Robert Fico
Robert Fico is a Slovak politician and lawyer who has served as the prime minister of Slovakia since 2023. Fico holds the distinction as the longest-serving prime minister in the country's history. His collective time in power spans over 12 years across four distinct mandates. He founded the left-wing political party Direction – Social Democracy in 1999 and has led the party since. His political positions have been described as populist, left-wing and conservative.
First elected to parliament in 1992, he was appointed the following year to the Czechoslovak delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Following his party's victory in the 2006 parliamentary election, he formed his first Cabinet, having secured 29.1% of the vote and 50 seats. After the 2010 parliamentary election, Fico served as an opposition member of parliament, effectively holding the position of the leader of the opposition, despite winning the most votes with 34.8% and securing 62 seats. Following a motion of no confidence against the Iveta Radičová cabinet, Fico was re-appointed prime minister after leading Direction – Social Democracy to a landslide election victory in the 2012 parliamentary election, winning 44.41% of the vote and 83 seats, forming a government with an absolute majority in Parliament, the first such since 1989. In 2013, Fico declared his candidacy for the 2014 presidential election, but ultimately lost to his political rival Andrej Kiska in the second round of voting.
Fico began his third term as prime minister after Direction – Social Democracy won a plurality of the vote in the 2016 parliamentary election, securing 28.28% of the vote and 49 seats, subsequently forming a coalition government. In March 2018, owing to the political crisis following the murder of Ján Kuciak, Fico delivered his resignation to President Kiska, who then charged Deputy Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini with the formation of a new government. In the 2020 parliamentary election, his party finished second with 18.29% of the vote and 38 seats. Fico served in opposition from 2020 to 2023, a period marked by a significant split of his party, and a subsequent shift toward a populist platform. Following the 2023 parliamentary election, Fico's party emerged as the largest with 22.95% of the vote and 42 seats, which led to him forming his fourth Cabinet and returning as prime minister.
Early life and education
Fico was born on 15 September 1964 in the town of Topoľčany, northwestern Nitra Region in Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. His father, Ľudovit Fico, was a forklift operator, and his mother, Emilie Ficová, worked in a shoe store. He has two siblings. His brother Ladislav is a construction entrepreneur, and his sister Lucia Chabadová, who is fourteen years younger, is a prosecutor. Fico grew up and lived with his family in the village of Hrušovany, until the age of six, when they moved to the nearby town of Topoľčany.Fico has described his childhood ambitions as wanting to become either a politician, a sports reporter, or an archaeologist. After completing elementary school, he enrolled in the local gymnasium of Topoľčany, graduating in the summer of 1982. Later the same year, he enrolled in the Law Faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava. His teachers were impressed with him, and one of his teachers from university, the future prime minister Jozef Moravčík, described him as "ambitious, very confident, and very involved in discussions." He graduated as a juris doctor in 1986, specializing in criminal law.
After graduating from university, Fico completed his mandatory military service as an assistant military investigator, stationed in the now-Czech town of Janovice, between 1986 and 1987. He later worked for the Institute of State and Law of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, as well as with the Justice Ministry until 1992. During this period, he wrote and completed his PhD degree, with a thesis on "The death penalty in Czechoslovakia". In the early 1990s, he undertook studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London under a Masaryk scholarship. In 2002, he completed his postgraduate study, earning him the title of associate professor.
Early career (1992–2006)
Fico joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1986, having applied in 1984. After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, and the collapse of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Fico joined the Party of the Democratic Left, a successor of the Communist Party of Slovakia. He was first elected as a member of parliament in 1992. 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 1998, he was elected deputy chairman of the party. Later in 1998, Fico ran for the post of general prosecutor; his party endorsed another candidate instead, arguing that Fico was too young.In the 1998 elections that saw the fall of the government of Vladimír Mečiar, Fico received the biggest number of preferential votes among his party colleagues. A year later, when support for the SDĽ dropped below the threshold required to get into parliament, he left the party, saying he was disappointed with the way the government worked. As early as the autumn of 1998, a four-person group consisting of Fico, his associate Frantisek Határ, political strategist Fedor Flašík, and media executive Monika Flašíková-Beňová had begun to discuss and lay plans for launching a new political party. These plans were driven by the falling popularity of the existing parties and the rising popularity of Fico.
Almost immediately after leaving SDĽ, the group founded Direction, which Fico first labelled a party of the third way, with himself as leader. Fico established himself as an opposition politician, criticizing the unpopular reforms of the right-wing government of Mikuláš Dzurinda. To keep SMER from repeating the fate of his previous party, Fico introduced a strict set of regulations for his new party, called the "clean hands" policy. The rules stipulated that no one with ties to the previous Communist regime or people who had a background with other political parties was allowed to hold party office. This created a new generation of politicians uninvolved in previous corruption scandals; among them was Monika Flašíková-Beňová, Robert Kaliňák, and Pavol Paška. Another rule was that all party chapters on the regional and local levels were to be 100% financially self-sufficient, and all financial donations were to be made public to the media.
Between 2002 and 2006, Direction – Social Democracy was the main opposition party in the Slovak parliament. In 2004, it merged with nearly all the leftist parties active on the Slovak political scene, including its parent party SDĽ, becoming the single most dominant political party in Slovakia.
First premiership (2006–2010)
In the 2006 Slovak parliamentary election, the Direction – Social Democracy party secured a victory, winning 50 seats and 29.1% of the vote. A significant factor in this success was Fico's criticism of the previous right-wing government's economic, tax, social, pension, and legislative reforms. These reforms had been endorsed by international bodies, including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the OECD. Fico promised to reverse several deeply unpopular austerity measures that had been implemented in the healthcare and education sectors under the previous administration, specifically associated with ministers Rudolf Zajac and Martin Fronc.Following the election, Direction – Social Democracy successfully formed a coalition government. This government included Vladimír Mečiar's People's Party – Movement for a Democratic Slovakia and the Slovak National Party, led by Ján Slota. The SNS is a right-wing populist party whose leadership has been known for making anti-Roma and anti-Hungarian remarks. These included a drunken public speech by Slota, in which he threatened to "get in tanks and level Budapest to the ground".
The inclusion of SNS immediately created strain in Slovakia's international relations. During this period, relations with neighboring Hungary deteriorated. A series of scheduled meetings between the Slovak and Hungarian prime ministers were cancelled or postponed, and those that did occur yielded minimal progress in improving the bilateral relationship.
Coalition crisis
On 10 April 2007, the deputy director of the Slovak Land Fund and HZDS nominee Branislav Bríza signed a contract based on which restitutors from eastern Slovakia became the owners of lucrative land in the Tatra village of Veľký Slavkov. These restitutors then quickly sold the land to the company GVM for 13 million Slovak crowns. The figurehead of the company was a friend of Mečiar, Milan Bališ. Bríza did so while his boss Hideghéty was on vacation. 10 April was the last day when Bríza had full power acting on behalf of his boss in the absence of his boss. This was the seventh suspicious contract he had signed up for at that point.Such practices were previously criticized by Fico as they were common during the tenure of his Coalition partner, HDZS leader Mečiar. This scandal almost led to the collapse of the Coalition. It led to the Minister of Agriculture for HDZS, Miroslav Jureňa, resigning. Fico demanded that Bríza resign. The estimated damage to the state was half a billion Slovak crowns. Justice was delivered on 8 September 2015 when Bríza was deemed guilty and sentenced to 2 years' probation.
Schengen Area
Slovakia joined the Schengen Area, which abolished checks at internal borders with fellow member states, on 21 December 2007.The successful accession was seen as a major achievement of the country's post-communist integration into European structures. At the time, Fico and his government strongly insisted on the planned 2007 accession date, pushing back against suggestions from some older EU members to delay the enlargement until 2008 or 2009. Fico celebrated the event, declaring that Slovakia had achieved a key strategic goal alongside EU membership and likened Schengen accession to the significance of the year 1989.
In 2015, Fico was a vocal proponent of strengthening the Schengen Area's external borders, particularly during the European migrant crisis. He criticized the reintroduction of internal border controls as a potential threat to the EU's free movement principle.