Slovakia’s populist ex-PM Fico seals coalition deal for new government
Slovak former prime minister Robert Fico and his SMERSSD party signed a coalition deal on Monday to form a new government that is expected to go slow on cutting high deficits and scale back military support to neighbor Ukraine.
Fico, a three-time prime minister last in power in 2018, won an election on September 30 with pledges to halt military aid to Ukraine, while taking a hard line on rising illegal migration and a surge in prices.
He has backed peace talks for Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion – a line similar to that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban but rejected by Kyiv and its Western allies, who say this would only encourage Russian aggression.
Fico’s leftist, populist SMERSSD
(Direction-Slovak Social Democracy) struck a deal last week with the center-left HLAS (Voice) and nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS) to join together, holding 79 out of 150 seats in parliament.
The pact signed on Monday, which can lead to the government’s appointment by the president, agreed the breakdown of positions in a cabinet, giving SMER the defense, finance, foreign and justice ministries.
HLAS, whose presence could blunt any hard policy shifts in the proposed government, will get parliament’s speaker role.
Slovakia, a European Union and NATO member, has seen growth slow in the past year. With higher spending needs amid rising prices, it is also facing the highest budget deficit in the euro zone in 2023, at more than twice the bloc’s 3%-of-gdp ceiling.
Fico said he wanted fiscal consolidation not to adversely affect social standards and to have space for investments, signaling it would rein in public finances more slowly than the outgoing caretaker government has recommended.
“Slovakia needs to support economic growth,” he told a news conference.
Fico said other priorities would include boosting living standards and a foreign policy that is unaltered with respect to the central European country’s EU and NATO membership, but focused on protecting national interests.
He told reporters that what he called the era of non-governmental groups running the country was over.
Fico has a tense relationship with President Zuzana Caputova, whom he has called a US puppet standing for interests of US financier and philanthropist George Soros. Caputova has sued Fico for spreading lies about her.
The new government deal dashed hopes for the liberal opposition to get HLAS – whose third-place finish in the election left it as kingmaker – to join forces.