BREAKING: Slovak PM Robert Fico wounded/shot in the stomach in apparent assassination attempt

[Estrella]

We’ve hit the lowest moral low, and he’s the victim and not the perpetrator. It’s not deserved, but it is darkly ironic. That’s all I’ll say about it.

[Estrella]

71 year old man from the nearby-ish town of Levice with a legally held gun who fired 4 or 5 shots at point-blank range, one of which hit Fico in either stomach or chest. May or may not be life-threatening, depending on which official source you listen to.

[Estrella]

Of course in the chaos of the situation it’s difficult to do things properly, but a well-known security expert and former director of government bodyguards’ office is on TV now and absolutely trashing Fico’s security detail for not following procedures and what he describes as staggering incompetence.

[Estrella]

Officially, the full name of the attacker has not been revealed. Unofficially, he’s not just some guy but a writer and a poet (an obscure one, but still). Juraj Cintula from Levice, born 1953. One of his books he summarized thus:

There have never been so many shameless gypsies in Europe as there are today. But they see well and know how to exploit the social systems of countries. The state is not solving the problem, it is just grazing on it. A hundred thousand Slovak gypsies wants to be liked by the whites, but they won't tell us. .. Let's be strict and fair with them...

He was in the news in 2016 for being beaten up when he worked as security at a supermarket in Levice.

[Estrella]

Not seen any footage of the actual shooting itself, only the aftermath. Surely there is some given how public a place it happened in.

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1790764779742642668

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1790746517935886392

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1790732849139552548

[Estrella]

Local news footage of the assassination attempt:

[Estrella]

Estrella, could you please translate for us what these comments are saying.
Or at least the gist of what is being said.
Google Translate refuses to work on this page.

Typical Facebook stuff. “I hope this progressive artist didn’t get a donation for this”, “typical Soros scenario”, “he deserves a bullet in the head”, “let’s pray for the salvation of Mr. Robert Fico” and so on.

[Estrella]

Laki and Red Velvet, time to start popping champagne. Your favorite European government now has a carte blanche to do anything they want.

A time of political war is coming, declares Andrej Danko. Coalition politicians blame the media and the opposition for the assassination.

At the afternoon coalition press conference in the parliament, the strongest speeches were made by SNS leader Andrej Danko and Smer deputy leader Ľuboš Blaha, both deputy speakers of the National Council. Both directly blamed journalists for the assassination. "Robert Fico is fighting for his life today because of your hatred," Blaha declared. "For years you have nurtured a frightening hatred. I am convinced that the guilt that progressives carry, that the liberal media carry, will never wash away. It will never be washed away by Matovič. It will never be washed away by Šimečka. It will never be washed away by any of them. (...) Which politician will go to any more rallies? You have made us targets."

Danko directly addressed the editor of TV Markíza, whom he called on to hand in his press card. "This is the result of hatred in society. Greed, when you helped Matovič, a psychopath, with Pročko to rule this state. We miraculously came back and you going are after us again." Tensions between coalition and opposition politicians arose immediately after the first information about the attack. The MPs were initially on the phone exchanging the latest information with each other, then Smer MP Richard Glück came into the Chamber and started shouting at the opposition MPs, asking them if they were happy. The assassination, he said, was the result of the hatred that the opposition was spreading against the government.

Even SNS leader Andrej Danko could not contain his emotions in the Chamber. He blamed "hostile media" such as Denník N, Sme and Aktuality for the attack on the prime minister. He called the journalists from Denník N "filthy pigs". Representatives of the parliamentary parties then met in an extraordinary plenary session. Michal Šimečka, leader of Progressive Slovakia and deputy speaker of the parliament, proposed a joint declaration of all parties in the parliament. The coalition rejected this. "Send it to Denník N, send it there, to those people who caused this," commented SNS leader Andrej Danko on the proposal of the chairman of Progressive Slovakia.

The SNS leader announced legislative changes directed against the media. "For the SNS, at this stage, a political war is beginning. I believe that with Robert Fico we will manage it. But there will be changes. Changes to the media," he said. "I also believe that with the new president, Peter Pellegrini, and with Robert Fico, we will make legal changes as we did in RTVS. Now I guarantee you that we will not be okay with what happened." He told opposition politicians to "shut up and respect the election results". Deputy Prime Minister Tomas Taraba (SNS nominee) also accused the opposition of responsibility for the attack, writing on Facebook that "the whole hateful opposition has blood on their hands".

[Estrella]

Quelle surprise.

https://twitter.com/panyiszabolcs/status/1790789652078526939

“Hundreds of thousands of migrants are coming to Europe, which we’re a part of. Slovenskí branci are not preparing for a fight, but for defence. [...] Juraj Cintula, poet, writer, publicist”

https://twitter.com/panyiszabolcs/status/1790789893934710809

[Estrella]

A vid of the assassin being questioned was leaked out and he did it over domestic reasons so Woody and Red Velvet can suck it

Cintula: I don't agree with the government's policies.
Officer: And for that reason a month ago you decided what?
Cintula: But mass media are being liquidated, why RTVS is being attacked, why are people, why [chairman of the committee that appoints judges Ján] Mazák is fired from his position.

[Estrella]

Dude is reported to have been a member of Progressive Slovakia
Since when would a poet who once founded a political party based on no violence ethic and today part of Progressive Slovakia be a former Russian paramilitary 8 years ago?

Do tell us where you found this.

[Estrella]

Dude is reported to have been a member of Progressive Slovakia
Since when would a poet who once founded a political party based on no violence ethic and today part of Progressive Slovakia be a former Russian paramilitary 8 years ago?

Do tell us where you found this.

Also twitter (already being widely spread), but source apparently is Slovakian media and i don't speak Slovakian

https://twitter.com/CaptCoronado/status/1790784295939838021

Maybe you could help verify this, but i don't really trust your word either because of you claiming the exact opposite.

Truly the best source of information.

https://twitter.com/captcoronado/status/1790465627041206475

[Estrella]

Ftr, the source for the assassin being a member of a far-right paramilitary group is the group’s official Facebook, which you could see linked in the tweet.

[Estrella]

I'll try not to jump to conclusions, so here's some more information about the attacker, from a credible media source, Slovakia's most-read broadsheet.
- Just before he started shooting, he shouted "Robo, shake my hand". He fired five shots, three of which hit or grazed the PM.
- The shooting took place shortly after a cabinet meeting in the industrial small town of Handlová, home to a coal mine that shut down last year. The attacker was from Levice, about 80 km away, but he had connections to Handlová and worked for the mine in the past.
- He published three collections of poetry, he's one of the 550 members of the Union of Slovak Writers and founded a literary club in Levice.
- In 2016 he founded the "Movement Against Violence" with a very vague platform, stating that "we need to show strength but not violence" and "we must prevent a war in Europe." He started a petition to register it as a political party, but only eight people signed it.
- His son said that he was never treated for any psychiatric problems and the gun was indeed legally held. About his politics, the son only said that he "didn't vote for Fico".

[Estrella]

That press conference was just surreal. One second Šutaj Eštok talked about "let's just all bite our tongues so that we won't start a civil war", then Kaliňák accused the opposition and media of whipping up hatred and sharing responsibility for the assassination. They also both (undenstandably) looked totally shellshocked and in some moments Kaliňák looked like he was on the brink of tears.

[Estrella]

Of course in the chaos of the situation it’s difficult to do things properly, but a well-known security expert and former director of government bodyguards’ office is on TV now and absolutely trashing Fico’s security detail for not following procedures and what he describes as staggering incompetence.

Another one. Former national police chief says “so far, it looks like a total failure of PM’s security.”

[Estrella]

Of course in the chaos of the situation it’s difficult to do things properly, but a well-known security expert and former director of government bodyguards’ office is on TV now and absolutely trashing Fico’s security detail for not following procedures and what he describes as staggering incompetence.

Another one. Former national police chief says “so far, it looks like a total failure of PM’s security.”

The police inspection office has started an official inquiry into the bodyguards’ actions. According to analysts, they weren’t following their own rules about interactions with crowds when Fico was meeting the people, they did not jump in to protect him after the man started shooting, Fico’s car wasn’t ready, there weren’t paramedics on standby even though it was a huge event with all of cabinet and dozens of other people and there was improper security when he was being taken to hospital. One Czech security expert said “if these were my people, I’d send them back to training.”

[Estrella]

You won't shut up for a second, will you?

With the change of government following the Slovak elections, Slovakia started on the road to peace. This was a great help for Hungary. Now this process has been blocked, shot in the foot. The Slovak Prime Minister was assassinated by a left-wing activist. In the most important months, Robert Fico was out of work. We are confident of his recovery, but today we must fight for peace alone. From now on, we must fight alone, with twice the strength. The European elections have become more important than ever. The violence must end! We must go out and vote for peace on 9 June!

[Estrella]

The shooter being pro-Ukrainian doesn't prove anything, other than him having an IQ above 90.

Only proves that he's really dumb by assuming this is going to cause a change politics.

We could also use the word desperation here too. Slovakia is one of the hardest hit countries in terms of living standards, entire villages are emptying... obviously doesn't excuse violence but it's clearly been bubbling

Is this recent or longer-term?
I don't see Slovakia standing out in population or gdp growth among other Central/Eastern European countries, but maybe those figures aren't picking up some significant changes.

On the whole, Slovakia isn't doing that badly, but it is lagging behind countries like Poland or the Baltics. When you look under the surface, most of the country is actually stagnating and Bratislava is leaving everyone else in the dust. We have some absolutely eye-popping levels of regional inequality: in terms of GDP per capita, Bratislava is the fifth richest region in the EU, ahead of nealry all stereotypically rich Western European capitals (adjusted for PPP, but still). Most of the rest of the country is barely better off than the Balkans. What Zinneke is describing really is a huge problem.

[Estrella]

A newspaper's profile of what we know about the attacker's beliefs. He was involved with both liberals and nationalists, but he was probably neither. Above all, he was a person with incoherent but intense beliefs, frustrated both with his personal life and the society.

Extremists and nationalists label Cintula as a hateful liberal because in a leaked video from a police station shortly after the assassination he says he disagrees with the government's actions, namely the abolition of RTVS and the dismissal of the president of the Judicial Council, Ján Mazák. Moderates consider him an extremist because he appeared at a rally of the Slovenskí branci or because of his views on migrants and Roma.

Cintula's world views have so far been most closely defined by some foreign media, but as a result of a mistake. Since Cintula was from Levice, they wrote about him that he was a leftist because he was from a left-wing political party. The nonsense arose because an online translator translates the name of the town of Levice into English as "The Left", as if it was the word Ľavica, which made them think that this was the name of a party in which Cintula was supposedly active.

According to SME's findings, Cintula may have been close to left-wing views, but his frustration with the country's development and his desire to do something about it drove his life rather than his political ideology. One of his friends presented him as a "professional revolutionary", a man of action who "dislikes sloppiness, backstabbing and laziness" and tongue-in-cheek compared him to the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.

During socialism, when he worked in the mine in Handlová, Cintula showed that he had the guts to defy the system if he ran up against his definitions of justice. This emerges from the account of a friend of his whose name the editors know. He is said to have attended the May Day celebrations with a provocative slogan and the police used tear gas against him. On another occasion, he sawed off a statue of hammer and sickle in front of a community centre.

Under the code name "Ďuro", Cintula was invetigated by the State Security. "Until 1989, he was an anti-regime person. The ŠtB registered him, but that was because he was in conflict with and managed to oppose the regime," Štefan Ráchela, a long-time regional journalist who knows Cintula personally, explains to SME. When the Velvet Revolution came, Cintula was politically active, according to his acquaintances. At the school where he worked, he founded the local organisation of Public Against Violence (VPN). However, when he did not get the position he wanted, he left.

He went through several jobs. He worked in a mine in Handlová, later he was a teacher, had a masonry workshop or his own gym. He also worked in private security and was attacked by a customer in a shop, which was reported by Markiza television. Writing poetry was more of a hobby, but he was said to have had ambitions to be a writer. Although he was very active, he often failed to reach the peak of his ambitions. This motif is also evident in other Cintula's activities identified so far. In 2016, he tried to found a party called the Movement Against Violence, which referred to the VPN by name. However, he failed to collect the necessary 10,000 signatures.

At the same time, he approached the association Slovenskí branci (Slovak Conscripts), but in the end he was only associated with them briefly. The former head of the organization, Peter Svrček, told SME that Cintula himself had approached them, saying that he wanted to recite his poetry at the event. They reportedly talked together for only half an hour and he does not remember the details. It was supposedly the only event he attended.

He was derogatory about the Roma in his book Efata. "There have never been so many shameless gypsies in Europe as there are today. But they see well and know how to exploit the social systems of countries," he wrote. His acquaintances say that rather than ethnic racism, it was a stereotypical conviction to fight against laziness and those who contribute nothing to society that led him to do so. He also appeared at a Matica Slovenská event. The variety of associations and people with whom he actively came into contact precludes the possibility that he adhered to a specified ideology. It has also been written about Cintula that he was a member of Progressive Slovakia or that he ran as a candidate for an extremist party. None of this has been confirmed.

SME managed to identify the attacker in two publicly available photographs from an opposition rally against the adoption of the government's amendment to the Criminal Code on 7 February. Approximately 18 thousand people took part in the protest. The first photo, taken by a TASR photographer, shows his face under one of the banners. The second photo was published by the British newspaper Guardian. Cintula is recognisable in the crowd.

His friends and acquaintances agree that he was definitely not a progressive or a liberal. On the other hand, he did, however, take the war in Ukraine badly. Ráchela thinks that he was sympathetic to Igor Matovič at some points. "But I wouldn't dare to say that he significantly identified with him. I think above all he harbored an antipathy to Robert Fico," he said.

The older Cintula got, the more bitter and disillusioned he became with political and social developments. He was also said to have become increasingly controversial on social media. "As if one could expect him to commit something sooner or later," Ráchela thinks. One of Cintula's friends had last contact with him via social networks a week before the assassination of Robert Fico. As a stonemason, he consulted with him about removing a marble vase from a grave, as it was broken. "We didn't discuss politics at all."

Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok of Hlas also confirmed on Thursday that Cintula's attack on the prime minister was politically motivated, planned after the presidential election, which he was disappointed with. Cintula had already been spotted among the protesters at an earlier government retreat in Dolná Krupá on 24 April. Carrying a banner reading "Peace plus Prosperity, War plus Poverty", he stood outside the area where members of the government were arriving. He shouted slogans at them, including obscenities.

Next to him stood Marek Polonec, a member of the Democratic Party presidency. In his hands he held a banner with a different motif, but the construction and design was identical to Cintula's. The Democrats explain that they brought banners to the spontaneous, unorganised protest, which were also held by others who were present, but did not belong to them.

Local activist Matej Karásek was also at the protest, holding a large cardboard sign with Cintula that read "Towards the Pigs." They only managed to introduce themselves to each other, otherwise they did not communicate. "I am a poet," Cintula reportedly said of himself.

[Estrella]

After a five-hour surgery on the day of the attack, Fico was operated for a second time today, which “contributed to the positive prognosis”, according to the Minister of Health, although he is still in “a stable but serious condition”. The Specialized Criminal Court (responsible for corruption, organized crime and terrorism) ordered to keep the attacker in preventive detention.

[Estrella]

After a five-hour surgery on the day of the attack, Fico was operated for a second time today, which “contributed to the positive prognosis”, according to the Minister of Health, although he is still in “a stable but serious condition”. The Specialized Criminal Court (responsible for corruption, organized crime and terrorism) ordered to keep the attacker in preventive detention.

If the situation does turn out to be "he will likely make a good recovery, but not for a while" then what happens in the interim? What are the formalities of somebody stepping in for Fico on a de facto basis?

There is such a thing as Deputy PM, but it's a meaningless title held by *checks wiki* four different people (same as deputy party leader; KDH has three of them, Hlas four and Smer five). So far, it looks like the ministers are taking care of their own agenda while Robert Kaliňák (Fico's right-hand man for 20+ years) and Matúš Šutaj Eštok (likely soon-to-be leader of Hlas) are acting as Fico's spokesmen. If he's lucid and able to sign documents, I don't see why it couldn't stay like this for weeks or months. We don't have anything like PMQs that the PM is expected to attend and ministers can't be MPs, so he doesn't need to vote. There are only 17 ministers including the PM, state secretaries/junior ministers are irrelevant sinecures with no power or responbility and there's no culture of reshuffles, so you don't have people coming and going all the time. Some kind of collective leadership informally presided by Kaliňák while Fico officially remains PM should be fairly manageable unless one of the parties decides to throw a strop, but then that would cause a crisis even in normal circumstances.

[Estrella]

Helpfully it has English subtitles, in case anyone wants to watch his fourteen minute rant about evil bloodthirsty progressive NATO fascists or whatever.