Robert Fico, 59, has played a key role in Slovak politics in the years since the country gained independence in 1993 and has served as prime minister longer than any other leader.
Slovakia – a landlocked country of about 5 million people – gained independence after the so-called Velvet Revolution, a series of nonviolent and popular protests in 1989 against the Communist Party in At that time it was still Czechoslovakia. That year, the Berlin Wall fell, Communist power in much of Eastern Europe collapsed, and the Cold War effectively ended.
Mr. Fico, who was a member of the Communist Party when he was in power, founded the Smer party in the late 1990s. He began his first of three terms as prime minister in 2006, serving for the previous four years. when he entered the opposition after his coalition lost an election. Mr. Fico returned to power in 2012 but resigned as prime minister in July 2018 after mass protests over the murders of a journalist, Jan Kuciak, and his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova, who were exposed government corruption. The protests that rocked the country were the largest since the Velvet Revolution; Protesters demanded the government resign and hold new elections.
Slovakia ranks high independent assessment about press freedom, but protesters also seek deeper changes in the country that Mr. Fico has overseen.
The Smer Party started out on the political left but increasingly supports right-wing views on cultural and immigration issues. Much of the international discussion about Mr. Fico’s leadership in recent years has focused on his relationships with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and with Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, Russia’s southern neighbor. Slovakia. Like Mr. Orban, Mr. Fico is a strong critic of the European Union.
After one Congress voting Last fall, Mr. Fico began his third term as prime minister, then had heart surgery the following month. He emerged to form a coalition government after winning about 23% of the vote, and campaigned against sanctions imposed on Russia after it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. 2022. Not a single batch of the country’s ammunition will be sent to Ukraine, he told voters.
That stance, in a country where pro-Russian sentiment has historically been significant, has worried EU leaders in Brussels, who say they are concerned that Slovakia could form a pro-Russian alliance for Mr. Orban and possibly Italian leader Giorgia Meloni, it would hamper support for Ukraine in the European Union. At the time, it was also seen as a sign of the apparent erosion of the pro-Ukrainian bloc that Europe had forged after the invasion.
Slovakia’s military contribution to Ukraine is negligible compared to countries such as the US and UK. But last year it became one of several European Union countries bordering Ukraine. block imports his grain, fearing that it might weaken Slovak farmers.
In April, an ally of Mr. Fico, Peter Pellegrini, won a vote became president of Slovakia. The position was largely ceremonial, but analysts said the victory strengthened the grip of pro-Russian political forces in Central Europe, as Mr. Pellegrini opposed the provision of military aid. and finance for Ukraine.
Mr. Fico was born on September 15, 1964 into a working-class family in the city of Topolcany in the Nitra Region, now Slovakia. He graduated in 1986 from Comenius University Bratislava and received a law degree. Slovak government website. He obtained his doctorate from the Institute of State and Law of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, and served in the army from 1986 to 1987.
According to the government website, Mr. Fico studied in the US, UK, Finland, Belgium and France, specializing in human rights and criminal law. He married Svetlana Ficova, a lawyer and professor, and they have one son. News in Slovakia said the couple had separated.
May 16, 2024
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A previous version of this article misspelled the Italian leader’s name. She is Giorgia Meloni, not Georgia.
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