The assassination attempt against Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was politically motivated. The security expert from the Center for the Study of Democracy Tihomir Bezlov and our former ambassador to the USA and vice president of the Atlantic Club Elena Poptodorova united around this opinion before bTV.
„This attack is politically motivated, although it is dictated by severe personal frustration. While we have been discussing this attack for two days, another plot related to parricide is playing out in our country. You see the one case that is infinitely more dramatic is seen as something outside of us. While the assassination attempt against some leaders is accepted as something from our life, from our reality, commented in the show "This Saturday" Poptodorava.
According to her, the whole world reacted to this attack in the same way – it is condemned by all. For her, the big questions are what are the reasons that led to this aggression, as well as how this attack is “projected into our near and more distant future”.
„There is a lot of conflicting information about the shooting of the Slovak prime minister. Juraj Tsintula is primarily a nationalist and was associated with a pro-Russian movement. At the same time, the prime minister of Slovakia is also quite pro-Russian, i.e. there is some divergence of motives. On the other hand, however, there are some statements that the shooter made against Fico and the lack of internal political changes, Bezlov noted.
The security expert recalled some of the comments of the major world media, namely that Slovakia is a very divided country at the moment.
„If we look at the surveys about the attitudes of the people there towards the war in Ukraine, we will see that we are very similar to them, unlike Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, where there is a clear anti-Russian mood. In our country and in Slovakia, the population is divided into pro-Russian and anti-Russian, he explained.
„Fico is a flexible politician and that is why he managed to secure a record time in which he was at the head of power in Slovakia. In this sense, all attempts to link the perpetrator to some liberal circles or to be included in some more serious plan, will not last. However, he is an expression of the frustration that is clearly present in Slovak society”, Poptodorova believes.