Two weeks after being shot and seriously injured in an assassination attempt, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico was released from the hospital on Thursday and taken to his home in Bratislava, the capital.
Miriam Lapunikova, director of the hospital in central Slovakia where Fico underwent several operations, told television network TV3 that the prime minister’s condition had stabilized enough for him to continue treatment at his residence.
Fico, a combative populist who took office in October after winning a narrow victory in a parliamentary election, has not spoken publicly since he was shot May 15 in the Slovak town of Handlova during a meeting with his supporters.
His return to Bratislava suggested he would regain control of a government that opponents have accused of eroding democracy and putting Slovakia on the same authoritarian path followed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban in neighboring Hungary.
A 71-year-old man was charged with attempted premeditated murder in the shooting, and officials initially described him as a lone wolf. But then they said he might have had accomplices. The suspect, an amateur poet and former coal mine worker with no fixed political opinions, has been described by some government supporters and by Orban as a “left-wing activist,” but there is no evidence of this.
Political tempers in deeply polarized Slovakia, already at a fever pitch before the shooting, have shown little sign of calming, despite pleas from Slovakia’s outgoing and incoming presidents for rival political parties to watch their tongues. Fico’s Interior Minister has even warned of the risk of civil war, a possibility that most observers consider highly unlikely.
During Fico’s time in hospital, in the town of Banska Bystrica, a coalition government led by his Smer party pushed through parliament for heavily contested legislation to reform the public broadcasting system. The coalition said this was necessary to purge political prejudice, but opponents denounced it as an attempt to impose Hungarian-style government control over the media.
TV Markiza, a private television station that has criticized Fico’s belligerent style and policies, recently fired a prominent political presenter, prompting employees to threaten a strike and raising fears that its owners wanted to curry favor. of the government.
Before his dismissal, host Michal Kovacic spoke out against what he said was the risk of “Orbanization” in Slovakia’s media, referring to Orban’s tight control over television and other media outlets in Hungary. .
Markiza’s management said in a statement that Kovacic had been fired “to ensure a plurality of opinions.”