Slovakia’s populist prime minister, Robert Fico, was in life-threatening condition after being shot in an “attempted assassination” on Wednesday, his office said.
Fiko’s Facebook page said in an update: “He was shot multiple times and is in critical condition.”
It said he was being taken to a hospital in the city of Banska Bystrica rather than the capital Bratislava because “given the urgency of the case it would take too long.”
A Reuters witness heard several shots fired after the meeting in Handlova, northeast of the capital Bratislava. Police detained one person and security officers pushed someone into a car and drove away, the witness said.
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Outgoing President Zuzana Caputova, a political rival of Fico, said in a televised statement: “A physical attack on the prime minister is, first of all, an attack on a person, but it is also an attack on democracy. Any violence is unacceptable. The hateful rhetoric we are seeing in society leads to hateful actions. Please, let’s stop this.
Fico’s ally, newly elected President Peter Pellegrini, called the assassination attempt “an unprecedented threat to Slovak democracy.” If we express other political opinions with pistols in squares instead of in polling stations, we are jeopardizing everything we have built together over 31 years of Slovak sovereignty.
There were reactions of shock from across Europe, and some calling it an attempt to assassinate the leader in a NATO state, although no motive for the shooting was immediately clear.
Pictures from Reuters news agency show a man wearing jeans and a dress shirt being detained by police at the scene.
Members of FICO’s security team can be seen escorting the Prime Minister to a black Audi sedan before speeding away. Fico was in “life-threatening” condition and was being flown to hospital via helicopter, Denik N newspaper reported.
Slovakia, which shares a border with Ukraine, is a member of both the EU and NATO, although Fico is known for his pro-Russian foreign policy and resistance to providing military aid to Kiev. He has opposed Ukraine’s efforts to gain NATO membership and has adopted other populist views that are considered anti-Western and anti-American, a departure from the small Eastern European country’s previous pro-West stance.
Fico is prime minister through 2023, a role he has previously held. The European Policy Center think tank describes him as a “pro-Russian populist” who blends “social populism, nationalism and anti-liberalism”.
He resigned as Prime Minister in 2018 in the wake of the investigation into the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak, who was investigating alleged activity of the Italian mafia in Slovakia. Fico offered to step down in deference to calls for political change following mass street protests over Kuciak’s murder. He returned to power last year in a coalition government led by a populist leftist party called Smr-SSD. One of Fico’s campaign pledges was to halt all military aid to Ukraine. He has repeatedly denied being pro-Russian.
