A politician who has said he will cut all military aid to Ukraine is leading in polls ahead of today’s parliamentary election in Slovakia.
Robert Fico is the head of SMER, a left-leaning populist party. It currently holds 27 seats in Slovakia’s 150-member parliament, known as the National Council. It currently leads in polling but is still far short of a majority, having the support of only about 20% of Slovakians.
Fico has been Slovakian Prime Minister twice before. His second term ended after he resigned in 2018, following the murder of an investigative journalist, Jan Kuciak, who had been investigating cases of tax evasion, including some linked to SMER.
Fico was quoted by the BBC as saying: ‘If SMER enters government, we will not send a single round of ammunition to Ukraine.’
Fico has also previously repeated Russian talking points, claiming that the war was caused by Ukrainian neo-Nazis murdering Russian speakers in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine.
Despite SMER leading in the polls, there is no guarantee it will manage to form a governing coalition. Slovakia uses a proportional representation electoral system to elect the National Council.
It is estimated that as many as ten parties could make it to the country’s parliament, making coalition forming difficult and complex.
[Image: EU2017EE Estonian Presidency – Tallinn Digital Summit, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91607220]