Robert Fico to become Slovakia’s new prime minister

Robert Fico will become Slovakia’s next prime minister on Wednesday, the spokesperson of the country’s president confirmed.

“The president will name the new cabinet and the new prime minister tomorrow at 2 p.m.,” spokesperson Martin Strižinec told POLITICO. Slovakia’s constitution stipulates that the president, currently Zuzana Čaputová, must appoint the government before it can officially start governing.

This will be Fico’s fourth term in office, and follows his resignation as PM in 2018 after massive protests erupted calling for political change after the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kušnirová. Kuciak had been investigating the activities of the Italian mafia in Slovakia and was killed because of his work. Fico and other ministers in his cabinet at the time resigned after some 50,000 people demonstrated on the streets.

Last week, Čaputová refused to back climate-change denier Rudolf Huliak from the rightist-populist Slovenská národná strana (Slovak National Party, SNS) as environment minister. Fico’s decision to govern with the SNS prompted the Party of European Socialists to suspend Smer from their ranks, along with its other coalition partner, the social-democratic Hlas (Voice).

Čaputová agreed to appoint the government, including Fico as prime minister, following the replacement of Huliak with SNS candidate Tomáš Taraba for the environment minister post. Taraba, like Huliak, routinely attacks non-governmental organizations and environmental activists, and was formerly a member of the neo-Nazi, far-right Ľudová strana Naše Slovensko (People’s Party Our Slovakia, ĽSNS). “He is just a polished version of Huliak,” Slovak liberal MEP Michal Wiezik told the Slovakia’s SITA news agency.

“The SNS feels a great responsibility for the formation of this government so that the prime minister-designate can go to Brussels on Thursday to defend Slovak interests in the area of the migration pact,” Taraba said at a press conference on Tuesday in explaining the candidate switch as EU leaders gear up for a summit on Thursday and Friday. The SNS previously said it disagreed with the president’s decision to decline confirming Huliak.

Fico is also expected to be present at this week’s European Council meeting of EU leaders in Brussels, according to his spokesperson, unless “something extraordinary happens.” Fico, who campaigned on a platform of ending military aid to Ukraine and getting tough on migration, previously expressed his wish to represent Slovakia at the Council.

Fico’s left-populist Smer party won the national election at the beginning of October with 23 percent of the vote — beating the liberal, Western-oriented Progressive Slovakia by nearly 7 percentage points.