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Slovakian President-elect Peter Pellegrini gestures, at F.D. Roosevelt University Hospital where Prime Minister Robert Fico was taken after a shooting incident in Handlova, in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, May 16, 2024.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico survived Wednesday’s assassination attempt “by a hair,” said President-elect Peter Pellegrini on Thursday, as authorities reported that the shooter was a “lone wolf” without providing further details.
Meanwhile, although the government chose not to impose a state of emergency, police have boosted security for other politicians, schools, and media outlets amid concerns the shooting could provoke more violence in a country bitterly polarized between conservative nationalist and progressive forces.
Outgoing President Zuzana Čaputová, a rival of Fico’s, said the shooting was an attack on democracy itself and lamented the “hateful rhetoric” that pervades Slovak political discourse.
Interior Minister Matuš Sutaj Estok’sinitial suggestion that the country was on the “edge of civil war” was almost certainly an overstatement, but he also said journalists specifically should “reflect” on their role in creating conditions for the attack, while members of Fico’s party openly blamed the opposition.
The wider view: Attacks on politicians are becoming more common elsewhere in the EU, as polarizing rhetoric increasingly sets the context for physical attacks. With just three weeks until the European Parliament elections, we’re watching to see if the attempt on Fico’s life scares people straight or opens the way to more violence.