An anti-Ukraine, pro-Putin party has won the Slovakian general election, held on Saturday 30 September. Robert Fico’s pseudo-left, populist Smer party won 23.3% of the vote.
Progressive Slovakia, a liberal, pro-EU, and pro-Ukrainian party won 17%.
The Hlas party, led by a former Smer member and initiated as a breakaway from Smer, came third with 15% of the vote. Hlas could allow Fico to put together a workable coalition.
Slovakia is a member of both NATO and the European Union and so has the possibility of helping Putin in his war against Ukraine by obstructing aid for Ukraine.
Fico, an unpleasant demagogue and anti-vaxxer who is opposed to LGBTQ+ and migrants’ rights, promises to end all military aid to Ukraine. Fico has blamed “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists” for provoking Russia’s President Vladimir Putin into launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A recent poll suggests that only 40% of Slovaks believe Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine. 50% believe the US is a threat to Slovakia.
Fico was prime minister 2006-10 and 2012-18, but was forced to resign in 2018 following the murder of an investigative journalist, Jan Kuciak, who was investigating corruption involving leading figures in Fico’s party.
Fico is an ally of Hungary’s right-wing, populist Prime Minister, Victor Orban. Last month Fico admitted, “We see Viktor Orban as one of those European politicians who do not fear to openly defend the interests of Hungary and Hungarian people. He puts them in the first place. And that should be the role of an elected politician, to look after the interests of his voters and his country.” (Reuters)
A Fico-led Slovak government would presumably bloc with Orban in the EU, and with PiS (Law and Justice), the governing party in Poland, should PiS win next month’s elections in Poland.
Polish parliamentary elections take place in on 15 October. The PiS-led United Right coalition is standing at around 35-39% in the latest opinion polls, and Donald Tusk’s pro-EU centre-right alliance, Civic Coalition, stands at around 30%. A new far right party, Confederation, is placing PiS under some pressure and is likely to win about 10% of the vote.
PiS is under pressure from the far right over support for Ukraine. In an effort to shore up its base in the Polish countryside PiS has loudly conducted a dispute with Ukraine about Ukrainian exports of grain and agricultural products.
A ban on Ukrainian grain sales to five Eastern European EU states ended on 15 September. The European Commission then ruled that Ukrainian grain sales should be allowed across the EU. Poland, Hungary and Slovakia reacted by unilaterally imposing bans on Ukrainian grain imports, a move which is designed to protect their own farmers, but which broke EU rules. Ukraine responded by filing a complaint against these states at the World Trade Organisation.
On Wednesday 20 September Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki retaliated by saying, “We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine.” He subsequently backtracked a little and negotiations began with Ukraine on a grain sales licensing procedure, proposed by Ukraine.
No doubt the PiS has conducted this dispute theatrically with the intention of shoring up its voter base. But the shifts in Poland and Slovakia come at the same time as pressures rise in the USA to reduce arms supplies to Ukraine and seek to impose a rotten deal. Ultra-right Republicans got approval for more supplies excluded from the Congress “debt ceiling” deal of 1 October to avert a government shutdown. Short-term new approval will surely be negotiated, but it’s a warning.
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