Robert Fico

Robert Fico
Prime Minister of Slovakia Designate
Assuming office March 2012
President	Ivan Gašparovič
Succeeding	Iveta Radičová
In office 4 July 2006 – 8 July 2010
President	Ivan Gašparovič
Preceded by	Mikuláš Dzurinda
Succeeded by	Iveta Radičová
Member of the National Council
In office 23 June 1992 – 4 July 2006
Personal details
Born	(1964-09-15) 15 September 1964 Topoľčany, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia)
Political party	Communist Party (1987–1990) Party of the Democratic Left (1990–1999) Direction-Social Democracy (1999–present)
Spouse	Svetlana Ficová
Children	1 son
Alma mater	Comenius University in Bratislava

Robert Fico (born 15 September 1964) is a Slovak politician. He served as Prime Minister of Slovakia for four years, from 4 July 2006 until 8 July 2010. On 10 March 2012 he emerged as the Prime Minister-designate when his Direction - Social Democracy party (Slovak: SMER – sociálna demokracia) secured an absolute majority of seats in the 150-member National Council. The party won 44.85% of the votes, enabling them to form a majority government.

The party won the parliamentary elections in 2006, receiving approximately 30% of the cast votes. After the victory he created a coalition with the Slovak National Party, an extremist nationalist party led by Ján Slota, and with the People's Party - Movement for a Democratic Slovakia led by Vladimír Mečiar.

Life and career

Fico was born in 1964, in the town of Topoľčany. His father was a forklift operator and his mother worked in a shoe store. Fico has two siblings, and is married to Svetlana Ficová; they have one son.

Fico graduated from the Law Faculty of the Comenius University at Bratislava, in what was then Czechoslovakia), and later worked for the Institute of State and Law of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1987. After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, and the collapse of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Fico joined the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL), a successor of the Communist Party of Slovakia. From 1994 to 2000 Fico represented Slovakia as its legal counsel at the European Court of Human Rights but lost all 14 cases which he handled.

In 1999, when support for the SDL dropped below the threshold required to get into parliament, Fico left and founded Direction – Social Democracy (SMER), becoming a popular opposition politician. His rhetoric was most often aimed at the ongoing reforms being carried out at the time by the right wing government of Mikuláš Dzurinda. Although praised by international politicians, business elites, and certain economists, the negative impacts of Dzurinda's reforms increased Fico's popularity. In the parliamentary elections of 2002, Fico's SMER received 13.46% of the votes and became the third largest party, which Fico openly called a "failure".

2006 government coalition

In the elections in 2006 SMER won with 29.1% of the votes and formed a coalition government with Vladimír Mečiar's People's Party – Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) and Ján Slota's Slovak National Party (SNS). In addition to the controversial political histories of Slota and Mečiar, the nationalist and anti-Hungarian SNS party of Slota presented problems of its own, especially in light of Fico's SMER party's attempt to present itself as a modern, socialist and pro-European party. Slota has been known for his frequent anti-gypsy and anti-Hungarian remarks, including a drunken public speech in which he called for Slovaks to "get in tanks and level Budapest to the ground".

As a result of Fico's decision to form government with Slota’s extremist SNS, the EU-wide Party of European Socialists (PES) suspended Fico's party application to join them. In late February 2008 however the Assembly of PES partially reversed this decision, conditionally reinstating the application after both SMER and SNS sent the PES a signed letter, committing themselves to respect minority rights. Slota’s numerous nationalist and hate inciting remarks made since have gone largely ignored by the PES and have not affected SMER’s application.

Fico himself has never publicly criticized or condemned Slota's remarks and speeches and as an obvious result of Ján Slota's conduct the government-level relations between Slovakia and the neighbouring Hungary deteriorated to an unprecedented level. Several meetings between two countries' prime ministers were abruptly cancelled, and those few that did take place resulted in little progress or improvement of relations.

2010 election campaign

See also: Slovak parliamentary election, 2010

Before the 2010 elections, Fico's party, seeking reelection was in a relatively strong position according to several polls. However just before the election a political scandal broke out, described as one of the gravest in the country's 17-year history. A voice recording surfaced in which a voice strongly resembling that of Fico claims that he raised several million euros in undeclared funds for the 2002 election as well as calling for a "parallel financial structure" to be created for the financing of Smer's election campaign. Slovak media sources such as SME carried the news about the recording in great detail; however Fico dismissed it as a forgery.

Fico also attacked the media sources that published information about the recording, saying "Should I go over there and give you a smack because you are scoundrels? What you are doing is unheard of. You are masturbating on the prime minister every day." Fico has since been questioned on the matter, SME announced. Daniel Lipsic told the press he has "handed the recording to the general attorney office". In the election, Fico's SMER remained the biggest party in Parliament, with 62 seats. However, his coalition partners were decimated, with the HZDS being completely shut out. Unable to find a partner willing to given him the 14 seats he needed to stay in office, Fico resigned. He said he "respects the election result" and expressed his desire to lead a resolute opposition after his narrow loss.

Domestic policy

Robert Fico meeting with Serbian President Boris Tadić.

A large part of Fico's election victory was attributed to his loud criticism of the previous right-wing government's economic, tax, social, pension and legislative reforms. The reforms were generally perceived as very positive and successful by such international bodies as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank or the OECD, however they negatively affected certain segments of the population, particularly low wage earners, the unemployed, and welfare and other social assistance recipients.

While in opposition, and primarily during the election campaign, Fico vowed to reverse and cancel the majority of these reforms, however, upon taking office he adopted a more cautious approach. Slovakia was starting to fulfill the Maastricht criteria required for Euro currency adoption, which it completed on 1 January 2009.

The most successful reforms Fico introduced were to establish some reasonable standards in how many times employees may be kept on as temporary workers instead of being given permanent contracts. Under the one-sided, pro-employer legislation of the Mikulas Dzurinda government an employer could (and many did) keep new staff as temps and create a two-tier workforce. Slovakia's labor policies are generally in tune with most other EU states. One of few modifications Fico's government did implement was a slight modification to the unusual flat tax system introduced by the previous government in a way that slightly decreased or eradicated a tax-free part of income for higher income earners. A lower value added tax was imposed on medications and books, though in spite of his election promises Fico failed to extend this onto a wider group of products such as groceries. The Economic crisis of 2008–09 seems to have stopped efforts for more progressivity in the tax system.

Among the more radical measures were controversial legislative changes which effectively banned private health insurance companies from generating profit. As a result Slovakia is being sued by several foreign shareholders of local health insurers through international arbitrations. In 2007, Fico unsuccessfully tried to regulate retail food prices, an unprecedented effort in a generally free market European union.

In August 2008, Fico threatened the foreign shareholders of a local gas distributor SPP, the French Gaz de France and the German E.ON, with nationalization and seizure of their ownership shares in a dispute over retail gas prices.

In 2010, Fico faced large scale protests and a blockade of major cities by truckers upset about badly implemented tolls on the highways. Truckers demanded that fuel prices be lowered to compensate for the tolls. Fico initially refused to speak with representatives of the truckers, saying he would not "be blackmailed", but a few days later capitulated. The cuts given to truckers will amount to about €100,000,000.

Foreign policy

Robert Fico with Mirko Cvetković during the state visit to Serbia

In foreign policy, Fico and his government have faced substantial difficulties in achieving political acceptance abroad, mainly due to his coalition with the controversial and internationally isolated parties of Vladimír Mečiar and Jan Slota. Fico himself created several controversies, for example having attended a reception organized by the Cuban Embassy in Bratislava commemorating an anniversary of Castro's revolution, or announcing that one of his first foreign trips would include Libya, China or Venezuela.

Compensating his lack of close political allies within the EU (head of the Czech social democrats Jiri Paroubek being a notable exception), Fico has been actively strengthening relations with several non-EU countries such as Serbia or Russia. For example Slovakia modernized Russian MiG-fighters in Russia and did not buy new NATO-standard jets in the West. Additionally Fico condemned Georgia in 2008 for the aggression against South Ossetia.

Fico is an opponent of the planned construction of new U.S. anti-ballistic missile and radar systems in military bases in the neighbouring Czech Republic and Poland (also criticized by Russia) and one of the first steps upon taking the office was a military pullout from Iraq. Fico has strongly opposed unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo, as a result of which Slovakia has not recognized Kosovo as a sovereign state.

Views on communism

One of Fico's most famous remarks was his comment on the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which peacefully brought down the communist regime in Czechoslovakia and helped bring down the Soviet rule in all of Eastern Europe. He has been quoted as saying “not having noticed it (the revolution) due to being busy at work” (at the communist ministry of justice) and he has referred to the Velvet Revolution as “an ordinary coup that did not influence his life in any visible way."

Fico and the media

Fico is known for his hostile and often bumpy relationship with the media. During his press conferences he often verbally attacks, lectures and taunts the present journalists, often accusing them of bias and attacks on his government. On several occasions he has openly and on record used profanities against specific journalists (“idiots”, “pricks”). After characterising journalists as “hyenas”, the broadsheet Pravda adopted a hyena from Bratislava Zoo.

Fico, on at least one occasion, issued an apology to a foreign politician whose visit of Slovakia Fico felt was largely ignored by the media. When Russian prime minister Zubkov visited in April 2008, most media did not consider the visit of the virtually unknown Zubkov substantially newsworthy. To make matters worse, during the press conference the journalists were not allowed to ask any questions. Subsequently Fico sent Zubkov a letter of apology where he apologized for the Slovak media's lack of interest in his visit.

Cabinet of Robert Fico

Main article: Fico Cabinet

External links

• The Fico Threat, by Martin M. Simecka (March 2009 essay)
• Fico profile
• "Slovakia's election: Slovakia turns left". The Economist. 11 March 2012.