Whose toes has Slovakia’s wildcard PM Fico stepped on?

Robert Fico has been injured in a shooting. The veteran politician returned to the Slovak prime minister’s seat last October, marking his fourth non-consecutive term as the Central European country’s leader.

The veteran populist politician – leader of the Direction –Social Democracy party, has racked up a long list of powerful enemies over his time in politics. Here’s a partial list:

▪️ Fico earned NATO’s ire after vowing to block the delivery of weapons to Ukraine during his latest run for office. Fico has also expressed dissatisfaction with Bratislava’s defense pact with Washington, promising to review it.

▪️ Fico has expressed fervent opposition to Ukraine’s membership in NATO, and said he believes Russia began its military operation as a result of neo-Nazis running rampant in Ukraine.

▪️ Fico has warned that Western military assistance to Ukraine will only prolong the crisis and increase the number of victims, and has accused foreign forces of meddling in the conflict, which “could have been extinguished at the very beginning.”

▪️ Fico believes anti-Russian sanctions have “negatively affected” the lives of ordinary Slovaks.

▪️ Fico has been bashed by European legacy media as a left-wing populist analogue of Hungarian right-wing populist Viktor Orban, with outlets pulling out all the stops to accuse him of “democratic backsliding” and “flouting European norms,” including over his push to reform the criminal code.

▪️ The Slovak PM has also made enemies with powerful European political and business interests, promising to launch an independent inquiry into the EU’s authoritarian pandemic-era policies.

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Attempt on Fico’s life was attempt to turn Slovaks into ‘slaves of the United States’ – former lawmaker

It’s “very difficult” to say what forces are behind the attempt on Robert Fico’s life, since, together with Viktor Orban of Hungary, the two men are “the only two prime ministers who are opposed to what is happening in the European Union, and opposed to the fact that the rights of all the states that have joined the EU have been limited,” former Slovak lawmaker Peter Marcek told Sputnik.

“These two prime ministers are very dangerous for the European Union. And in Slovakia, after the recent elections, 60-70 percent of people are in favor of good relations with Russia,” Marcek, the chairman of the Slavic Unity party, stressed.

“It’s hard to say who’s behind this. But we know that the opposition is very aggressive,” the politician noted, pointing out that there are opposition forces in Slovakia today that seem dedicated purely to defending the interests of the United States, rather than ordinary Slovaks.

On top of that are “all these non-governmental organizations headed by George Soros. We can only guess who it might be – MI6, the CIA, or someone from Ukraine. Many are interested in Fico being out of the picture, in seeing him murdered. In my opinion, the Anglo-Saxons are 100% responsible for all this.

The people behind this want Slovakia and the Slovak people to be scared, for the Slovak government and politicians to be scared. This is very dangerous for Slovakia, because we will not simply leave Fico. And this could lead to bloodshed in Slovakia,” Marcek said, warning that efforts to turn Slovaks into “slaves of the United States” through violence could spark “a civil war.”

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