Slovakia: Largest protests to date against Prime Minister Robert Fico

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Photo: Radovan Stoklasa / REUTERS

In Slovakia, tens of thousands of people demonstrated again on Thursday evening against the government of left-wing nationalist Prime Minister Robert Fico, which has been in office since the end of October. As the organizers told the TV news channel TA3, around 30,000 people are said to have gathered in the capital Bratislava alone. Several thousand people also followed the call of three opposition parties in 30 other cities across the country. This day of demonstration is likely to have been the largest so far in a wave of opposition protests that began in December.

The demonstrators carried banners with slogans such as “Fico is evil for Slovakia,” “Fico go to Russia!” and “Shame on the Fico mafia government!” According to the TASR news agency, smaller solidarity rallies also took place in Brussels, Prague, Paris and other European cities.

The demonstrations, organized by two liberal and one conservative opposition parties, were primarily directed against a planned judicial reform that is currently being debated in the Bratislava parliament. The opposition parties see this as endangering the rule of law in Slovakia. The project had triggered critical statements from the EU Commission and the EU Parliament.

One of the most controversial aspects of the reform is the three-party coalition's plan to abolish a special public prosecutor's office responsible for organized crime and political crimes because it was allegedly "politically abused." An anti-Fico coalition, which won the elections against the long-term head of government in 2020, had this prosecution subordinate to the ex-politician Daniel Lipsic, who came from its ranks, and changed laws specifically for this purpose.

After Fico returned to power after the parliamentary elections in autumn 2023, he announced not only the removal of the controversial Lipsic, but also the abolition of the entire authority. The opposition sees the judicial reform as a pretext to cover up corruption cases from previous Fico party governments.

lpz/dpa