The left-wing populist leader of NATO ally Slovakia congratulated Donald Trump on his resounding election victory, criticising the media at home and abroad for what he said was a bid to manipulate the voting public through biased coverage and polling.
The Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico, who survived an assassination shooting earlier this year by a pro-Ukraine extremist in circumstances he later said strongly echoed the attempts on President Trump’s own life, congratulated America and the President-elect on the outcome of this week’s election at a press conference. The left-wing populist leader, who is strongly in favour of border control, Slovakia for the Slovakians, and against supporting the prolongation of the war in Ukraine by funnelling military supplies to the country said: “congratulations are sent from Bratislava to the new American President. Despite the fact we are a small country… we are looking forward to cooperation of whatever scope is possible.”
While many European leaders have expressed similar sentiments to varying degrees of sincerity, President Fico went further, hailing what he said was “definitely a defeat of liberal and progressive ideas”. The Slovak expressed a clear envy at the U.S. President’s ability to pursue his own course, comparing the situation to member states of the European Union which are tightly bound by EU laws, and strong pressure and punitive measures directed from Brussels.
Fico said: “I think we’ll be sweating in the European Union because we can’t be anywhere near as bold as the administration of the next U.S. president will be”. He also threw shade at foreign interference in elections — an issue treated with great seriousness in populist-voting European countries, conscious of pro-globalist foreign influence groups and money — stating: “we respect the choice made by the citizens of the United States because we belong to politicians who do not interfere in the internal affairs of other states and do not interfere at the expense of others”.
But perhaps the Prime Minister’s harshest words were for the establishment media — whose relentless demonising of their political opponents he blames for his own assassination attempt earlier this year — who he said had conspired to obfuscate and manipulate in the U.S. campaign. Referring to the phenomenon where, once again, the establishment media was playing up the possibility of a Kamala Harris victory until the very final moments of the election despite the reality on the ground, he told journalists in Bratislava: “Above all there is one great lesson that applies and was also confirmed during the elections in the United States. Never trust the media and polls.”
Addressing the people of the Slovak Republic, saying they also had to be weary of the tricks he claimed to have identified, Fico went on: “the media tend to lie and create a different picture than reality, and not to mention public opinion polls, which are 90% always commissioned to show what is primarily not true. You know very well that the picture [presented by the media] of the presidential campaign in the U.S. was completely different, an atmosphere was created that [who they said the winner could be] is completely clear, and yet the reality is completely different.”
A major policy area for left-wing-populist Fico is the Ukraine war, which he has refused to allow his country to support with arms donations, saying prolonging the war only increases the death toll of Ukrainian people. He cited President Trump’s campaign promise to end the war with peace quickly, saying he anticipated President Trump to quickly follow Slovakia’s lead by “stopping or significantly reducing aid”. He also said he believed the fevered discussion in Western capitals over whether to permit Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike deep within Russia of recent months to vanish with a Trump White House on its way, stating his belief any such attacks would cause a ” escalation of tension that would be unprecedented”.
The Ukraine war and his opposition to Slovakian taxpayer’s money funding it has had enormous personal impacts on President Fico, as he was shot at five times at point-blank range by a left wing poet and activist who cited the war as his reason for attacking. Fico was injured in the gut, hip, arm, leg, and his small intestine was perforated five times, but was airlifted to hospital and despite being in critical condition underwent a successful life-saving surgery.
As reported in May of gunman Juraj Cintula and his motivations, as confessed to police while in custody:
In the document, elements of Cintula’s confession are related, including his assertion that he intended to shoot Fico, but only to wound him, not kill. He wanted to wound Fico so he could no longer be the Prime Minister, he said. The gunman carried 20 rounds and fired five at Fico.
While Cintula said he disagreed with several of Fico’s policies and political reforms, according to the document the gunman’s main gripe was with the government not providing military aid to Ukraine. It read that what the gunman “mainly wants is military aid to be provided to Ukraine”, and was concerned that Fico’s government is seen as a “Judas” by the European Union.
Months later when President-elect Trump was shot at and grazed by a bullet — saved from certain death by a last-second head movement, which he attributes to divine intervention — Fico expressed his view the attack had been a “carbon copy” of his own, and blamed a hostile media for creating a febrile environment where the easily swayed could be motivated to plot an attack. He said: “The political opponents of [Donald Trump] try to shut him up and when that fails, they antagonise the public so much that some loser picks up a gun… We operate in an atmosphere that when it is impossible to democratically defeat us, we need to be illegally locked up. If it doesn’t work, some activist needs to be provoked to [attempt assassination].”