Rise of far right unsettles Slovakia before election

The People’s Party has become the biggest threat to the troubled government, writes Andrea Dudik

On a cold winter’s afternoon in southern Slovakia, about 30 people gathered at a village restaurant to hear the People’s Party put forward its plans ahead of an election next month.

For a party whose members have lauded the country’s fascist state during World War II, there were the usual motifs of the far right familiar across former communist Europe. The speakers referred to a “population explosion” in areas inhabited by the Roma minority and gave away books on how to solve the “problem”. Two burly men in military-style garb stood guard.

Conspicuous by its absence, though, was the kind of extreme rhetoric that led the authorities to attempt to ban the party. Instead, there was a glimpse of why it’s become the biggest challenger to the incumbent leadership as senior officials calmly promised to crack down on corruption and reverse the neglect that’s led to potholed roads and decaying houses.

“I believe that on Feb 29 we will be able to turn things around,” said Martin Belusky, one of the two politicians who had come to address villagers in Lesenice near the border with Hungary.

That’s the day Slovaks vote in the most unpredictable election in their post-communist history. The People’s Party has emerged as a genuine contender for power by toning down its message and tapping into the disenchantment that’s given succor to so many nationalists in Europe of late. While the country’s president says she would try to prevent the party from forming a government, it still may end up holding the balance of power.

Any sort of success for the People’s Party would send shock waves from Berlin to Brussels. With a population of less than 6 million, Slovakia is a member of the euro. It’s also been a staunch ally of the European mainstream while being sandwiched between Hungary and Poland, member states that have both clashed with Brussels over everything from the independence of judges to taking in refugees.

Slovaks vote two years after the murder of a journalist and his fiancée rocked the nation and sparked the biggest street demonstrations in decades against corruption and cronyism. Protesters forced the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico, though he and his Smer party are still front runners.

The question is the make up of the next coalition government. While the People’s Party has been critical of Fico, it has helped him at times to pass laws in parliament. It’s now second in all opinion polls.

“The People’s Party is benefiting from the mood that all established politicians are equally corrupt and ignorant,” said

Jakub Drabik, a scholar at the Slovak Academy of Sciences and a history professor. “With Smer sinking in the polls, I am seriously worried that they will win the election. Nobody else goes to these villages to talk to voters.”

A decade ago, the People’s Party was on the political fringe. Members would march through towns, wearing black and brown uniforms that brought back memories of the nation’s troubled World War II past. Since then, it’s sought to burnish its image as a respectable defender of ordinary Slovaks.

Last year, the party abandoned its priority to take Slovakia out of the European Union while members have been careful to repeat revering statements about the Nazi-era puppet government. Its first four-year-long stint in parliament and a failed attempt by the prosecutor general to ban the party won it support among a wider group of Slovaks who feel neglected by the elites.

“We can’t let mafiosi and foreign agents capture our state,” ViceChairman Milan Uhrik, a member of the European Parliament, said in an address on the party’s website. “The year of 2020 may make history — also thanks to us — as the year when the Slovaks finally woke up.”

Old habits, though, die hard. There are the offensive statements about Jews and Roma, the impoverished minority ethnic group across eastern Europe that’s traditionally been a lightning rod for prejudice. Party members still conduct “patrols” on some train rides vowing to protect citizens from what they call Roma criminals.

The growing popularity stirred a handful of smaller parties into action. Activists outnumbered People Party supporters campaigning in Sabinov, and a rally in the town of Levoca was cancelled after the main square filled with protesters chanting “fascists go home.”