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Home , President of Slovakia, Progressive Slovakia, Robert Fico

ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 24, No. 1 (SK)

Dec 2019

Slovakia political briefing: The review of Slovak political development in 2019 Peter Csanyi

1052 Petőfi Sándor utca 11.

+36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin

Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01

The review of Slovak political development in 2019

This current government’s term was marred by corruption and by the brutal murder of the investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée, after he started digging into alleged links between the office of the then Prime Minister, , and the Italian mafia. The murder caused a huge outcry from the public, who demanded a thorough investigation and staged the largest protests since the . The public called for anti-corruption measures and posed questions about the country’s state of democracy. This ultimately resulted in the resignation of Fico, who was replaced by . Multiple ministers also stepped down. However, with Fico still heading SMER-SD, he maintained scope to influence Pellegrini and set the direction of the government. The protests has also continued in 2019. The murder accelerated the decline of SMER-SD and bolstered the opposition. The presidential elections were seen as a crossroads: sticking with the old establishment in the form of SMER- SD-supported EC Vice-President for Energy Union, Maroš Šefčovič; or a desire for change embodied in the political novice Zuzana Čaputová from the relatively new social liberal Progressive (PS) party. Besides, Slovakia has faced another problems during this year, what began with the chaos regarding the election of Constitutional Court judges and continued with another affairs of the Slovak coalition government - the Threema messages. Additionally, this year’s EP elections could be a stepping stone towards next year’s parliamentary elections, which will be decisive for Slovakia in choosing whether to follow the progressive or nationalist path.

The most important political events, which has had an effect on Slovakia in 2019:

Slovak Presidential Elections:

Thanks to the victory of Zuzana Čaputová, Slovakia joined the few countries in the world with female presidents. She gained 1,056,582 votes in the recent presidential election and became not only the first Slovak female president, but also the first female president among the countries of Central Europe. Although observers warn about jumping to quick conclusions about how progressive Slovak society is in terms of gender equality. Still, electing a woman to the highest constitutional post in the country is definitely a breaking point. However, even though the election of Čaputová is symbolic, one should keep in mind that did not elect “a woman” to the presidential post, but a specific candidate. She has a background in law and

1 in the third sector, a woman who openly talks about her liberal attitudes, her view of how insulting and equivocal is the political communication in Slovakia.

Čaputová is a political newbie whose anti-corruption campaign struck a chord in a country still grappling with the murder in February last year of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak. The murder triggered some of the biggest protests seen in post-communist Slovakia. The killings were one of the main reasons what motivated Čaputová to run for office for the very first time.

Although Čaputová was largely unknown before she skyrocketed in polls just weeks before the election, she has condemned widespread corruption and vowed to fight for justice for all. Her connection with journalist Kuciak's case began long before his death. Čaputová as a lawyer previously waged a 14-year legal battle with a company represented by accused businessman Marian Kočner that planned to build an illegal landfill in her home town in Pezinok, and she won the case.

During the election campaign Čaputová turned her back on issues that have worked so effectively for populist parties in neighboring Hungary and , such as migrants and family values. Besides, in Slovakia, a country where same-sex marriage is illegal, she called for greater LGBT rights. Voters apparently liked what they heard, and Čaputová gained just over 58% of the vote in a second-round run-off against a European commissioner Maroš Šefčovič.

Besides the success of the new president, a very positive news for Slovakia was that some extreme candidates for the presidency were eliminated already after the first round of voting on March 16. The final results were a victory for a different brand of politics. Čaputová’s victory may give a boost to opposition parties looking to replace Smer-SD, still the most popular party, in next year’s general election. However, the fact that anti-system voters, represented in the first round of the presidential race by far-right extremist and Supreme Court judge Štefan Harabin, who together won some 25 percent of the vote, may pose a problem.

The victory is also unique when compared to some of Slovakia’s neighbors. Her emphatic victory represents a rare success for liberal forces in Central Europe, where populist and nationalist parties have racked up a string of victories in recent years, and pushed through illiberal reforms that have sparked consternation in Brussels that the region is drifting away from its democratic moorings.

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European Parliament Election in Slovakia:

The EP election in Slovakia was predicted as combative campaigning with a clash between pro- and anti-EU political movements with an expectation that the new Slovak delegation in the EP would be probably significantly fragmented. While the election was important for new parties to consolidate their presence on the Slovak political scene, the far- right extremist ĽSNS, for example, were trying to build as much as possible on the relatively strong showing of its leader in the recent presidential elections.

The coalition of and Spolu (who supported Zuzana Čaputová in the presidential election in March) won the election ahead of the ruling Smer-SD. The far right ĽSNS ended third. The election turnout was 22.74 percent, much higher than in 2014, when Slovakia posted a turnout of 13 percent. It was a substantial improvement over 2014.

Despite the fact that the turnout in Slovakia has almost doubled since 2014, it was still the lowest within the EU, with the European average at almost 51 percent. It is nothing the Slovaks could be proud of, but it does show a positive trend. Slovakia has reversed the decreasing turnout that had been dropping in the last three European elections. It partly means that Slovak citizens are interested in issues that concern the international community and are not focused only on themselves.

The results of the election in Slovakia have clearly shown and confirmed the victory of pro-EU forces. Slovaks have chosen mostly pro-European politicians to represent them in the European Parliament in the next five years. In the EU election, voters have turned away from parties of the ruling coalition. The EP election meant a total blow-out of the two coalition partners of Smer-SD (Most-Híd and SNS). They did not get any mandates in the European Parliament.

Out of the 14 mandates that Slovakia gets in the EP (13 + 1 after ), only three will be taken by candidates of a coalition party (Smer-SD), while six go to non-parliamentary opposition, two mandates to far-right extremists, and three to parliamentary opposition parties.

A coalition of two new parties, Progressive Slovakia and Spolu, confirmed their victory wave during the elections to European Parliament. After electing Matúš Vallo as mayor and Zuzana Čaputová as the , they won the EP elections with 20.11 percent of votes, which will translate into four mandates. However, the far-right People’s Party- Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) also had a strong result. With the support of 12 percent of votes, it obtained two seats in the EP.

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As many expected prior to the elections, those two forces, strongly pro-EU (PS and Spolu) and strongly anti-EU (ĽSNS), were most successful in mobilizing their electorates. This mobilization helped to increase the turnout to slightly over 22 percent. The election in Slovakia, however, also highlighted other parties. The Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) and (SaS) also managed to mobilize their voters, both gaining two seats in the European Parliament.

Election of Constitutional Court Judges:

Nine vacancies were formed at the Constitutional Court in February 2019, with the Parliament supposed to elect double the number of candidates, from which the President was expected to appoint nine judges to the bench. However, the Parliament was not capable of electing the needed number of judges or just did not want to do it. This failure was considered mainly as the failure of the incumbent ruling coalition.

The direct cause behind the failure of voting in parliament was a dispute inside the tripartite government coalition. Most-Híd, the smallest party in the government coalition, was opposed to the candidacy of Robert Fico for Constitutional Court judge. As a result, Smer-SD tried to push through a secret manner of electing the candidates, which would have made it easier for Fico to forge behind-the-scenes alliances. However, neither Most-Híd nor Smer-SD’s second coalition partner, the (SNS), nor the opposition backed this proposal. Faced with a high likelihood of open defeat, Fico withdrew his candidacy, and Smer- SD’s MPs cast invalid votes, thus blocking the election of judges.

The paralysis of the Constitutional Court was to a great extent an effect of Robert Fico’s ambitions which also met with resistance from the then-President . Fico served as the prime minister for many years and had to step down in spring 2018 due to a government crisis caused by a wave of protests. He chose the position of the presiding judge of the Constitutional Court as a good place for his political retirement. Most likely, he was planning to reach a compromise with the president, who would thus rid himself of one of his greatest political opponents. However, a deal like this would have damaged the meticulously constructed image of Kiska as an opponent of behind-the-scenes deals and political corruption which he plans to capitalize upon in party politics after the expiry of his presidential term in June this year.

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Most probably, by blocking the election of candidates for Constitutional Court judges, Smer-SD wanted to bring about a situation where at least part of the judges would have been nominated by a new president. The plan was that, in the case of victory of Smer-SD’s candidate, Robert Fico would also be able to put his candidacy. He has long been looking for an adequate position to take during the next stage of his political career. Obviously, this plan did not work, because Smer-SD’s presidential candidate, Maroš Šefčovič, lost the election and Zuzana Čaputová became the new president of Slovakia.

Threema Messages:

The 2020 parliamentary election will take place at the end of February, coinciding with the second anniversary of the Kuciak and Kušnírová murders. Given that this will be the first general election since that awful event changed Slovakia, we can expect an unprecedented campaign. This summer we have learned some things that suggest anyone following Slovak current affairs will need a strong stomach over the next six months. The most frequently heard name in this campaign will not belong to a politician. Decades of “hard work” have elevated Marian Kočner to a main element in the campaign, but as object rather than subject. The leaked decoded messages that he exchanged with Alena Zsuzsová, his hardworking associate who, according to the police, was behind the planning of several murders, including that of Ján Kuciak, suggest he was preparing to enter the political arena rather than just pull strings from offstage. But as things stand three months before the election, Kočner will vote from prison for sure and the question is who else will join him.

Marian Kočner, the man who stands accused of ordering the murder of Ján Kuciak, worried about the future of Smer-SD after the murder. This stems from a police report about the Threema communication from his smartphone what was published by Denník N at the beginning of August. The police have decoded the messages Kočner sent through the Threema application in May of this year, with the help of partners from Europol. Prosecutors used the messages that Kočner exchanged with Štefan Agh and Norbert Bödör during the trial in the promissory notes case, in which Kočner is one of the defendants.

The Threema communication suggested he was always ready to help Robert Fico, was loyal to him, sacrificed himself for Smer-SD, proposed and took steps for Smer-SD to stay in power. He even used his own money to influence the public's opinion through media, attempted to influence various political posts, which should have also been done using information that he managed to get hold of even before they were reported by the media. Marian Kočner used

5 to phone former interior minister Robert Kaliňák or former general prosecutor, Dobroslav Trnka, and meet with former Prime Minister Robert Fico, according to the messages found on his mobile phone. Unfortunately, the situation is even worse, because the communication indicates that more politicians and “important people” are involved in this case. It is obvious that, besides the parliamentary election, the investigation of “Threema” communication will be one of the most important topics in Slovakia and can bring major changes on the Slovak political scene in 2020.

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