The party of “pro-Russian” ex-Prime Minister Fico won the elections in Slovakia

Former Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Social Democracy Direction (SMER) party wins the republic’s parliamentary elections after more than 99.98% of the ballots have been counted, transmits Reuters.

The party of the pro-Russian politician Fico gained 22.94% of the votes, the liberal Progressive Slovakia party took second place with 17.96%. Its leader, Michal Simečka, said he still sees the possibility of organizing a governing coalition, and his party will do everything possible to prevent SMER from forming a government. The left-wing party HLAS took third place in the elections.

Fico was Prime Minister of Slovakia from 2006-2010 and 2012-2018. He has led the SMER party since 1999 after creating it to oppose the reformist center-right cabinet. In 2022, the former prime minister was charged with conspiracy to use police and tax information on political opponents. He denied these charges, which were later dropped, writes Reuters.

In September 2023, Slovak President Zuzana Caputova filed personal protection claim against Fico. The ex-prime minister also advocated promises to stop military aid to Ukraine and said that President Vladimir Zelensky was beginning to bore the whole world. Over the past four years, Fico, as noted by Reuters, has taken more radical positions and began to oppose Western allies. He also criticized sanctions against Russia and threatened to veto Ukraine’s invitation to NATO. Fico, as Bloomberg wrote, advocated for the country to abandon military support for Ukraine, and the FT newspaper indicated that if his party wins, Kyiv will lose part of Western support.