The 1990s brought several significant changes for Europe. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia was dissolved, and as a result, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have since been independent states of the Central and Eastern European region. The focus of European public discourse is not always on Slovak domestic politics, but the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico in 2024 has shocked the continent.

Therefore, the focus has recently shifted: the assassination attempt has prompted the European community to interpret the country’s political and social situation. The issue is not a simple one. Although we are talking about a young state, many issues affected and altered the timeline of the country’s development and its democracy.

What is the history of the democratic framework in Slovakia? What are the reasons for the changes in the region and especially in the country? What quality of political socialization can be observed at each stage? Although these are complex questions, I seek their answers in my writing.

Beginning: Democracy in Question

The first prime minister of the independent Slovak state was Vladimír Mečiar, who led the country for 8 years, with minor interruptions, and formed three governments. Mečiar was essentially characterized by nationalist-populist rhetoric and a government in alliance with the underworld and the secret services. The kidnapping in 1995 of the son of Michal Kováč, the President of the Republic, who was a political opponent of Mečiar, is an example of the latter phenomenon.

The bad relationship between President Kováč and Mečiar was based on the question of the quality of Slovak democracy, this fact alone reflects the Prime Minister’s point of view and his perception of democracy. Mečiar also proposed a revision of the constitution, the aim of which would have been to move the parliamentary liberal democracy legally towards an illiberal presidential system.1

The first democratically elected governments did not, therefore, on the whole, advance explicit democratic development in the same way as, say, other countries. Therefore, it can be said that Slovakia was significantly different in the first period after the regime change due to the characteristics of the ‘94 government. Slovak political scientist and sociologist Soňa Szomolányi (although she does not use the exact term) considers the formation of this government as an example of the term ‘critical juncture’ used by path dependency researchers.2

Critical juncture theory is based on critical points that have long-term causal effects and historical legacies, and they are turning points that change the course of an entity’s development.3 Based on this, I believe that the authoritarian-populist character of the Mečiar governments can be fitted into this analytical framework: the democratic transition was stalled by the establishment and measures of the first Slovak governments.

After Mečiar – Changes or Stagnation?

The policies of the HZDS and Mečiar also brought the country behind in terms of European integration, as they missed out on the first wave of it. This changed only after the 1998 elections when the anti-Mečiarist opposition led by Mikulaš Dzurinda was allowed to form a government – then it seemed that the unstable democracy and the elite responsible for political regression had been replaced. This political turnaround created the image of an improvement in the society’s attitude towards democracy; the Dzurinda government turned towards Western organizations as a result and the country successfully gained admission to NATO and the EU.4

Thus, both in terms of domestic and foreign policy, this period brought significant changes, as democratic frameworks seemed to be strengthening, and the country was also oriented towards the West in the world of international politics. The critical point seemed to fade away, mečiarism was pushed into the background, the country was now on the world map, and the economic reforms of the government cabinet brought growth. However, neo-liberal economic policy interventions in the 2000s led to the collapse of the social safety net, which sparked protests and discontent throughout the country.5

Therefore, the next elections brought another change. In 2006, Robert Fico formed a government that quickly became popular among Slovak society. Its two pillars were populist-demagogic rhetoric and the declaration of anti-Hungarian and anti-Roma views. The popularity of the Fico-era is also reflected in the fact that the SMER-SD he led won an absolute majority in the 2012 elections – unprecedented in Slovak political history, before or since. 6

And what characterized the Fico era? The Prime Minister did not try to fix the inherited social difficulties created by neoliberal economic measures but used the tool of creating enemies to generate a shifting of responsibility in his communication, the subjects of which were George Soros, migrants, and the urban population, among others.7 He also introduced a number of highly criticized measures: making municipal subsidies dependent on altitude, thus depriving the southern, predominantly Hungarian settlements of funds8; strengthening the Beneš decrees9 and banning dual citizenship.

The end of an almost 12-year era is linked to the Kuciak murder. On February 21, 2018, journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusňírová were murdered in their home. Before this, Kuciak was working on an investigative article about the links between the Italian mafia and the Slovak political and economic elite. After their death, the largest wave of protests since the creation of the independent Slovak state began, leading to Robert Fico’s resignation as prime minister. 10

The event of the murder had a shocking impact on society as a whole: it seemed as if nothing had changed compared to the Mečiar period, the feeling was created that the same underworld interconnections and crimes characterized politics and the elite as in the 90s. Thus, the question arises whether this period can be defined as a second critical juncture. After all, corruption, the creation of enemy images, and the government’s links to criminal organizations are all features that were present under mečiarism.

And this time, too, the anti-democratic scandals and measures have brought the same result as in the 1990s: the strengthening of the opposition and its rise to power. The question is, however, whether this will be reflected in political socialization, or whether there is simply a point from which society will surely want change – without any particular shift in political thinking.

Overall, therefore, Slovak domestic politics up to 2018 repeated itself, but it is questionable whether this time the democratic framework will become more stable or whether there will be a slide back into instability. The evolution and history of democratic relations up to this point have been twofold: after the populist-authoritarian takeover, there is a period of consolidation, but after 2018, events will accelerate and the day-to-day will be characterized by a dense turnover of actors.

What Has Happened Since Then?

For five years after Fico’s fall, there was a very turbulent period in Slovak domestic politics. During this time, a stable government could not be built, and the period 2018-2023 was marked by permanent government crises.

Igor Matovic, the first post-Fico prime minister, went against the grain of his coalition when he ordered the Russian vaccine Sputnik-V despite opposition from his coalition partners, which led to the departure of his ministers from the government and Matovic’s resignation. In the next episode of chaotic government, Eduard Heger’s cabinet was brought down by a no-confidence vote, after which a caretaker government led the country.

However, with the once-failed government in the caretaker position, this setup was not effective. Therefore, in May 2023, President Caputova entrusted Lajos Ódor with the task of forming a government but the Slovak Parliament did not vote in support of his expert government. 11

With this story behind them, Slovak society, politicians, and parties headed to the early elections in September 2023. The situation was not simple: the period of the Kuciak assassination and its domestic political impact set the direction for Fico’s replacement but failed to bring unity and stability to the opposition (as it did under the Dzurinda government).

In the 2023 parliamentary elections, exit polls in Slovakia predicted a victory for the liberal opponent Progressive Slovakia.

However, after the votes were counted, the official result was a victory for Robert Fico and Smer, who returned to the post of head of government after his debacle in 2018. His coalition government includes the left-wing Hlas and the far-right SNS. This marked the beginning of the fourth Fico government, which is still in office today. With the expiry of Caputová’s mandate as President of the Republic, Peter Pellegrini, the governing party’s candidate, won the direct election of the head of state in 2024.

The defining event of this current period was the assassination attempt on Robert Fico on May 15, 2024. That day, after a government meeting, an attempt was made to assassinate the Prime Minister, who was shot five times, but Fico survived the attack. During the parliamentary session on the day of the assassination, a member of the government side said to opposition MPs: “This is your doing!”12

The Fico assassination attempt and the recent comments may shed more light on many things. In the past, the political mood and communication in the country have been less than positive. Constant hostility and heated internal political battles have all set the country on a path of extreme polarisation. The inability to come to an agreement, to develop responsible rhetoric, the inhuman recriminations, and hate speech between politicians have contributed greatly to the fact that the politics of the 2020s is still characterized by a democratic backslide. The primacy of democratic values, transparency, the fight against corruption, and inflammatory propaganda are all aspects that have been established very rarely in Slovak political history.

Conclusion

Critical juncture theory describes how the initial Meciar governments had an impact on Slovak political reality that selected a particular option (see anti-democratic, illiberal framework), in such a way that it is becoming increasingly difficult to return to a point where a wide range of alternatives were available – making this juncture critical, writes Tim Haughton. In addition, self-reinforcing sequences described by James Mahoney also came into effect with the formation and actions of the 1994 government.13

Overall, this junction is a defining conflict in Slovak political history and society, which has become a legacy and has left a visibly deep imprint on the spirit and depth of the perception of politics and democracy.

The Slovak domestic political situation has thus been characterized by a duality since the regime change: first the strengthening of anti-democratic conditions, then the fulfillment of the will for change, but the appearance of instability and thus the repetition of the process. The reason for this, in my opinion, goes back a long way: democracy and the learning of democracy did not develop organically because it could not happen under a Meciar government.

The initial steps in such a huge socio-political change as that which took place in the 1990s and the emergence of Slovakia require a complete transition in order to establish a stable democratic establishment. However, with an authoritarian leadership taking power instead of a liberal-democratic construction, the development of democracy was stalled in that period, and its legacy and imprint remain in the decades that followed. The quality of political socialization has failed to retain a feeling of aspiration to a stable democracy, a real liberalism. Society is incredibly polarised, and divisions can create dramatic conflicts.

References:

²: Haughton, Tim: Vladimír Mečiar and His Role in the 1994-1998 Slovak Coalition Government. Europea-Asia Studies, Vol.54. No. 8.

⁹: The Benes decrees were a constitutional decree issued by former President Edvard Benes in 1945, which declared the Hungarians and Germans collectively guilty of war crimes and provided the basis for the deprivation of rights and population exchange against them

¹³: Haughton, Tim: Explaining the Slovak Sonderweg: Slovakia’s Path of Political Transformation During Her First Five Years of Independence (1993-8). pg. 31. ProQuest LLC, 2015

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