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LAST UPDATE | 16 May 2024
SLOVAK PRIME MINISTER Robert Fico is able to speak but remains in serious condition, officials have said as police charged a suspect for the attack they called politically motivated.
President-elect Peter Pellegrini briefed journalists a day after the shooting, which has prompted fears of further violence in the politically polarised nation just weeks before European parliament elections.
“He is able to speak but only a few sentences and then he is really, really tired … The situation is very critical,” Pellegrini said outside the hospital in the central city of Banska Bystrica.
“The doctors asked me to make a really very short visit,” he added. “I told him that we stand behind him.”
But he said that “very difficult hours and days” lay ahead for Fico.
Yesterday, train conductor Richard Krajcik was hoping to get a selfie with Fico after a government meeting in the central town of Handlova when shots rang out.
“Everything happened so fast,” Krajcik told AFP, gazing at the spot in the main square where Fico was struck.
Yesterday’s attack has stoked fears in the deeply polarised nation, as officials drew a link between the political situation and the suspect’s motives.
Police charged the suspect, identified as 71-year-old writer Juraj Cintula in local media, with attempted murder today.
“This is a lone wolf whose actions were accelerated after the presidential election since he was dissatisfied with its outcome,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said.
Pellegrini, who won last month’s presidential vote and is a political ally of Fico, called for calm and urged political parties to halt campaigning for the EU parliament election when far-right parties are expected to gain votes.
The biggest opposition party, centrist Progressive Slovakia, and others announced that they had already stopped their election lobbying.
Slovakia’s political scene has been divided for years between pro-European and nationalist-leaning camps.
Disinformation and attacks on social media featured heavily during the latest election campaign.
Pellegrini, who takes office in June, said in a joint statement with outgoing President Zuzana Caputova that Slovakia should avoid “further confrontation”.
The two politicians represent rival political camps but Caputova said they wanted “to send a signal of understanding” as she urged an end to “the vicious circle of hatred”.
Surgeons spent hours operating on Fico to save the life of the 59-year-old.
Footage just after the shooting showed security agents grabbing a wounded Fico from the ground and bundling him into a car, while other officers handcuffed a man on the pavement.
Fico, whose party won the general election last September, is a four-time prime minister accused of swaying his country’s foreign policy in favour of Russia.
Fico also headed the government in 2006-10 and 2012-18. He was forced to resign in 2018 after an investigative journalist’s murder exposed high-level corruption.
Since returning to office, Fico has made a string of remarks that have soured ties between Slovakia and neighbouring Ukraine after he questioned Ukraine’s sovereignty.
After he was elected, Slovakia stopped sending weapons to Ukraine, invaded by Russia in 2022.
He also sparked protests with controversial changes, including a media law critics say will undermine the impartiality of public broadcasters.
Analyst Milan Nic said the shooting was a “turning point” for Slovakia.
“It’s a moment that will shake society,” he told AFP.
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Sounds more like censorship & who would decide what’s ” Fake news” . I haven’t heard many people complaining about the way we vote so maybe just leave things the way they are!
@Colette Kearns: Sometimes we have short memories in Ireland.
There have been ongoing issues with the manual electoral process we have for years – one major contentious point is the payment of those in counting centres which seems to go to the same people in every election and the process of how people are selected is always controversial, not to mention how slow some counting centres are.
In 2002 we tried to bring in electronic voting for the Nice treaty, trialed in Dublin, was an expensive disaster and was never rolled out out, we still have a load of the machines in warehouses in Dublin.
Ireland has needed to modernise the electoral process for years, e-voting, at minimum needs to be effectively brought in so a commission to plan it should be welcomed
@Colette Kearns:
Yeah because who’s to say if Kevin Sorbo’s claims that the Trump rioters were all Antifa insider’s is really true… Some things are plainly untrue and fake news. Reports based entirely on conjecture and speculation, or claims which are demonstrably untrue, are not news.
Convincing people that the line between real and fake news is somehow unclear, or that legitimate political expression is somehow endangered by attempts to control it, is one of Trump’s biggest accomplishments, and likely to be his most enduring “legacy”.
@Gerard: Can you prove that there were absolutely no Antifa members at the Capitol Hill riots? It works both ways, I’m sure when he made that claim about Antifa members you asked if he had proof, well what about you. Can you prove your theory?
I’m not saying I agree or disagree, just playing devils advocate, we should apply standards equally, not on a sliding scale based on how well they for in to someone’s view and provide confirmation bias for a certain opinion
@Gerard: It’s not just about whether information is true or false. For me, it’s also about what is not reported. This is a big issue in Ireland, RTE and Irish MSM are notorious for not reporting issues or resorting to a particular narratives.
Those of us who grew up with the Troubles as the background score to our lives are now finding out what really went on in NI. It’s what was omitted that’s the real issue.
Don’t start me on the Catholic Church and state institutions and the abuse of women and children, all of which went unreported for decades. As did the unreported crimes of cronyism, corruption and lack of accountability of our state institutions, judiciary and politicians.
If Michael Martin thinks the public would support MSM by a tax, he’s mistaken because many of us see MSM as the problem
Allegations of fake news is just a cop out as we have been living with fake news/official narratives for decades and anything put forward to challenge this will be even more destructive.
@Simon Carroll: the default case is that something is untrue and must be proven to be true. Which a couple of blurry photos of tattoos of one do not do.
The fact that there were Trump supporters there is undeniable and there is ample evidence of it. Trump even accepts this as fact in his praise of the rioters. Anything else is conjecture and wishful thinking.
It actually doesn’t work both ways. The presumption is false until proven true.
I recommend watching John Oliver’s segment about voting machines in America (from his ‘Last Week Tonight’ HBO show): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svEuG_ekNT0
As for Fianna Fail’s voting machines, while I cannot prove anything and I do not actually know for a fact, I cannot shake the suspicion that this was another of FF’s attempts to manipulate elections, after their attempts to redraw constituencies (TWICE) to ensure they would always gain the majority of elected TD’s were roundly rejected.
@David A. Murray: Yet when American Republicans put forward such points about e-voting they are deemed crackpots?
@David A. Murray: so you’ve no evidence of anything.
@Cosmos20202020: That was what I said. I suspect based on previous attempts by FF. I said I have no evidence. I’ll go further. I have never heard of anyone who claimed to have evidence. It was my opinion.
@Thomas O’ Donnell: You might want to check up (even a little) on which states have bad records for voter suppression and flawed use of voting methods. The cross-reference with the periods of time and which party the Governor and Election Officials were in office. Not always, but usually (over the last 40 years) it’s been Republican more than Democrat. Also, Republican Election Officials have been targeted and fired for not towing Trump and his cohorts propaganda in 2020 about a ‘stolen election’.
@David A. Murray:
You’re talking absolute nonsense. After every census constituencies are redrawn to reflect changed population densities. You have no idea what you’re talking about and your conspiracy talk is laughable. Think you should move to the US you might find more of your bedfellows over there.
Quantum computing when developed a bit further will blow blockchain encryption apart. I don’t know what will happen then but I wouldn’t want out voting system to be in the middle of it. Paper voting works. We have no fraud. Waiting for the count is not a big deal.
And if you’d don’t t have a smart phone?
Good article Senator. The government’s proposed draft legislation for an electoral commission is already outdated because it is focused solely on reform of the electoral register. It is completely silent on issues like social media regulation, the use of online crowd funding to finance campaigns and even revised rules on postal voting. Our elections are key to ensuring public confidence in our democracy and failure to comprehensively reform the regulatory framework to take account of these issues is a risk we cannot afford to take.
A change is needed. The current system where a voter can be registered in multiple areas is “an open door” for manipulation! What other major system would remain unchanged for so long?
Wanna have hot-lovin’ conversations? You’re on the right way! – chatie.club/xxx
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