The assassination attempt on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fitz comes at a time when the European political landscape is becoming increasingly toxic and polarized, with no holds barred between mainstream parties on one side and bellicose populists and extremists on the other.
However, even by such standards, Slovakian politicians stand out from the rest for their poisonous rhetoric, writes the "Financial Times" newspaper and recalls that only a few minutes after Fico was wounded and seriously injured, some of his allies accused the opposition and the media of their hands bloody and threatened with harsh measures.
Luboš Blaha, deputy speaker of the parliament and a prominent member of Fico's Smer party, told the opposition MPs: This is your work. "I want to express my deep disgust for what you have been doing here for the last few years. You, the liberal media, the political opposition, what kind of hatred have you been spreading towards Robert Fitz? You have built a gallows for him."
At the press conference after the attack, the Minister of the Interior called on the public, journalists and all politicians to stop spreading hatred. "We are on the verge of a civil war," he said.
A threat to democracy ahead of the EP elections
The attempted assassination of the populist, pro-Russian leader, which the government said was behind a "lone wolf" attacker with political motives, has left the country in shock and raised questions about the threat the toxic spiral poses to democracy just weeks before European Parliament elections, the FT reports. .
And the French newspaper "Mond" warns in its editorial that "the moment is serious not only because of the very nature of the assassination in Slovakia, but also because only three weeks before the elections for the European Parliament, the political atmosphere in which the assassination took place is poisoned."
European Commission Vice President Vera Jurova told the FT that "this tragic event should be a lesson for all of us". "Across Europe, we see increasing polarization and hatred... we need to understand that verbal violence can lead to physical violence."
Many Slovaks see the assassination attempt as the culmination of months of verbal attacks, a disinformation campaign and even a fight between the liberal opposition and Fico's allies, who returned to power in October.
Fico himself predicted that the fire would get out of control: on April 10, he announced on Facebook that he expected the murder of one of the leading politicians and blamed the media, which is a regular target of his anger, for that, the Associated Press agency recalls.
In a rare sign of unity after the assassination attempt, outgoing Slovak President Zuzana Caputova joined her successor Peter Pellegrini for a joint address on Thursday. "We fully agree in condemning the violence," said Čaputova. "Yesterday's attack on Prime Minister Robert Fitz is above all a great human tragedy, but also an attack on democracy". Fitz's government has also promised to slow down campaign activities for the European elections if other parties do the same.
In fact, the shooting could enable Fitz's ruling coalition to achieve significant benefits, in order to win "sympathy votes" in June, but also to get an opportunity to speed up its measures against the opposition media, Miša Gleni, rector of the Institute for Humanities with based in Vienna.
"There are members in Fitz's coalition who are risk-averse and will try to moderate the course, but the coalition also has to contain those who want to escalate things in order for it to survive" and keep Fitz's parliamentary majority, said Juraj Medzihorski, a Slovakian professor of sociological data science at University of Durham.
The attack "certainly will not help the less extreme parties", said Juraj Majčin from the Center for European Politics in Brussels and added "there is a chance that people will now be motivated to vote for politicians like Fitz".
A particular cause for concern is the reaction of the ultra-nationalist SNS party, which is part of Fico's three-member ruling coalition. Its leader, Andrej Danko, warned "that a political war is starting at this stage."
Danko also promised "change in the media" despite Fitz's planned reform of the public broadcaster RTVS, which critics claim poses a threat to his editorial independence. Fitz's coalition also recently presented a draft law in parliament that can deprive non-governmental organizations of foreign funding.
Slovak journalists are worried
Journalists in Slovakia told "The Guardian" that they are worried about the consequences of the shooting and fear that independent voices will be stifled.
"I would like to believe that politicians will act responsibly and calm passions, but based on the first public statements of some representatives of the ruling Smer party, I fear that they will continue to polarize society," Beata Balogova, editor-in-chief of the SME newspaper, told the British newspaper. The consequences of the assassination attempt "may bring brutal measures against the media, civil society and opposition parties - which would be contrary to the expectations of the political elite at this time," she warned.
Peter Bardi, editor-in-chief of news on the website Aktuality, said that the ball is in the politicians' court.
"They are the only ones who have the opportunity to calm emotions in the country, to adjust their vocabulary, their attitude towards public affairs, towards the political struggle and towards the media," he said. "I think we are at a crossroads, similar to the one after the murder of journalist Jan Kucijak and his fiancee, and we are deciding which way to go," said Bardi, who was Kucijak's editor.
At the same time, Belgian Prime Minister Alexandre de Croix warns that there is a risk that poison attacks and increased danger will prevent people from getting involved in politics. "There is a French saying that when people who are disgusted leave, only nasty people remain".
Grigorij Mesezhnikov, political scientist and president of the Institute for Public Affairs, said that Slovakia's "highly conflicted" politics can be attributed to "incomplete democratic transformation" after the fall of communism and persistent "problematic value orientations" such as xenophobia and homophobia.
And Mesezhnikov believes that the ruling coalition can decide on additional radicalization. On the other hand, Fico could use his close encounter with death as a turning point and change his aggressive political approach, Mesezhnikov said, but he added that he is "skeptical" that this will actually happen.
Last year, Fico made a triumphant return to office, fueling social tensions and accusing then-ruling politicians of incompetence and weakness. During the election campaign, a fight broke out between Fitz's current defense minister Robert Kalinjak, who as Fitz's deputy will take over as head of government, and former prime minister Igor Matovič.
Some of Fitz's fiercest attacks have been aimed at Čaput - the popular liberal president said threats against her family were among the reasons she did not run for re-election in April. Instead, Fitz's coalition partner, Pellegrini, was elected after campaigning accusing his pro-EU rival of wanting to send Slovak troops to Ukraine.
While Fico was lying on the operating table in Banska Bistrica, the media published a leaked video of the suspected attacker, identified as a 71-year-old writer, in which he says: "I don't agree with the policy of this government", citing the suppression of the media and the judiciary as the reason.
"I wouldn't want to give probabilities," said Medzihorski of Durham University, "but the risk of things getting worse is quite serious."
The sad climax of violence against politicians
The German portal Deutsche Welle reminds us that since the murder of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić in 2003, there has not been an assassination of the head of government of a European country, and that two decades later, the assassination of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fitz is "the sad climax of increasing violence against politicians in many European countries".
In the media in the EU, it is pointed out with visible concern that threats of murder are increasing against Donald Tusk, the prime minister in Poland, where there is also great division and a charge of violence.
The politics of compromise laid the foundations for Europe's famous welfare society, but in recent years, aggressive discourse and rampant party divisions have been on the rise, as evidenced by recent attacks on politicians in Germany.
In Germany last Sunday, a prominent Berlin politician was attacked and suffered head and neck injuries. A week earlier, a candidate from the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz was beaten while campaigning for the European Parliament elections and had to undergo surgery.
"Once upon a time there was a dialogue and with political calculations a solution was reached. However, now too often it no longer works," Hendrik Vos from Ghent University told the AP agency.
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