Slovakia: Surprising stability
By Andrew Rhys Thompson for ISN
Slovakia has been governed by one of the strangest coalitions in Europe since July 2006. Yet despite that, the curiously mixed government of left-wing populist and Prime Minister Robert Fico has remained firmly established with the electorate.
Just a few weeks before Slovakia becomes only the second former Eastern bloc country to adopt the euro as its official currency, the Fico government has proven to be more stable and of greater longevity than virtually all the governments in Slovakia's neighboring countries.
When Fico, a wealthy self-made man and lawyer by trade, announced back in the summer of 2006, that his quasi social-democratic party SMER was forming a coalition with the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS) of the controversial ultra-nationalist Jan Slota and the People's Party (LS-HZDS) of the former autocratic prime minister Vladimír Mečiar, most political pundits and international observers gave the government only a short life expectancy.
The strange brew of predominant alpha males with diverging agendas and different ideas of political self-promotion seemed destined to give cause for potential infighting or general unpredictability. Yet more than two years on and several bold yet popular moves later, the Fico government is still going strong and has Slovakia well prepared and poised for upstaging its larger Eastern bloc neighbors by becoming the first of the four external pageVisegrad countries to adopt the euro.
While most Slovaks worry over the impact of the euro on inflation and disproportionate price increases, internationally and EU-wide, the Slovak transition to the common currency is a major prestige point for the country and quite an economic trump over its otherwise more prominent neighbors, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary.
For Fico's government the switch to the euro marks the end of more than two years of careful planning and preparatory groundwork. Indeed, while the euro has given the Slovak government a chance to shine in the international limelight, it is pretty much also the only issue where Fico has gathered much international sympathy for his economic practices.
Yet at the same time, Fico's political popularity and support in Slovakia are exactly based on his more socialist type of economic policies, particularly with the more financially disadvantaged groups and the more peripheral regions beyond the booming capital of Bratislava proving to be his most ardent supporter base.
Shortly after coming to power, the Fico government started the process of softening or modifying several of the unpopular economic and health care reforms that had been put in place by the neo-liberal government of the predecessor cabinet of Mikuláš Dzurinda. Factually, Fico won the election in 2006 by promising to abolish the health care fees imposed by the Dzurinda government, by modifying and slightly altering the groundbreaking 19 percent flat-tax and by preventing the privatization of several state-held assets that where seen of national interest or strategic importance. He has since then also proposed re-nationalizing some previously privatized companies.
Much of Fico's overall success as prime minister though can be seen by his sensibility or tactfulness of only modifying some of those previous reforms in order to live up to election promises, but not overturning them entirely, so as to not upset the economic development of the country or lose favor with foreign investors.
Still, Slovakia under Fico has not come close to matching the high standing and trendy status it had with international finance and foreign capital, in what also Steve Forbes had labeled "an investor's paradise" during the Dzurinda government and up to 2006.
On the foreign policy front, Fico also broke with the previous government and gained additional domestic popularity by making good on his election promise to withdraw all Slovak troops from Iraq and by thereby also distancing himself from the Bush administration.
Generally, relations between the US and Slovakia have cooled since Fico's assent to power, marking a reverse from the close proximity to the US that Dzurinda had previously sought.
Also on other issues ranging from the rejection of missile defense in Central Europe, to energy dependence on Russia, to the refusal to recognize Kosovo, Fico chose not to side with the US and other western countries and in turn took a more Russia- and Serbia-friendly approach, while at the same time not trying to be outright provocative or combative.
While the somewhat singular nature of these policies has partially limited the international influence of the Slovak government within the EU, more negative from a European point of view has proven to be the liability cast on the coalition by the reckless Jan Slota.
While Slota has not held a formal ministerial post in the Fico cabinet, and his party was only entrusted with three cabinet positions, he has continuously hovered over the government and cast a shadow on it through his unrelenting xenophobic activities and his repeated hate-filled tirades against both the Roma population of Slovakia and the Hungarian minority in the country.
Particularly, bilateral relations between Slovakia and Hungary have consistently suffered as both Slota and extremist elements of the Hungarian far-right have dueled each other in a war of words and through various distasteful verbal and other attacks.
Earlier this month, Slota stepped out of bounds by comparing Hungarian Foreign Minister Kinga Göncz to Adolf Hitler, after the political fallout from a row between Slovak police and rioting Hungarian skinheads at a football game in southern Slovakia turned into an outright affair of state between the two Danube neighbors.
While Slota hence damages the reputation and credibility of the Fico government both at the international level and to some degree also in domestic circles, Fico himself consistently ranks in national opinion polls as the country's most popular or well-trusted politician. If the transition to the euro goes smoothly and the Slovak economy remains stable, despite Fico's more protectionist and socialist policies aimed at social wealth equality and regional wealth distribution, his local popularity and also the stability of his government is likely to continue.
If Fico carries on for the second half of his government mandate the way he has for the first two years of his tenure, he is very likely to see out his full term and stands a good chance of winning the 2010 parliamentary elections as well, giving Slovakia a continuation of its surprising stability.