Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico did not wait long after regaining power (he previously served in the post 2006-10 and 2012-18) to make waves in his country and across the European Union. In short order, he eliminated the position of Special Prosecutor, began moving people aligned with him into permanent democratic positions, proposed changes to the country’s publicly-owned media, and re-vamped Slovakian foreign policy. To cap it all off, he managed to get his hand-picked candidate, former Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, elected to the (essentially symbolic) office of President of Slovakia. For Brussels, this has all added up to make him the next rule of law threat, a socially democratic Viktor Orbán.
The reality, of course, is that a democratic presidential election is not an affront to the rule of law, nor is anything else of what Fico has done thus far. Instead, Fico’s actions—and the establishment’s reactions—demonstrate two things. One, that Brussels views populist governments as simply illegitimate, lesser than their establishment-friendly counterparts. After all, a close look at Fico’s actions reveals that they are no different from what any other government would do. The difference here, it would seem, is that Fico’s actions are not in Brussels’ interest.
Second, they reveal fears over something larger than Slovakia: the establishment reaction demonstrates how liberal internationalists use a permanent bureaucratic class to achieve their goals, even when they are removed from elected office and replaced in democratic elections.
The issue eliciting most cries of foul play against Fico is his elimination of the position of Special Prosecutor, an action that the head of the European Prosecutor’s Office said she was “concerned” by. For its part, the European Commission subtly threatened sanctions over the move. If you would hear it from Fico’s opponents, the Special Prosecutor is a divinely inspired position of Biblical importance, a judicial Messiah bringing down investigations upon the corrupt. It is, in their telling, a position which is entirely without bias: its compass always points toward true justice.
But a closer look at the actual history of Slovakia’s now-past-tense Special Prosecutor position reveals something less than sacrosanct. In Slovakia’s entire history of independence, there have been only two special prosecutors. The first held the position for 16 years, from 2004 to 2020 and was ultimately removed for blatant corruption.
The second, Daniel Lipšic, was confirmed by the Slovak National Assembly in 2021. Far from being a non-political, blind-justice type, Lipšic was deeply partisan, having served in multiple ministerial positions in governments opposed to Fico. Transparency International argued against his appointment as Special Prosecutor, saying that his connections to governing parties were too strong. Voters agreed; polling at around the time of his appointment showed that he was trusted by only just over 30% of Slovaks, while over 60% did not trust him.
It is also worth looking at the situation in which Lipšic was made prosecutor. The Slovak government, which had been elected only in 2020, was already teetering; the incumbent prime minister had an approval rating of around 15%. There were whispers of new elections, and COVID-19 was arriving. But yet, in the midst of this chaos, the government found the time to put into place an ally who would be able to serve a seven-year term and would have to answer to no democratic authority.
This is not to say that Fico’s opponents were incorrect to appoint a Special Prosecutor; they had fairly won the preceding election, and the appointment raised no constitutional issues. But it is likewise wrong to suggest that it is anti-democratic for Fico to eliminate a position that seemed blatantly constructed to act as a failsafe in case he returned to power. Fico won in December 2023 fairly; there has been no evidence whatsoever that he returned to power through foul play. It is therefore absurd to argue that he cannot democratically undo what a previous government democratically did. To argue this would be to essentially make the case that certain democratically-elected governments—namely those on the Left—are inherently more legitimate than others.
But this belief may explain the outrage over Fico’s plan to, as one political analyst said in an interview, “put his own people in power.” In the United States, former president Donald Trump has railed against a deep state of bureaucrats who are almost uniformly supportive of the Democratic Party; much hay has been made over conservative plans to remake it, should Trump return to power. Fico seems to be in a similar position; after all, if the bureaucrats Fico wishes to replace were already supportive of him, it is hard to imagine anyone in Brussels would care.
The same goes for the criticism over Fico’s attempts to change the supposedly independent public media. His government desires to create a council, selected by the parliament, who can fire the incumbent director without cause. It goes without saying—stop me if you have heard this one before—that the current director was appointed by anti-Fico politicians.
But for having the audacity to replace one political appointee with another, Fico has fallen under attack. The European Broadcasting Union attacked the law, saying it threatens “media independence.” Other critics said it violates EU laws, which “states that governments must ensure the independence of public service media providers.” The current director of Slovak public media said it reminds him of “the days of communism and censors.”
If you are keeping track at home, appointment by a pro-EU government equals independence. Appointment by an EU-skeptical government equals communism.
Anyone who has ever watched European government media, in any country, can immediately tell where its loyalties lie. It is not with populistic usurpers; be it Germany’s public media covering the AfD or the Austrian ÖRF covering the Freedom Party, there is universal revulsion against the populists. Some have a more extreme slant than others, but rarely do non-populists fall under the withering criticism that populists do. Which is a pity; after all, public media is democratically created. There is no inherent reason why a democratically elected government needs to fund institutions which are quite literally predisposed to fight against it.
The outrage over Fico putting his own people into power is made rather rich when one realizes that this is precisely what the former government did when they appointed Lipšic as Special Prosecutor.
But the apparent democratic illegitimacy of populists does not stop in domestic affairs. Fico received condemnation for his statement that Ukraine would likely have to give up land in order to end the Russo-Ukrainian War. Regardless of how one views the conflict, Slovakia has a history of being oppressed by Russia in the form of the Warsaw Pact. If Fico believes that Ukraine is doomed to lose regardless of the aid proffered by the EU, a continuation of the war risks Russia being on Slovakia’s borders; ending the war quickly may be in his country’s interest.
But for a moment, let us put aside the reasons Fico came to his position and instead look at the Slovakians themselves. Polling has showed that Slovakia was one of the most Ukraine-skeptical countries in the European Union, even while the government was solidly pro-Ukraine. In early 2023, the Eurobarometer found that 61% of Slovakians disapproved of the government’s response to the Russo-Ukrainian War and that 56% opposed the funding of weapons sales to Ukraine. The then-government’s pro-Ukraine course was an aberration, an example of an elected government refusing to adhere to the will of their people. Which is, of course, the prerogative of any democratic-republican government. But it is likewise the prerogative of any democratic-republican government to adhere to their people’s will, as Fico has by reversing on Ukraine. To suggest that such a move is anti-democratic is essentially to call into question any government that would disagree with what those in Brussels would desire.
But of course, this is what is happening here. From the former PiS government in Poland, to Janez Janša’s former (and if polls hold, future) government in Slovenia, to Orbán’s in Hungary, to Fico’s in Slovakia, all have one thing in common: they were essentially treated as illegitimate by the establishments they sought to work against. While this would be fine, historically (after all, any usurper is always ‘illegitimate’ to the ruling elites), it is not here, because those same elites have placed their authority upon democratic legitimacy. They may have tried to play a two-step of calling it liberal democracy (which has essentially become ‘progressive democracy’), but at the end of the day, their claim to power—call it their Mandate of Heaven—rests on the laurels of winning democratic elections.
Which is why they are now panicking over the unceasing populist waves. Usually, populist movements are short; they are either successful or they leave. Take in Austria, for example. The first time the populist-right Austrian Freedom Party had real success was the election of 1999, when they spiked to an incredibly high showing and bested the center-right. But from there, they proceeded to drop precipitously in the succeeding elections.
The next time around, however, they were more successful; with the exception of when Sebastian Kurz led the People’s Party, they have done reasonably well in the polls and are set to win Austria’s parliamentary elections later this year. This has been reflected across Europe: the Freedom Party, Fico, France’s Le Pen, Italy’s Meloni, and others are all either staying strong or increasing in strength.
When populist waves were short, establishments could survive by putting their people into power (the very thing they are accusing Fico of doing). With friendly judges and bureaucrats, they can outlast and limit ‘damage’ caused by populist laws and slow their implementation. When the populist wave ends, the establishment can get back on top.
But now that the populist waves are not receding, establishments are worrying that their emergency breaks are not going to last. Before he was ousted, Janša received opprobrium from Brussels for daring to question the independence of his country’s judiciary. And German politicians are working on changes to how government operates in order to “protect” the judiciary from a possible AfD government making changes to it—something which has been a democratic prerogative since modern constitutionalism was first enforced.
This sense of panic is so great that Brussels was nervously awaiting the second round of the elections for president of the Slovak Republic, which recently resulted in a win for Peter Pellegrini, a Fico ally. Pellegrini bested Fico opponent and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivan Korčok, by a not particularly close six-point margin. The office is almost entirely symbolic; a veto can be overridden by a simple majority of parliament, meaning that Korčok would have had no power to stop Fico’s laws.
But it is an important vote nonetheless, as a Pellegrini victory symbolically handed Fico total control over Slovakia. The opposition recognized this importance. One opposition politician lambasted pro-Fico voters, saying “It’s not enough for them to have [the parliament], they want everything.” The nerve of voters to select their preferred politicians! Another pro-establishment analyst said voters, in selecting Pellegrini, sent the message that they “don’t want to live in a free society.”
This, therefore, gets to the heart of the matter. It is not Pellegrini who is giving Fico power over Slovakia. It is not the Freedom Party who, in Austria, could have power over public media there. It is not the AfD in Germany who could magically gain the power to select new judges.
It is the voters who would be giving those parties the power to do these things. In the most literal sense, it is democracy at work. And for all their talk about defending democracy, it is this fact which Western establishments are clearly having trouble accepting.
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/smearing-slovakia