BANSKA BYSTRICA.- Slovakia accuses “lone wolf” with no political affiliation of shooting the prime minister, says interior minister.
Earlier on Thursday, Slovak politicians called for calm in the Central European nation after Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot several times by an alleged assassin the day before, an unusual case of political violence that has caused shock despite deep political polarization.
According to a hospital official, Fico was in stable condition on Thursday after receiving multiple gunshot wounds in an assassination attempt that shook the small country and resonated across the continent less than a month before the parliamentary elections in the European Union.
There is a suspect detained and the initial investigation determined that behind the attack against the president there was “a clear political motivation,” said Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok on Wednesday. When the tragedy occurred, Fico was in an old mining town to attend a meeting of his government.
The minister did not specify what the attacker’s motive was. Fico has long been a divisive figure at home and abroad, but his return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American platform further worried his EU partners about his country’s possible shift away from the Westernist movement.
The attempted assassination of the president occurs at a time of great division in Slovakia – where massive protests have been held against his policies – and on the eve of the European elections scheduled for June 6-9.
Outgoing president Zuzana Caputova, Fico’s political rival, said Thursday that leaders of Slovak political parties will meet to try to establish calm and “reject violence.”
“We want to call for everyone’s responsibility,” Caputova said at a news conference in the capital, Bratislava.
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Caputova appeared alongside Peter Pellegrini, a Fico ally who is also the president-elect. Their joint message was a gesture towards reducing the high political tensions that have shaken the country in recent months, as well as a request that the population not give in to political divisions.
“This attempted murder deserves a joint and unequivocal condemnation,” Pellegrini said. “I call on all parties in Slovakia to interrupt, or at least significantly reduce, their campaign for the elections to the European Parliament, because the campaign is naturally linked to confrontation, and confrontation is the last thing Slovakia needs at the moment.”
Fico’s government, elected last September, suspended the shipment of weapons to Ukraine and plans to modify the penal code to eliminate the figure of the special anti-corruption prosecutor, as well as assume control of public media. Critics worry it will push Slovakia, a NATO nation of 5.4 million, onto a more authoritarian path.
Zuzana Eliasova, a resident of Bratislava, noted that the attack was a “shock” for the nation and an attack on democracy at a time when political tensions were already high.
“I think that many people, or even society as a whole, will do some soul-searching because the division between different parts of society has been enormous,” he said.
Doctors operated for five hours on Fico, who was initially said to be on the verge of death, said the director of the FD Roosevelt hospital in Banska Bystrica, Miriam Lapunikova. The president is being treated in an intensive care unit.
Five shots were fired outside a cultural center in the city of Handlova, about 140 kilometers (85 miles) northeast of the capital, according to government officials.
The country’s Security Council will meet on Thursday in Bratislava to discuss the situation, according to a government official, who added that the executive will meet later.
Despite the controversy surrounding the figure of Fico, both allies and rivals condemned the attack.
Source: With information from AP
