All but the most keen political buffs abroad will be hearing the name Robert Fico for the first time right now, and for all the wrong reasons.
He's a veteran politician who's been likened to Donald Trump and changed his position on several key issues affecting his tiny European nation.
The populist leader has successfully courted votes over two decades with a chameleon-like ability to adapt to changing public sentiment that has seen him elected on four separate occasions.Riding that wave of public opinion, Fico has transformed from a pro-European Union interventionist to a fierce nationalist parroting Russian anti-western rhetoric.European politics professor at the University of Birmingham Tim Haughton says the latest iteration of Prime Minister Fico is the most divisive yet.
He moved to the capital Bratislava for university, where he joined the communist party as a 23-year-old.Smer is a left-wing populist and nationalist party with a socially conservative and anti-immigration stance.He briefly returned to opposition in 2010 but was once again victorious at the elections two years later.
Fico stepped down as prime minister but remained party leader and won back public approval in the four years that followed.During the 2023 election campaign, the party promised to end military aid to Ukraine, remove EU and US influence from Slovak foreign policy and to keep migrants out of the country.The party won power as part of a coalition deal and has since introduced sweeping policy changes that aim to silence critics, limit media freedoms and pulled away from the west.
Prime Minister Robert Fico Assassination Shooting
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