Slovak Elections and Politics | Fico the Fourth 🇸🇰

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

What happens when Taraba, Huliak,  and Simkovicova become ministers? Do they stay MP or no?

[Estrella]

What happens when Taraba, Huliak,  and Simkovicova become ministers? Do they stay MP or no?

They don’t, they get replaced by the next person on the list, but if they resign the replacement loses their seat and they can come back.

[RGM2609]

What happens when Taraba, Huliak,  and Simkovicova become ministers? Do they stay MP or no?

They don’t, they get replaced by the next person on the list, but if they resign the replacement loses their seat and they can come back.

Would their replacements actually be members of Danko's SNS?

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

That was my point. Maybe Danko is not so stupid? I'm kidding

[Estrella]

What happens when Taraba, Huliak,  and Simkovicova become ministers? Do they stay MP or no?

They don’t, they get replaced by the next person on the list, but if they resign the replacement loses their seat and they can come back.

Would their replacements actually be members of Danko's SNS?

First two substitutes are actually SNS — some random mayor and the son of Police President Milan Lučanský who killed himself in prison two years ago (see the Fico video above). The third one is an MEP and member of yet another minor party, Slovak PATRIOT.

[Estrella]

Rudolf Huliak. Mayor of Očová, member of the leadership council of the Slovak Union of Hunters and the SNS nominee for Minister of Environment. What does he think about environmental issues?

- the campaign to support ecological travel "is a part of the New World Order" and the climate crisis is a fabrication to "dispossess people of their cars"
- "the bear is being used as a biological weapon to liquidate the countryside"
- he is being investigated by police for saying this:

If a minister in China embezzles so much money, and in such a way that a little child in kindergarten can see that it is falsified, absolutely set up to continue to steal from the Ministry of Environment, so that Majko Hletko and his hit team can continue to feed off of it, so that the NGOs can continue to destroy the Slovak countryside, such a person in China - in the middle of a football match, they would clear out the stadium, put up stakes and hang them. They would hang him literally and to the letter, as an example to everyone that this is no way to steal public funds. Then they would rake it up, scatter the corpse in the sea somewhere, and the football match would go on with the good feeling that they had got rid of a useless person. It is terribly badly written, but unless Slovakia also starts to settle accounts in this way with people who parasitise society, public finances and drive Slovakia into social, economic and national catastrophe, I guess it simply won't go any other way.

- LGBT people want to legalize pedophilia and satanism and there's a conspiracy among political leaders to appoint LGBT people to offices because "if you're somehow different, they have a way to hold you by the balls"
- a bonus from 2021: "anyone who believes Fico doesn't deserve a decent life"

Which is how we got here:
- 43 thousand people signed a petition against Huliak as Minister (and 17 thousand signed a petition supporting him)
- President refuses to name Huliak as Minister of Environment

[RGM2609]

What do you think the chances Slovakia has for another good President following the next elections?

[Estrella]

What do you think the chances Slovakia has for another good President following the next elections?

It’s going to be Pellegrini vs someone else, most likely former SaS foreign minister Ivan Korčok. Pellegrini isn’t bad aside from the obvious fact he’s going to be the candidate of Fico, while Korčok is basically the continuity Čaputová candidate (he said he wouldn’t have run if Čaputová had). According to the only poll with those two, Pellegrini would win 58-42, but I’m curious how much popularity will the second most popular politician in the country keep after half a year of being Fico’s bag carrier.

[RGM2609]

Thanks! On a related note, is Caputova's retirement clearly just for personal reasons, or is it that she might be aiming to run for something else in the future, like, say, Prime Minister?

[Estrella]

Thanks! On a related note, is Caputova's retirement clearly just for personal reasons, or is it that she might be aiming to run for something else in the future, like, say, Prime Minister?

It's clearly personal and if she runs for anything it's going to be just incidental. Even if, probably not for PM (Andrej Kiska* sort of tried it and it didn't end well, although she's always been much more popular than him), but I'm intrigued by Lord Halifax's suggestion that she might succeed Stoltenberg at NATO.

* btw last week he was found guilty of tax fraud because he counted €300,000 spent on his 2014 campaign as business expenses

[RGM2609]

So she's not likely to take over PS and run against Fico in the next election. Would have been interesting.

[Jingizu]

Haha, Taraba of Culture that is funny

And Huliak in Environment I expect the first cabinet meeting to turn into a shouting match about whether it's more important to ban pride flags or shoot every bear in the country.

A compromise: they can declare a war on gay bears 

[Estrella]

Richard Sulík announced that after fifteen years at the helm of SaS, he's going to hand over the party to a new leader, chosen at a congress sometime in the spring. This is a fairly rare occurence in Slovakia - most party leaders stay in office for a very long time, often for the entire existence of the party: Matovič has led OĽANO for 11 years, Dzurinda led SDKÚ for 12 years, Mečiar led HZDS for 23 years and Fico has been the leader of Smer without interruption since 1999 - for 24 years. The only parties that semi-regularly change leaders are KDH and SMK/Alliance. As for how successful it is when others try to do it, well...

Threats to break eggs on the head or sudden hospitalization of a candidate. History does not favour changes of party bosses.

SaS chairman Richard Sulík is attempting to do what Mikuláš Dzurinda, Vladimír Mečiar, and ultimately Robert Fico failed to do. At the party's spring congress, Sulík wants to hand over SaS, which he founded almost fifteen years ago, to his successor so that the party will survive in high politics. "So that it will be a success story even after I will no longer be its chairman after 15 years," Sulík said on Monday. The kind of transfer of power Sulík imagines would be exceptional in Slovakia.

"I wish him to live 200 years and not to worry about the party. We would prefer to be his children and keep our fingers crossed for him, to be with him and to be his friends," said Viliam Veteška, vice-chairman of the HZDS, in spring 2007. He addressed these friendly words to former Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar, with whom he surprisingly wanted to fight for the chairmanship of the party.

Veteška was nominated by several party chapters. He himself had declared beforehand that he did not care whether he became chairman and just wanted to stir up a debate in the party. Before the congress, he initially assessed his chances as "weak". On the morning of the congress, which took place in the Nitra Agrokomplex, accompanied by folk music, Veteška was hospitalised and therefore did not participate in the election of the chairman. At the congress, he also lost his position as vice-chairman of the HZDS.

"She is an uncontrollable monster with no respect for the law. A mad cow," SNS chairman Ján Slota complained publicly about his former rival in the party, Anna Belousovová. The disputes in the SNS escalated two decades ago after Belousovová began publicly criticising the party chairman. The clash went so far that someone turned off the lights in the town hall where the party congress to dismiss Slota was taking place in 1999. Although the congress ended early, Belousovová later became the leader of SNS anywayn and Slota founded his own party called PSNS in protest.

Although Slota predicted a ten percent gain in the elections, the two parties with the "Slovak National" moniker blew each other out of the water in the 2002 elections, and neither made it into parliament. Belousovová's alleged threats to smash eggs over Slota's head if he did not agree to a joint run in the elections and a thirtieth place on the joint ticket - as the chairman of the right-wing SNS complained again - did not help either. After several years of squabbling, the leaders reunited, but then fell out with another group in the SNS. Belousovová was expelled from the party in 2011, and a year later Slota, who this year was sentenced to a suspended sentence in a corruption case, ended as SNS leader.

Ivan Šimko, then SDKÚ vice-chairman, first defied the decisions of party chairman Dzurinda by founding an opinion platform in the party. Although Šimko claimed that he would attempt change the party from within and "will not take the easy way out and establish a new entity," these words lasted less than a month. After the then defence minister Šimko had to quit the second Dzurinda government at the prime minister's suggestion because he did not vote for the dismissal of the head of the National Security Office, Ján Mojžiš, he founded his own party, Slobodné fórum (Free Forum).

However, it did not go as he had imagined. The party he wanted to lead did not elect him as chairman at its founding congress. He was defeated by a single vote in a secret ballot by Zuzana Martináková, who left the SDKÚ and founded the new party together with him. "She didn't tell me she was going to run, she didn't rule it out for the first time on Friday," Šimko said after the congress. In the next election, in 2006, 3.5 percent of people voted for the Free Forum and it remained outside parliament. After leaving the party, Šimko founded another party of his own - Mission 21. He was unsuccessful in the elections.

In the 2016 elections, the Sieť party was the project of former KDH member Radoslav Procházka. He had already made himself visible before the elections, when he presented himself as the leader of the right, but he could not clearly rule out the possibility of forming a coalition with Smer. The Network won only 5.6 percent in the elections. Procházka paid a secret visit to Robert Kaliňák at the Cabinet Office. When asked whether he had met with Robert Fico, he famously replied with an unconvincing "no". Some of the MPs who were unwilling to govern with Smer left the party.

The story of Sieť did not end with the misleadings and departures. Radoslav Procházka announced at the next party congress, five months after the elections, that he would not run for the chair because he had "failed in the task of holding the line-up together". In the end, he himself was surprised when the assembly elected "crisis manager" Roman Brecely as the new party leader. "I'm going to fxck off. Guys, you can't be helped," the microphones of TA3 television captured Procházka's indignation at the time. "Crisis manager, damn it, you must be fxcking insane guys, you must be fxcking insane."

[Storr]

An anonymous (of course) EU official said this about Fico shaking hands with Putin in a Politico EU article:

"“Slovakia is such a piddly country that this will barely make a difference,” an EU official said. “Slovakia barely has any leverage. They need their cohesion funds and the EU’s goodwill, they can’t really afford to be a troublemaker in Brussels. What is much more relevant for Orbán is the loss of Poland as an ally on rule of law issues, they had real clout because of their size.”"

While I agree electing a pro-EU government in Poland is a bigger deal than "losing" Slovakia to an  illiberal populist wannabe Orban, sh**ing on Slovakia is exactly the kind of elitist dismissive attitude anti-EU parties and movements capitalize on.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

An anonymous (of course) EU official said this about Fico shaking hands with Putin in a Politico EU article:

"“Slovakia is such a piddly country that this will barely make a difference,” an EU official said. “Slovakia barely has any leverage. They need their cohesion funds and the EU’s goodwill, they can’t really afford to be a troublemaker in Brussels. What is much more relevant for Orbán is the loss of Poland as an ally on rule of law issues, they had real clout because of their size.”"

Every single thing he/she said is exactly correct.

[YL]

An anonymous (of course) EU official said this about Fico shaking hands with Putin in a Politico EU article:

"“Slovakia is such a piddly country that this will barely make a difference,” an EU official said. “Slovakia barely has any leverage. They need their cohesion funds and the EU’s goodwill, they can’t really afford to be a troublemaker in Brussels. What is much more relevant for Orbán is the loss of Poland as an ally on rule of law issues, they had real clout because of their size.”"

Every single thing he/she said is exactly correct.

That doesn't mean it isn't a stupid thing to say.

[Logical]

[Estrella]

A very eventful day yesterday.

Firstly, Igor Matovič announced he's going to rename OĽANO to, I shxt you not, SLOVENSKO ("SLOVAKIA").

Secondly, the MPs were sworn in today. Right away, the new parliament elected the Speaker (Pellegrini, as expected) and committee chairs. Government and opposition agreed in advance on who gets what, so it all went smoothly and most were elected with huge majorities. The first MP to speak in this parliament was, you'll never guess, Igor Matovič. In the debate before the Speaker vote, he made a bizarre homophobic speech in which he called Pellegrini a thief and a liar and said "I don't like men who wear a red thong, I don't like men who invite male visitors into their apartment". In return, Smer MPs shouted at Matovič to go to a psychiatrist and a Hlas MP called Matovič a "proven tax fraudster". Glad to see our parliament is back to its old traditions.

And thirdly, he’s back.

Prime Minister: Robert Fico (Smer)
Se non potete parlare bene di una persona, non parlatene.
Defence: Robert Kaliňák (Smer)
Fico's right hand man and Minister of Interior in his previous governments, despite his lower rank he'll effectively be the no. 2 in the new cabinet. Otherwise see above.
Deputy Prime Minister for European Funds and Plan of Renewal: Peter Kmec (Hlas)
An unremarkable former career diplomat, worked at Slovak embassies, now Pellegrini's foreign policy advisor. Despite the grandiose title, "Deputy PM for X" in practice means "we want you to do something that isn't important enough to get its own ministry". There are also three ministers with the title of Deputy Prime Minister in addition to leading an actual ministry: Kaliňák, Saková and Taraba.
Interior: Matúš Šutaj Eštok (Hlas)
Pellegrini's right hand and attack dog, more Smer-y than the rest of Hlas, called PS "an extremist party that people should protect their wallets from", wants to fire the special anti-corruption prosecutor, called anti-corruption investigators "cowboys who bend justice", "a bunch of scumbags" and "the true mafia", says "we don't live in a democracy but in a police state"... yeah
Foreign and European Affairs: Juraj Blanár (Smer)
Started as a manager in the construction industry, now a Smer old hand, has been an MP since 2002 and governor of Žilina Region in 2005-2017. Led several anti-abortion initiatives, together with Ľuboš Blaha led anti-US protests, thinks “Slovakia should ask Russia to normalize relations”, privately met with the Russian ambassador after the outbreak of war to “fight against propaganda” and abstained on a vote to condemn the Bucha massacre.
Finance: Ladislav Kamenický (Smer)
Businessman and close friend of Fico, first elected as MP in 2012, briefly served as Minister of Finance in 2019-2020. Seems to be reasonably competent but has some shady connections to people convicted for corruption.
Economy: Denisa Saková (Hlas)
Economist and manager in private sector with stints in civil service, Minister of Interior in 2018-2020. For all its faults, Smer used to have plenty of capable administrators in its ranks. Most of them have left for Hlas and basically everyone who's still in Smer is a party attack dog, a shady friend of mafia, a red-brown lunatic or all three. Saková is good demostration of this...
Justice: Boris Susko (Smer)
...as is Susko. A quiet backbencher who's apparently fairly powerful in backrooms of Smer. If he's known for anything, it's for abstaining on the vote to condemn Putin's invasion of Ukraine, attacking investigations into Fico's corruption and having deeply shady connections to Mečiar-adjacent figures and oligarchs.
Education: Tomáš Drucker (Hlas)
Former CEO of various state-owned enterprises and Smer Minister of Health, a capable and dare I say progressive administrator. Carried out far-reaching reforms to bring the healthcare system to the 21st century, invited the opposition and third sector to managing bodies of health-related quangos, thinks "healthcare shouldn't be about business" and managed the seemingly impossible feat of cutting waste while improving quality and access. I'm pretty sure he's going to do a good job at Education but...
Health: Zuzana Dolinková (Hlas)
...he really should've come back to Health. A very difficult portfolio in urgent need of serious action is going to be managed by a former chairwoman of ZAP (doctors' union), who as far as I can tell doesn't have much experience treating systems rather than people. She also criticized Smer as radicals, which is rich considering that she once published a list of MPs who voted for a defence agreement with the US (which was written when Pellegrini was PM!) that she called "the list of shame". She also owns a company that was accused of belonging to a cartel that manipulated public procurement to inflate prices of contracts for coroners.
Labour, Social Affairs and Family: Erik Tomáš (Hlas)
Long-time member of Smer, Fico’s media advisor and then a very active backbencher leading Smer’s legislative initiatives. Was supposed to become Minister of Culture in 2018 but it fell through because of a scandal. Of the people who defected to Hlas he was the closest to Fico, who now allegedly hates his guts.
Investments, Regional Development and Digitalization: Richard Raši (Hlas)
Worked in healthcare, served as Minister of Health in 2008-2010, mayor of Košice in 2010-2018 and in this position in 2018-2020. Seems okay.
Transport: Jozef Ráž Jr. (Hlas)
Son of somehow still popular 80s rock singer Jožo Ráž, career civil servant, held various positions in Defence, Health, regional governments and Slovak Post. Andrej Kiska refused to appoint him as Minister of Interior in the aftermath of the murder of Ján Kuciak because of his father's connections to the previous minister Kaliňák, accused of sabotaging the investigation and forced to resign.
Agriculture and Rural Development: Richard Takáč (Smer)
Agronomist, town councillor and deputy governor of Trenčín region, first elected to parliament in 2020.
Culture: Martina Šimkovičová (independent / SNS)
TV newsreader turned far-right conspiracy theorist, involved with various online media of that kind of political persuasion, extremely homophobic and Putinist even by the standards of Slovak far-right but for now it seems her bosses told her to apper conciliatory and not say anything stupid. We'll see how long it lasts.
Environment: Tomáš Taraba (Život / SNS)
Isn't any less far-right than Huliak on most issues but has a (deserved tbh) reputation for being dependable and someone you can work with. Instead of denying climate change and spreading conspiracies about NWO he said he "isn't there to fight but to lend a helping hand" and he's going to focus on fixing dams, improving sewers and creating a platform for discussion between NGOs, private landowners and institutions.

All I’m going to say about the new government is that they would be wise not to remind people why they gave them such a kicking three years ago.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Wait what gave Caputova the power to reject a Fico appointee (Huliak) ?

[Estrella]

Wait what gave Caputova the power to reject a Fico appointee (Huliak) ?

It’s one of those constitutional provisions that are very rarely used (I think there have been maybe two or three other ministers rejected by the president since independence), but it’s still there just in case. The President actually has fairly wide-ranging powers when it comes to appointing cabinets.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Firstly, Igor Matovič announced he's going to rename OĽANO to, I shxt you not, SLOVENSKO ("SLOVAKIA").

How could be betray so many Ordinary People. Not to mention all the Independent Personalities 

[RGM2609]

Seeing as you mentioned the backlash from 2020 against Fico and Smer, do you think that he would have won in a direct election against Simecka or many of the Hlas/SNS/Republika votes weren't actually supportive of him?

[Estrella]

Seeing as you mentioned the backlash from 2020 against Fico and Smer, do you think that he would have won in a direct election against Simecka or many of the Hlas/SNS/Republika votes weren't actually supportive of him?

It would be neck and neck. On the one hand, the (rather mild) social liberalism of PS makes a significant part of the population see them as an extremist party no different from the likes of ĽSNS, something that would matter more than in an election for a figurehead presidency. On the other hand, Fico is, well, Fico and even a popular-ish Fico proxy got trounced in 2019. But if we had a direct election, such a scenario wouldn't happen in the first place: in personal approval and preferred PM polls, Pellegrini was miles ahead of both Fico and Šimečka, even after his party fell into low teens. Why it failed to translate into an election success is anyone's guess.

[Estrella]

Well, it took Fico only a week to break a promise. Thank God.

October 26: Slovakia’s Fico announces halt of military aid to Ukraine

November 2: Why won't Fico completely stop military aid to Ukraine despite his promises?

Although Smer has claimed since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that it would "not send a single bullet" to Ukraine after winning the elections, this was pre-election rhetoric to help the party return to power. A month since the elections and a week since the formation of Fico's fourth government, it is clear that Smer is in retreat. The categorical statements of Smer members on arming Ukraine are gradually softening.

"What will happen to the military contracts for Ukraine already in force?" a foreign journalist tried to get an answer from Prime Minister Robert Fico in Brussels on Friday, shouting the question intensely in English. She did not get an answer. Fico later answered a similar question in Slovak: "As far as weapons from the Slovak army's stockpiles are concerned, the government will not continue this policy," Fico asserted after the summit of European Union heads of government.

Before the elections, he did not formulate the end of military aid in such a way that only weapons from the army's warehouses would be stopped. Other Smer politicians have already presented a similar turn of rhetoric. The new Minister of Defence, Robert Kaliňák of Smer, also announced at a meeting with the US ambassador that new shipments from Slovak ammunition depots would stop.

Not that anybody except hardcore Smer fans expected Fico to institute an actual arms embargo against Ukraine. Slovak defense industry isn't the powerhouse it was during much of the 20th century, but it still punches above its weight. There are dozens of companies, many of them state-owned, that made sales worth €400 million just last year - not exactly peanuts for such a small country. Defense contractors employ thousands of people and thousands more indirectly, and most of these jobs are located in old (post-)industrial areas that also happen to be Smer strongholds. This June, Konštrukta Defence (located in Dubnica nad Váhom, a town that voted 32% Smer and 16% Hlas last month) announced they're going to hire 200 people at a new production facility. Fico is still going to ape Orbán, but he isn't a turkey carp voting for Christmas.

[Estrella]

Again a promise was broken, and again sanity prevails: We'll cut ourselves off from Russian nucelar fuel, confirms the Minister of Economy despite statements of Fico and Danko.

When it comes to keeping promises, the Minister of Interior removed several anti-corruption investigators from their positions, demostratively fired the Police President three days before the end of his term and reassigned him to the other end of the country. In the past there's been a gentlemen's agreement that opposition would not make any moves against the government in parliament for the first hundred days of the term, something that even Fico stuck to in 2020, but now it's looking like we're going to get a (unsuccessful obvs) vote of no confidence in a minister after just three weeks.

Speaking of just three weeks in power...

Danko's attacks

He also attacked Health Minister Zuzana Dolinková of Hlas, who allegedly "talks about compulsory vaccinations", and Education Minister Tomáš Drucker, for whom "NGOs in schools are not a problem". Danko admitted that he wants to run for the European Parliament because the coalition may not last long. Fico did not respond publicly to Danko, but Drucker told the SNS leader that NGOs are not some "dangerous gender ideology" and that the topic should rather be the fight against hybrid threats, propaganda and disinformation.

(roflmao)

And Peter Pellegrini confirmed what everyone knew - he's "considering" running for President in spring next year. He's already busy trying to moderate himself: he praised the cabinet's decision to allow Slovak arms manufacturers to continue exporting weapons to Ukraine and condemned tankie Smer MP Ľuboš Blaha after he removed the EU flag from his office and replaced Čaputová's portrait with that of Che Guevara. This is a very smart strategy: pro-Russian parties got, depending on where you draw the line, only 35-40% in September and if Pelle doesn't let himself get dragged down by appearing to be too close to them and to Fico, he can take advantage of his still very high personal popularity and cruise to a victory, especially if the main liberal candidate (currently thought to be ex-Foreign Minister Ivan Korčok of SaS) leads an uninspiring/ideological/elitist campaign.