Pro-Russia Party Wins Slovakian Parliamentary Elections, Coalition Talks Ensue
Elections set up Slovakia’s Robert Fico, of the SMER party, to return to the prime minister post after a campaign pledging to cut off aid to Ukraine (Wikimedia Commons).
The pro-Russian SMER party headed by ex-Prime Minister Robert Fico won the highest share of seats in Slovakia’s parliamentary elections on October 1, 2023.
According to CNN, the populist party won 22.9% of the vote, putting them ahead of the pro-Ukraine Progressive Slovakia, which received 18%. The party, headed by two-time Prime Minister Fico, is controversial both in Slovakia and globally for its opposition towards continued military support of neighboring Ukraine. According to the BBC, Fico recently told supporters that “if Smer enters government, we will not send a single round of ammunition to Ukraine.” Fico’s resolve to end military support for Ukraine is unsurprising given previous pro-Putin rhetoric. Per Radio Free Europe, Fico asserted that the war began because “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started to murder Russian citizens in Donbas and Luhansk.”
Fico’s comments put him at odds with President Zuzana Čaputová, a staunch supporter of Ukraine. Čaputová, in power since 2019, has been at the forefront of political and military support for Ukraine in the EU and NATO. The BBC reports that under her efforts, Slovakia was the first country to send fighter jets to Ukraine at President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s frequent request, even donating the country’s entire fleet of retired MiG-29 jets. However, given the recent election result, Čaputová announced on October 5 that she would halt a planned military aid package. According to the Associated Press, Čaputová stated that “approving a military aid package by the current outgoing government would create a risky precedent for the change of power after any future elections.”
Although SMER won the largest share of the vote, they do not have a majority share of Slovakia’s parliamentary seats, forcing them to negotiate a coalition with other parties for Fico to become prime minister. The center-left Hlas, or Voice, party, which won 14.7% of the vote, could join with SMER and the right-wing SNS to form a small majority. Yet, as seven parties cleared the five percent vote threshold necessary for parliamentary representation, multiple avenues remain open for SMER to create a majority coalition. A Hlas-SMER partnership could result in a more moderate position on Ukrainian aid from the Slovakian parliament. According to CNN, while Hlas leader Peter Pellegrini has declared that Slovakia “had nothing left to donate” to Ukraine, he supports sending ammunition produced in the country. President Čaputová has given SMER two weeks to negotiate its coalition agreement.
Politically, the SMER party is leftist for its promises of heavy welfare and social spending, but it opposes socially liberal policies such as green energy and LGBTQ+ rights, which it views as imposed on Slovakia by the European Union, per The New York Times. Fico is a long-time ally of Viktor Orban, the far-right prime minister of Hungary, another opponent of Ukrainian aid. Orban commented on Fico’s victory on the social media platform X, saying, “Always good to work together with a patriot. Looking forward to it!”
Slovakia’s turn towards socially right-wing policies reflect pro-Russian sentiments in the Slovakian population that set them apart from their regional neighbors. CNN reports that according to a recent poll by think tank GlobSec, only 40 percent of Slovakians think Russia is responsible for war in Ukraine, the lowest in the eight Eastern European and Baltic states they surveyed, and compared to 71 percent of people in Czechia.
Although Fico was prime minister from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2012 to 2018, he remains a controversial choice for the role due to his history with the position. Per CNN, Fico resigned from his position in 2018 following weeks of protests after the murder of the journalist Jan Kuciak, who wrote about corruption in the SMER party, and his fiancée. Fico, however, has since remained an active force in the SMER party and Slovakian politics.