Slovaks are voting in a parliamentary election on Saturday, a knife-edge vote that could radically reshape Slovakia’s approach to Ukraine and create deep rifts within NATO and the European Union.
The frontrunner, former Prime Minister Robert Fico, has made no secret of his affinity for the Kremlin during the election campaign. He has criticized the West for supporting Ukraine and adopted a strong anti-US message, even accusing Slovakia’s President Zuzana Čaputová of being an “American agent.” He has said that if elected, he would stop sending weapons to Ukraine and block Ukraine’s NATO ambitions.
Fico’s left-wing populist SMER party has been leading for months, although opinion polls published earlier this week showed SMER neck-and-neck with the Progressive Slovakia (PS) party.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“Slovakia has been chosen (by Russia) as the country where there is fertile soil for success of the Russian pro-Kremlin, pro-war narratives,” Věra Jourová, the European Commission’s top digital affairs official, told a news conference Tuesday.
With as many as nine parties potentially reaching the 5% threshold needed to enter the parliament, coalition negotiations will almost certainly include multiple players and could be long and messy.
Hlas, a party that was formed as an offshoot of SMER following an internal dispute between Fico loyalists and the-then Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, was polling third in the last and could turn out to be the kingmaker.
Pellegrini became prime minister in 2018 after Fico resigned following weeks of protests in the wake of the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiance Martina Kušnírová.
Fico has called on the Slovak government to stop supplying weapons to Kyiv, and said that if he were to become prime minister, Slovakia would “not send another round of ammunition.” He is also opposed to Ukraine joining NATO.
If Poland’s governing Law and Justice party manages to win a third term in Polish parliamentary elections next month, this bloc of EU troublemakers could become even stronger.
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