The Landsbergis' Stable Is Nervous: R. Fico, who supports the Kremlin's narrative, won the Slovak elections.

    "The Slovak parliamentary elections were won by the populist pro-Moscow party "Smer-SD", led by former Prime Minister Robert Fico, after counting almost all the votes.

 

     After counting the votes from 98% of the polling stations in Saturday's elections, R. Fico's Smer-SD party was in the lead with 23.37% of the votes. European Parliament Vice-President Michal Šimečka's liberal Progressive Party followed with 16.86%, while Fico's ally Peter Pellegrini's left-wing Hlas-SD party, which could become the kingpin in forming a future government, was third with 15.03% of the vote. .

 

     After Smer-SD won, it promised to immediately end military support to Ukraine, R. Fico promised that Slovakia would not send "a single bullet" to Ukraine.

 

     The 59-year-old R. Fico was forced to resign as prime minister after 2018. murder of investigative journalist Janas Kuciak.

 

     He is expected to begin coalition talks to form the next government. Smer-SD is expected to win 42 seats in the 150-member parliament and will need coalition partners to secure a majority.

 

     Fico's former colleague and leader of the left-wing Hlas-SD Peter Pellegrini left his options open for future coalitions.

 

     "The distribution of seats confirms that Hlas is a party without which it is impossible to form any normally functioning government coalition," P. Pellegrini said.

 

     There could be as many as 10 parties in the new parliament, so the process of forming a coalition could be long and complicated.

 

     The West is worried

 

     The election in Slovakia comes after a vote of no confidence in the centrist government of Eduard Heger earlier this year.

 

     VŽ wrote that recently Slovakia, where only 5 million people live, is a testing ground for the power of propaganda. Russian information is simply flourishing in the country, and Prime Minister R. Fico, who was in the political shadow for some time, took advantage of this. There are fears that if Fico's Smer-SD party returns to power after today's election, Slovakia's foreign policy could be turned upside down. R. Fico has been called the "Slovak V. Orban" more than once.

 

     There is almost no doubt that if R. Fico comes to power, the country's support for Ukraine will also waver. In terms of per capita support, Slovakia has been one of Kyiv's staunchest supporters so far and became the first NATO country to send MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine.

 

     Brussels officials, for their part, express concern that Slovakia may join the disobedient EU members Hungary and Poland, thus complicating Community decision-making.

 

     It is emphasized that R. Fico is a pragmatic politician and the election rhetoric will not necessarily be fully implemented in practice.

 

     Experts also note that Slovakia's economy is not going through the best of times. In terms of GDP per capita, it is at the bottom of the Eurozone rankings, along with countries such as Latvia and Croatia. However, according to one indicator, it clearly leads - the budget deficit, which is forecast to reach almost 7% of the country's GDP this year.

 

     R. Fico promises his voters an economic turnaround and higher social benefits. This will not be possible without EU aid, including 6 billion EUR, which Brussels allocated to the country from the economic recovery fund. Any deviation from the main direction of the fiscal policy would attract a reaction from investors, and the cost of Slovakia's borrowing would increase, so Slovakia would also have something to lose by blocking EU decisions."