PROFILE: Michal Simecka, leader of Progressive Slovakia
Michal Simecka: "Let us vote for the future".
By Robert Anderson in Bratislava September 22, 2023
/ bne IntelliNews
Michal Simecka was called back from Brussels by his Progressive Slovakia party to try to stop what looked like the inevitable return to power of populist strongman Robert Fico at next week’s election – and polls show that he might really pull it off.
Three-time premier Fico had looked down and out when he resigned after massive demonstrations following the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancé in 2018. His leftist Smer party, accused of presiding over a completely corrupted state apparatus, then split and failed to come first at the 2020 general election for the first time since 2006.
But the incompetence of the election winner, centre-right populist Igor Matovic, during the COVID-19 pandemic, together with coalition infighting and the ongoing cost of living crisis have brought Fico roaring back into first place in opinion polls with around 20%.
The liberal pro-EU Progressives, who narrowly failed to enter parliament in 2020, are now benefiting from not being part of that “coalition of chaos” and are just a few percentage points behind Smer in the latest opinion polls. There is a real hope that a late surge of support from the estimated one quarter of undecided voters could push the Progressives into first place on September 30, just like Matovic’s OLaNO last time around.
“It will be very narrow,” says Milan Nic, senior fellow at the German Council of Foreign Relations (DGAP). “It could be decided in the last two weeks.”
“There is a real chance of a bandwagon effect,” says Professor Tim Haughton of Birmingham University, who has just visited the country. “I would not be surprised if they do better than the polls indicate.”
Bratislava is currently full of billboards of the Progressives’ youthful (39-year-old) bearded leader and his wholesome family, urging Slovaks “to vote for the future”.
“In the final stretch it is a political confrontation of two visions of where Slovakia should be headed,” Simecka told bne IntelliNews in an interview in his Bratislava office. “Fico is promising a return to the past, retribution, a potential threat to the rule of law and international isolation.”
Simecka – who built up his profile in Slovakia while vice-president of the European Parliament through punchy interventions on social media – has performed better than expected in television debates, even if his sober style of argument often clashes with tub thumping political rivals (Matovic and Smer’s Robert Kalinak even thumped each other at a recent rally).
There now appears to be real excitement among the city’s liberal and relatively affluent young voters that Progressive Slovakia could win, even if many also fear that Simecka could be outfoxed by the veteran Fico, who has dominated the country’s politics for nearly 20 years.
Beefy populism
Simecka is an unlikely politician not just because of his relative youth but because of his background and politics. In a country that over the past 34 years of democracy has habitually backed beefy populists who claim to stand for the ordinary man, his liberal views and academic experience stand out. He comes from a famous family of dissident writers, has a PhD from Oxford, and worked as a foreign policy wonk and journalist before entering politics (full disclosure: he was my colleague 20 years ago).
He also does not dominate his party as Slovak leaders customarily do, and only became chairman and the Progressive candidate for premier in May last year as the party had no-one else who fancied the job.
“One of his weaknesses is that he does not have any executive experience,” says Haughton. “Vice president of the EU parliament counts for virtually nothing here. Is he up to being PM will be the question on many people’s minds.”
Another weakness is that his party is widely dismissed as a Bratislava liberal club with little reach outside the capital. Slovakia suffers from deep regional inequalities and booming Bratislava is a world away from the grim towns and dusty villages in central and eastern parts of the country.
Slovaks in those regions have recently been hit by first the pandemic and then soaring prices, and have long had a weakness (worsened by disinformation) for populist strongmen promising stability, order, and a strong state.
“There is a problem that Progressive Slovakia is seen as very much a Bratislava party and a party of the young,” says Haughton. “Its appeal outside these groups is more limited.”
Nic argues that its free market economic programme has little appeal for poorer voters, and the inclusion of promises such as registered same-sex partnerships does not go down well in the more conservative rural areas. The party also has a strong green focus, and some members have publicly backed liberalisation of drugs.
“They are limiting their appeal to urban areas,” says Nic. “They are playing into the hands of Fico and Smer who are framing them as radicals”.
Michal Vasecka, head of the Bratislava Policy Institute think-tank concurs. “Honestly they are too modern for Slovakia,” he says. “Progressive Slovakia is viewed as too radical.”
Simecka is unapologetic. “We are a liberal party and that is the way it is. We believe in [sexual] equality and that is who we are,” he says. “The thing that people need to realise is that Slovakia is an outlier in the EU. Many EU states have not just civil partnerships but same-sex marriages.”
Binary choice
Even the party’s closest potential allies have turned on them in the heat of the campaign, damning them as too radical, as their own ratings dribble away.
Christian Democrat leader Milan Majerský said the Progressives were "in many ways" a threat because of their gender policies.
The libertarian Freedom and Solidarity Party (SaS) has also recently attacked the “neo-Marxist” Progressives. A top SaS party official told bne IntelliNews that there were deep economic policy differences between the parties that were not always reflected in the Progressives’ programme.
“We don’t know what to expect from them,” he said, casting doubt on their pledge not to raise taxes to close the yawning budget deficit. “They don’t mean it. Their experts say there must be tax hikes. We will ask for more budget cuts but they will not be willing to do this.”
The smaller centre-right parties blame Simecka for trying to make the election a binary choice between the Progressives and Fico. This could firm up Smer’s support and push the smaller parties below the 5% threshold, leaving the Progressives bereft of allies.
“Progressive Slovakia is playing on the fear of Fico and portraying themselves as the alternative,” says Nic. “The strong polarisation between Smer and PS is not good for small parties.”
Even if the seats are there to form a government, and the Progressives can reach a compromise with the Christian Democrats and SaS, they are likely to need at least two more parties to achieve a majority. Building and holding such a government together will be a huge test of Simecka’s leadership skills, and could end in another fiasco for the Slovak centre-right, which is riven with personal antagonisms.
Simecka puts on a brave face. “My experience is from the European Parliament, where you have to work with people who you don’t necessarily agree with…. It’s about dialogue and respect for your partners. Of course it’s not going to be easy but I think it is the best possible path for our future.”
Insiders say that comparing the European Parliament to the snake pit of Slovak politics is naïve.
“Michael Simecka does not know what he has got himself into and what to do about it,” one former senior official in the recently collapsed centre-right government told bne IntelliNews. “He will come face to face with the thick wall of Slovak political reality.”
Nasty compromises
That reality is that he will need at least two parties from what he says are not his preferred partners, each with their own drawbacks.
Matovic’s OLaNO should be an obvious partner but his erratic behaviour as premier will make him virtually the last choice.
Boris Kollar’s rightwing populist We are Family party is even more traditional on “family issues” than the Catholic Christian Democrats, despite Kollar’s 13 children from 11 different women. Kollar has said that joining with Progressive Slovakia would be his last option and that Simecka would be a “disaster” as premier.
The fate of Slovakia may come down to former premier Robert Pellegrini’s centre-left Hlas party, which is running third in the opinion polls at around 13%.
Pellegrini, who took over as premier from Fico when he resigned but then formed his own party before the election, had indicated he would prefer to work with the Progressives but he has been more ambivalent in recent weeks as his poll support has weakened. "We are fundamentally different and it's probably hard to come to an agreement," he said recently.
Political analysts suggest that Hlas could split if Pellegrini forms a coalition with the centre-right, who distrust him anyway, and he might therefore choose to ally again with Fico, perhaps in return for a clear run for the presidency next year.
“I still have a hidden hope that Progressive Slovakia will win,” says Beata Balagova, editor of the Sme daily. “But if Fico loses it will be a nasty compromise,” she warns, “and we will be in the hands of Pellegrini
Andrea Dudik and Daniel Hornak
Sun, September 24, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- When Slovakia’s longest-serving prime minister was forced out of office in 2018 following the biggest mass protests since the communist era, he grinned and vowed that he’d be back. Few, though, took him seriously.
Robert Fico saw his closest ally defect to form a new party, prosecutors seek to put him and his associates behind bars for alleged corruption and his Smer party collapse to a record low in opinion polls. Yet reaction to the war in Ukraine has created a path back to power that would further test the European Union’s ability to remain united against Russian belligerence, even more so after Poland’s recent spat with Kyiv.
Slovaks will vote on Sept. 30 in a tight election, and Fico has tapped into concerns over the fallout from the conflict. In a country of 5.4 million people who are the most pro-Russian in the region, he has vowed to end military aid to Ukraine, called Slovakia’s president an “American agent” and opposes NATO membership for its war-ravaged neighbor.
“Fico has no problem crossing red lines,” said Boris Zala, a Smer co-founder who now works on policy papers for think tank Progressive Forum in Bratislava. “He will do anything to win more votes.”
A member of the 27-nation EU, the euro region and NATO, Slovakia matters politically. It’s also sandwiched between Hungary, run by disruptor-in-chief Viktor Orban, and Poland, whose ruling nationalist Law & Justice Party is aiming to win a third-straight election on Oct. 15.
The three countries have angered Kyiv by pushing to extend a ban on Ukrainian grain imports to protect their farmers, something Fico said last week he would continue if he were to win power. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki had escalated the quarrel by saying his country halted arms shipments to Ukraine, before government officials walked back the remarks.
Slovakia has generally remained steadfast on its support for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, even as successive surveys showed that more than half of Slovaks blame the West or Ukraine for the war.
The country still sent weapons eastward, accommodated more than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and backed all sanctions on Russia even though the move had a direct effect on its energy supplies.
The return of Fico, 59, could quickly change that, bringing into question Slovakia’s cooperation with NATO given his fierce criticism of the alliance and the US. It would also boost the influence of Orban, who has opposed sanctions and weapons deliveries.
Fico hasn’t always been such a wildcard for Europe. Under his leadership, Slovakia joined the euro in 2009, its economy underpinned by an automotive industry that made the country one of the world’s biggest per-capita car producers. He also considered former German Chancellor Angela Merkel an ally.
The question is whether the next incarnation of his premiership would see a throwback to when Slovakia was more in the European wilderness, especially as he may have to bring in the far-right to form a majority government.
“Fico’s goals will trigger opposition and dissent abroad, and that could lead to Slovakia’s isolation,” said Grigorij Meseznikov, the president of the Institute for Public Affairs think tank, who has followed the nation’s politics for over 30 years. While still remaining in the EU, he will pull Slovakia “outside the European mainstream,” he said.
Victory isn’t a done deal. Smer has about 20% support in opinion polls, giving it an advantage of three percentage points over its main rival, the Progressive Slovakia party led by Michal Simecka. That lead — in a fragmented political landscape where smaller parties will ultimately play kingmaker — has gradually narrowed from five points points in March.
Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, Slovakia diverged from the rest of the region initially. The first governments after communism ended ignored the rule of law, preventing the country from joining NATO in 1999 along with Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The then US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, referred to the nation as “the black hole” of Europe.
At that time, Fico was in his early 30s and he consolidated the country’s center-left in a power grab, winning followers with passionate speeches on fighting corruption and promoting EU integration. His Smer party won its first general election in 2006. His popularity peaked at 44% in 2012 as he vowed to give more money to the underprivileged.
Inspired by Orban’s ability to shift narrative to stay in power, Fico started to backtrack on issues he once supported. He and his party also faced allegations they allowed corruption to flourish, peaking in 2018 with the contract killing of a young investigative reporter, Jan Kuciak, and his fiancée.
Fico became the face of that public resentment and stepped down after pressure from his coalition partners. He said in an April interview with Bloomberg that he was the scapegoat, that he immediately knew the murder, “which has nothing to do with Smer, will be misused.”
The incoming governments targeted him and his closest allies with graft allegations. Dozens of high-ranking police officers, secret service agents and former officials were convicted in related cases.
Fico refuted allegations his party fostered a mafia-style state as “fabricated and laughable.” But the issue became the main focus of the 2020 election, the first in 14 years that Fico lost.
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As Fico’s popularity hit the rock bottom, he reinvented himself, becoming the voice against everything from coronavirus lockdowns and vaccines to immigration and green policies. Much like Orban, he rails against the EU as a dissenting voice within the bloc rather than to lead his country out of it.
“Fico has certainly changed,” said Bela Bugar, the leader of a former coalition party that was part of a Smer administration from 2016 to 2020. “When you are being hunted, you change.”
It’s Slovakia’s support for Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s invasion that has been his most bountiful political seam to mine. Fico, who agreed to the purchase of F-16 fighter jets from the US in 2018, has been particularly about the nation’s NATO partners. He compared German troops coming to Slovakia with the Nazi-era Wehrmacht.
Smer’s vice-chairman, Lubos Blaha, roused the crowd at a party event last month: “War and fascism have always come from the West, and freedom and peace from the East,” he said.
Polls show Slovak support for EU and NATO membership has been slipping. Diplomats stationed in Bratislava have slammed Smer for repeatedly spreading misinformation about the Russian invasion. Like Orban, one of Fico’s tropes is that billionaire philanthropist George Soros is interfering in Slovak politics and liberal opponents are serving foreign interests.
“I don’t want to supply deadly weapons to Ukraine just for the sake of a good image among the Western countries,” Fico said in the April interview in Bratislava. “It is irrational to think that Russia will withdraw from Crimea. This approach of the West will destroy Ukraine at some point.”
Smer has recovered enough to give Fico a route back to the premiership with support from smaller groups. It would be his fourth time in office. His main challenger, Simecka, also would need cooperation from other parties should he upset the polls and come first. He has been urging Slovaks to not buy Fico’s narrative. He said this month that the prospect of a government with extremist parties is a risk for Slovakia.
Indeed, Fico could be hard to stop, according to his former ally Zala: “He’s spreading conspiracy theories without any restraints and is able to use them to his advantage.”
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