Two weeks after being shot and critically wounded in an assassination try, Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia was launched from the hospital on Thursday and brought to his residence in Bratislava, the capital.
Miriam Lapunikova, the director of the hospital in central Slovakia the place Mr. Fico underwent a number of rounds of surgical procedure, instructed the TV3 tv station that the prime minister’s situation had stabilized sufficiently for him to proceed therapy at his residence.
Mr. Fico, a combative populist who took workplace in October after eking out a slender victory in a parliamentary election, has not spoken publicly since he was shot on Could 15 within the Slovak city of Handlova throughout a gathering with supporters.
His return to Bratislava steered that he would resume management of a authorities that opponents have accused of eroding democracy and of placing Slovakia on the identical authoritarian path taken by Prime Minister Viktor Orban in neighboring Hungary.
A 71-year-old man was charged with premeditated tried homicide within the capturing, and officers initially described him as a lone wolf. However they later mentioned he may need had accomplices. The suspect, an beginner poet and former coal mine employee with no mounted political opinions, has been described by some authorities supporters and by Mr. Orban as a “leftist activist,” however there is no such thing as a proof of that.
Political tempers in deeply polarized Slovakia, already at a fever pitch earlier than the capturing, have proven scant signal of calming, regardless of pleas from each Slovakia’s departing and incoming presidents for rival political events to observe their tongues. Mr. Fico’s inside minister has even warned in regards to the danger of civil conflict, a chance that the majority observers consider extremely unlikely.
Throughout Mr. Fico’s time within the hospital, within the city of Banska Bystrica, a coalition authorities led by his Smer occasion pushed by way of Parliament bitterly contested laws to overtake the general public broadcasting system. The coalition mentioned this was wanted to purge political bias, however opponents denounced it as an try and impose Hungarian-style authorities management over the media.
TV Markiza, a personal TV station that has been vital of Mr. Fico’s pugnacious model and insurance policies, just lately fired a outstanding political host, prompting workers to threaten a strike and elevating fears that its house owners wished to curry favor with the federal government.
Earlier than his dismissal, the host, Michal Kovacic, spoke out towards what he mentioned was the chance of “Orbanization” in Slovakia’s media, a reference to Mr. Orban’s tight grip on tv and different media retailers in Hungary.
Markiza’s administration mentioned in a press release that Mr. Kovacic had been fired “to safe a plurality of opinions.”
