Thread by @P_Kallioniemi

In today's #vatnik soup we'll make our first trip to beautiful Slovakia to meet a Slovak politician and ex-Prime Minister, Robert Fico. Fico is best-known for leading the SMER-SD party and for his pro-Russian politics and views.

1/19

Fico has a long history in politics, and he's joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia already in 1986. He was elected as an MP in 1992. During the 90's Robert represented Slovakia as a legal counsel at the European Court of Human Rights, losing all 14 of his cases.

2/19

In 1999 Fico and his associates launched SMER, a new political party on the left. He restricted everyone with ties to the previous communist regime or people who had background in other political parties from holding party office, ...

3/19

... which created a new generation of politicians who had no role in previous corruption scandals. He also stated that all financial donations should be made public. But as happens so often, Fico's rule set was eventually scrapped and SMER and Robert became a target of a ...
4/19

... scandal, blaming the party of raising several million euros in undeclared funds. These accusations raised from a published voice recording in which (allegedly) Fico was talking about a "parallel financial structure" that was created for SMER's election campaign.

5/19

This scandal created a deep rift between Fico and the media, and he has been blaming the media for his failures ever since. He addressed the media sources, stating that "you are masturbating on the prime minister every day".

6/19

In another incident, he called the journalists who questioned him about allegations that he'd broken the rules of public procurement during Slovakia's EU presidency, he described them as "dirty, anti-Slovak prostitutes". In 2021, he described journalists as ...

7/19

... "Soros' corrupt gang of swines for whom water is already boiling", and the next year he claimed that they were an "organized criminal group with the aim of breaking Slovak statehood". He's called individual journalists "idiots", "pricks" and "hyenas".

8/19

In Mar, 2018, Fico resigned from his PM position after the murder of Slovak investigative journalist, Ján Kuciak. Kuciak was investigating tax fraud inside the SMER party, and he'd also found connections between the Italian mafia 'Ndrangheta and the alleged cronies ...

9/19

... inside Fico's party. The Slovak police have suggested that Robert's assistant Mária Trošková, a former nude model, could have ties to the Italian mafia family. Today (21th of Feb) is the 5th anniversary of the murder of Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová.

10/19

Lately Robert and SMER have been involved in several court cases, including "Kauza Súmrak" ("Case Twilight") and "Kauza Mýtnik" ("Case Tollbooth"). In the former he (among others) was accused of setting up a criminal organization in order to obtain information on...

11/19

... Fico's political opposition. The case against Fico was dropped in Nov, 2022. In the latter SMER party members were involved in a corruption and theft scheme.

12/19

Fico has been keeping good relations with the Russians. He lacked the political allies within the EU, so he sought to strengthen the relations with both Serbia and Russia. After becoming the PM in 2006, he stated that Slovakia's "Slavonic solidarity" and friendship...

13/19

... with Russia would be improved after years of "neglect". Incidentally, this statement right before Putin started waging his "economic war" in Europe, flooding political parties with money. In 2008, Robert accused Georgia for provoking Russia, thus forcing them ...

14/19

... to attack South Ossetia and start the Russia-Georgia War. He called the EU sanctions after Russia's annexation of Crimea as "senseless" and "a threat to the Slovak economy". His rhetoric about the origins of the war could be coming directly from the Kremlin propaganda...15/19

...unit, and he's blamed "Ukrainian fascists" for "killing civilians in Donbas" and for breaking the Minsk agreement. He's described the war as a "conflict between the US and Russia". He's also called the strengthening of NATO forces in Slovakia...

16/19

... a "welcoming of Wehrmacht [the armed forces of Nazi Germany] in our country". In Aug, 2022, while Slovaks were celebrating their National Uprising, Fico invited the Russian diplomat Igor Bratchikov to hold a speech on stage.

17/19

Fico has also stated that if he rose to power again, his leadership would be similar to Hungary's Orbán's, and that he'd restore the good relations with Russia and stop all military aid to Ukraine.

18/19

So far the Slovak support and aid of Ukraine has been outstanding, and they recently even declared Russia as a state that sponsors terrorism, but all that would change if Fico and his party would regain their power in the upcoming Slovak elections.

19/19

Ping: @SamoMarec
Thank you for the sous-chef @BeaEllerbeck for helping me to prepare this soup.

Support my work (and get some AI art!): buymeacoffee.com/PKallioniemi

Past soups: vatniksoup.com
Related soups:
Viktor Orbán:

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1597940800813674496