Pro-Russian party Smer wins Slovak election: its leader against aid to Ukraine

The Smer party, led by former Prime Minister Robert Fico, won the early parliamentary elections on September 30 in Slovakia. The politician is known for his pro-Russian stance and opposes helping Ukraine in the war with Russia.

This was reported by the local edition of The Slovak Spectator. It is noted that the political party won only a little over 23% of the vote, which, however, became its ticket to parliament.

According to estimates, the pro-European party Progressive Slovakia, led by Vice President of the European Parliament Michal Šimečka, came in second with 17%. Peter Pellegrini's Voice party came in third with 15%.

On the eve of the election, the country's Defense Minister Martin Sklenar expressed his belief that the Slovak people would "cast their votes in favor of the country's Euro-Atlantic orientation."

However, Fico won. His pro-Russian views correspond to the mood in Slovak society, which has traditionally been relatively positive toward the aggressor country of Russia. It is these sentiments that strengthened pro-Russian narratives and disinformation on social media before the election.

In his election programs, Fico promised to stop supplying military aid to Ukraine, and also said that he wanted to call on Kyiv and Moscow to hold "peace talks." The politician harshly criticized sanctions against Russia, spoke out against LGBTQ+ rights, and defended the national veto in the European Union.

This rhetoric of the Slovak ex-premier is very close to his Hungarian counterpart and friend of Russian dictator Putin, the scandalous Viktor Orban.

The election campaign in Slovakia was described by experts and politicians as "highly polarized" and "marked by a flood of disinformation" online. Voting results showed that the pro-European political party performed well in the capital Bratislava. However, this was not enough to get a majority of votes at the national level.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, Dmytro Tuzhansky, director of the Institute for Central European Strategies, warned that Slovakia could become the Kremlin's mouthpiece in the EU and NATO under Robert Fico's presidency. At the same time, he is convinced that the Smer party will not be able to form a coalition

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