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Years of scathing rhetoric, irritated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, have left Slovakia in a bitter political divide.
By Andrew Higgins and Cassandra Vinograd
Report from Bratislava, Slovakia
To the government that accused him, he was a “lone wolf,” an unconventional individual who still represented no one when he fired at least four bullets at Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Wednesday’s assassination attempt, however, highlighted a much broader collective disorder in Slovakia. In this Central European country, society and political culture are so deeply divided that violence attributed to a man who, according to the authorities, acted alone, has even other consequences. club with which each aspect can beat the other.
“There’s a point of polarization that has never existed before in this country,” said Daniel Milo, a former government official tasked with tracking disinformation who now works for a tech company. “I’ve never noticed anything like it,” he added.
The Covid-19 pandemic, he said, has hardened flowing lines in the past between what have since become hostile camps, with little room for nuance. About a portion of the population welcomes vaccines and the other portion rejects them. ” It has become: Are you for or against?Are you or not?said M. Milo. And after Covid, came the war in Ukraine, another source of division.
The suspect was temporarily arrested Wednesday and charged with attempted premeditated murder, but the government has not publicly identified him. The Slovak media, citing police sources, knew him as a 71-year-old retiree with a fondness for poetry and protest.
Every aspect of the political divide he used temporarily as a contrast, with his demands adapted. For Fico’s supporters who took to social media this week, the suspect is a carrier of a liberal virus that wishes to be eliminated. Critics of the prime minister have portrayed him as a right-wing extremist.
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