,” he said.
Leaders across Europe and around the world expressed shock and outrage at the attack.
“We condemn this horrific act of violence,” President Biden said in a statement. “Our embassy is in close touch with the government of Slovakia and ready to assist.”
Fico has served multiple stints as Slovakia’s prime minister, most recently returning to power after winning an election in the fall.
He was forced out in 2018 amid public outrage over the killing of a journalist who had been investigating ties between his associates and the Italian mafia. But he staged a comeback by capitalizing on growing skepticism about the war in Ukraine and frustration with a cost-of-living crisis.
The lack of information about the shooter’s motives on Wednesday did not stop Fico allies from casting blame.
Lubos Blaha, deputy chairman of Fico’s party, Smer, turned to opposition deputies in a news conference and said, “This is your work.”
Andrej Danko, a coalition partner, blamed journalists. “Are you happy?” he shouted at reporters.
Pavol Hardos, a political scientist at Comenius University in Bratislava, said the shooting spotlighted political polarization in Slovakia – and could deepen it.
“It’s too early to say what the ramifications will be, but some government politicians already said that this amounts to a declaration of war,” he said.
He said he worried that Fico’s party would use the attack as a pretext to continue its effort to exert control over radio and television, for instance. “This will be a useful excuse for doing all the things they wanted to do,” he said. “They will be able to make the necessary steps even faster than they planned.”
Slovakia’s major opposition parties, Progressive Slovakia and Freedom and Solidarity, announced after the shooting that they had canceled a planned demonstration against the government’s proposed overhaul of public broadcasting.
Progressive Slovakia rejected any connection between the attacker and its party or movement, adding in a statement, “We are concerned about the further escalation of tension in society.”
(c) Washington Post