Eurasia Press & News
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico and his protégé President Peter Pellegrini have been through a lot together down the years. Now, they’re sharing a prison cell – or, at least that’s what an AI-produced video clip that went viral in early April showed.
The faked video, which racked up millions of views, attracted the attention of the police, prompting its author to insist it was just a joke. But Pellegrini has recently hinted that he finds the prospect of sharing a cell with his former mentor far from amusing.
In an apparent bid to distance himself from the increasingly authoritarian prime minister, the president in mid-April launched a barrage of criticism directed at Fico personally, his shaky governing coalition and several of its recent policy moves. And about a week later, he went as far as to veto a bill apparently designed to help Fico and his associates evade the jail terms that their critics insist they should face.
Analysts express doubt that the president is pursuing a genuine break with the prime minister. But how parliament deals with Pellegrini’s obstruction of the bill over the next few weeks should indicate, one way or another, what his intentions are.
Minion
Following the close-run general election in 2023, Pellegrini, then leader of the left-leaning Hlas party, found himself in the position of kingmaker. He was urged by many Slovaks – aghast at the idea that Fico and his nationalist-populist Smer party could return to power from the political wilderness – to form a coalition with the liberal Progressive Slovakia (PS).
However, despite consistently affirming his respect for democracy, Pellegrini couldn’t resist the pull of his former master, and led Hlas – which splintered from Smer in 2020 when scandals toppled Fico – into a coalition led by Smer and featuring the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS). Amid the disappointment, Pellegrini was branded a podržtaška – or minion – for effectively giving a nod to Fico’s growing autocratic tendencies.
In return for backing Fico, Pellegrini received the prime minister’s support for his presidential bid in 2024. And since leaving Hlas when he won the election in April 2024 to take up residence in Bratislava Castle, he has continued to stand idly by while Fico pulled the country towards Russia and hacked at Slovakia’s democratic pillars.
Until now, that is.
Problem policies
Pellegrini has this month slammed numerous government policies, as well as take aim at Fico directly.
Some of the targets have been easy pickings, just the sort that the president has carefully selected since coming to office in the occasional bid to show his independence.
The hugely unpopular tax on financial transactions launched on April 1, for example, was part of an austerity package that has angered the coalition parties’ voters – often poorer and rural. The president said on April 14 that the levy makes no economic sense and should be scrapped.
Even harsher words were used in relation to the “COVID amnesty” that was passed by parliament on April 9. This legislation would allow people who were fined for breaking anti-pandemic measures to claim compensation. Interior Minister Matus Sutaj-Estok, head of Hlas, claimed it would relieve those who had “suffered under the rule of evil”. But Pellegrini branded it “a very dangerous precedent”, adding that: “I don’t know how the proponents of this law will be able to look the survivors of COVID victims in the eye.”
Proposed constitutional amendments to restrict the state to recognising only two genders and overturning the precedence of EU law over Slovak law in certain matters have also come in for criticism from the Castle.
Direct confrontation
Still, analysts are unconvinced that this broadside suggests a significant break between president and prime minister, who worked together for decades as Smer became the dominant political force in Slovakia.
“Pellegrini’s statements on policy are in line with his recent strategy to support Fico’s government, but to also try to keep his distance,” says Grigorij Meseznikov from the Institute for Public Affairs.
However, the analyst notes it was “surprising that the president criticised Fico directly”.
Pellegrini has also targeted the prime minister’s pro-Russian stance regarding the war next door in Ukraine, which has grown stronger since US President Donald Trump returned to office and has pushed the Kremlin’s narratives.
Fico worked studiously to avoid criticising Moscow for its devastating attack on the city of Sumy on April 13 that killed dozens of civilians headed to church, so condemnation of Russia from the president on social media was a clear embarrassment to the government.
“The international community must exert all diplomatic efforts and pressure to stop this killing and for Russia to start solving peace issues at the negotiating table, and not with cruise missiles that kill innocent people,” Pellegrini posted.
Further, he openly called on Fico to balance his foreign policy orientation, “so that he doesn’t forget the West”.
Fico’s handling of the crisis within his three-party coalition that undermined the government for months, which prompted speculation about the possibility of early elections, has also been questioned by the president.
“Sometimes I wonder if this coalition wants to last the entire election period, or if one of its partners is really preparing for early elections,” the president mused, hinting that Fico was not being straight with people.
Growing a spine
While analysts remain dubious about Pellegrini’s motivations, they admit it’s unclear why the president has taken the surprising step of confronting Fico so directly.
“It could be that Pellegrini has suddenly woken up, realised what’s happening, and is fearful that Slovakia could become as isolated in Europe as Russia,” Meseznikov posits, before dismissing the notion by noting that “he’s had many such opportunities before and taken none.”
Andrej Matisak, an editor at the Pravda daily, suggests the president may be eyeing the risk of a government collapse, and wants Fico to respect him as a serious political player.
With that in mind, Radoslav Stefancik, a political scientist at the University of Economics in Bratislava, suspects that there may also be a connection to the recent decline in support for Pellegrini’s Hlas party.
Seemingly being punished for failing to hold back Smer’s radicalisation, support for Hlas has fallen by close to 5 percentage points from the 14.7 per cent won in the 2023 election. At the same time, Smer has slipped to second in the polls, two points behind PS on 22 per cent.
Pellegrini’s office did not respond to queries regarding his recent statements.
However, on April 16, the president formalised his contrary turn as he vetoed a government bill passed by parliament to award a lifetime pension to the country’s prosecutor general, Maros Zilinka. It is widely believed the legislation is intended as an inducement for the incumbent to step down early, so that the government can install its own man.
This a crucial issue for the prime minister, say analysts. After his Smer party was forced out of office in 2020 following public revulsion over the state of the country, Fico and several of his associates faced investigations and charges related to the corrupt networks that had flourished during his decade or more in office.
The first point on Fico’s agenda when he returned to power in 2023 was to start tearing down the police and prosecution structures that had led to that push. Critics accuse the prime minister of seeking insurance in the form of a friendly prosecutor should he lose power again.
“Some criminal proceedings from the previous period are still pending or have not been dropped, and some high-ranking people in Smer might fear for their freedom,” says Stefancik. “So, this issue could cause a significant break between Pellegrini and Fico.”
Party leverage
Under the constitution, the power of the Slovak presidency is limited; any presidential veto can be overturned by a simple majority in parliament. But Pellegrini has another major source of leverage.
Despite having to leave the party he founded when he became president, Pellegrini maintains major influence over Hlas, especially given that its new leader, Interior Minister Sutaj-Estok, is widely derided as a weak Fico wannabe.
A huge majority of Hlas MPs would back the party founder over the current leader, suggests Matisak. However, few believe Pellegrini will use that leverage to force Fico to moderate his growing extremism.
It’s too late for that anyway, say analysts. Hlas has nowhere to turn to because the democratic parties making up Slovakia’s opposition retain no trust at all in either Pellegrini or his party.
But that could start to change should Hlas MPs refuse to back the government in the vote to overturn Pellegrini’s veto of the bill on the chief prosecutor’s pension.
That vote is likely to come in mid-May, when parliament reconvenes. With the coalition’s razor-thin majority of 79 MPs in Slovakia’s 150-seat parliament, Hlas’s 26 MPs could easily erase the majority needed to force the bill through.
Several Hlas MPs previously voted against the government during the depths of the coalition crisis. Two of the three – Samuel Migal and Radomir Salitros – were subsequently ejected from Hlas. But the pair pledged in March to support the government after Fico handed them ministerial posts, much to the chagrin of Pellegrini, it is believed.
The other, Jan Ferencak, is the one Hlas MP to have suggested in the wake of the presidential veto that he’s prepared to rebel against the coalition as it tries to overturn it.
“This is a vital issue for Fico,” says Meseznikov. “Should parliament fail to overturn the veto, it would be a declaration of war.”
On the other hand, “if the parliament overrides the veto,” says Stefancik, “it will show that there is no sincere interest in Hlas to do politics differently, that the president’s veto is just theatre, and that his concern for democracy in Slovakia is fake.”
