{"id":9493,"date":"2018-06-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-16T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aspeninstitutece.softmedia.cz\/article\/2018\/history-repeating-itself\/"},"modified":"2024-09-30T18:50:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-30T16:50:14","slug":"history-repeating-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/article\/2018\/history-repeating-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"History Repeating Itself"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mec\u030ciar<\/strong>, Tereza Nvotova\u0301<\/em> (2017)<\/p>\n

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The fall of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in mid-March was greeted almost like another East European \u201cColor Revolution\u201d or even a reprise of the Velvet Revolution that brought down Communism in Czechoslovakia. Foreign journalists rushed to witness the biggest popular demonstrations in the country since 1989. They cheered on the downfall of the country\u2019s longest-serving premier, who was painted as one of the Central European populist quartet of Viktor Orba\u0301n, Jaros\u0142aw Kaczyn\u0301ski, and Milos\u030c Zeman.<\/p>\n

Tereza Nvotova\u0301\u2019s recent documentary Mec\u030ciar draws a much closer parallel, juxtaposing images of the popular mobilization that helped bring down Slovakia\u2019s founder Vladimi\u0301r Mec\u030ciar with demonstrations against corruption within Fico\u2019s Smer party last autumn. The documentary shows both that Slovakia\u2019s weakness is its predilection for strong leaders, but that its strength is its popular anger when they overstep the mark. For Nvotova\u0301, the young generation must learn these lessons and stand ready to continue the fight.<\/p>\n

How close are the parallels between Fico and Mec\u030ciar, as well as with neighboring strongmen such as Hungary\u2019s Orba\u0301n and Kaczyn\u0301ski\u2019s Poland? And what does this tell us about Slovak politics, and the di erences from its neighbors?<\/p>\n

Fico’s Takeover of Power<\/h2>\n

Some have argued that Fico was always just a \u201cyoung Mec\u030ciar\u201d clone. Slovak advertising impresario Fedor Flas\u030ci\u0301k is shown in Mec\u030ciar yet again claiming credit for creating Smer in 1999, just as if he had sold gullible shoppers old wine in new bottles. Flas\u030ci\u0301k ran the advertising campaign for Mec\u030ciar in 1998 when he was defeated by a coalition led by Mikula\u0301s\u030c Dzurinda, but then switched to Fico, a former Democratic Left deputy, for Smer\u2019s first general election in 2002, when it came a creditable third with 11% of the vote. Behind Flas\u030ci\u0301k were a group of mini-oligarchs such as Vladimi\u0301r Poo\u0301r, many of whom had also transferred their financial backing to the up-and-coming Fico after 1998 when they saw that Mec\u030ciar, if not yet finished domestically, was anyway unacceptable internationally.<\/p>\n

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Fico did little to contradict this impression when he formed his first government together with Mec\u030ciar\u2019s Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) in 2006. He then seduced HZDS voters away to Smer, which consigned the once-dominant party Mec\u030ciar had created to political oblivion in 2010 and led to its leader\u2019s retirement. Fico, like Mec\u030ciar, then went on to be prime minister three times until he was forced out over the assassination of journalist Ja\u0301n Kuciak, who was investigating alleged links between the Calabrian mafia and Smer.<\/p>\n

This story is rather too neat. Fico was as much using Flas\u030ci\u0301k and the other HZDS tycoons as they were him, and he only formed an unholy alliance with Mec\u030ciar and the nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS) as more mainstream parties refused to work with him. It can just as easily be argued that he did Slovakia a big favor by taking over Mec\u030ciar\u2019s voter base and pushing him out of politics.<\/p>\n

To Feel What the People Want to Hear<\/h2>\n

Nevertheless, there are some real similarities between the two strongmen in their background, style, and policies that help explain their dominance of the Slovak political scene. Born 20 years apart (Mec\u030ciar is now 75, Fico 53), both were bright working-class students who trained as lawyers and joined the Communist Party. Mec\u030ciar was expelled after the 1968 Soviet invasion, though as the documentary details, he allegedly became a secret police informant and afterwards stole his le to cover his tracks.<\/p>\n

Mec\u030ciar uses archive footage well to show how both charismatic demagogues were able to command crowds using simple, folksy, emotional, even vulgar language, and by offering simple solutions to their problems, which had often been ignored by the smug Bratislava liberal elite.<\/p>\n

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Former Bratislava Mayor Milan Fta\u0301c\u030cnik, who was with Fico in the Democratic Left Party, says he has this rare gift to tune into people\u2019s needs. \u201cHe is able to feel what the people want to hear,\u201d he says. \u201cNo-one around him has that ability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fico was always the more polished speaker, and his performances were staged more professionally, but Mec\u030ciar was the one who appeared to have a real emotional bond with his supporters. At a huge election rally I attended at Bratislava\u2019s old ice hockey stadium in 2002, he joshed with the grannies that had been bussed in from nearby villages, cracking bawdy jokes and basking in their adulation. But the documentary neatly shows how a few years later these older, poorer, and less well-educated rural voters switched over to Fico, and used similar language to express their devotion.<\/p>\n

The Lambasting of Political Opponents<\/h2>\n

Nvotova\u0301\u2019s rare interview with Mec\u030ciar in the documentary shows his charisma but allows him to pose as an avuncular grandfather rather than the menacing figure I remember. In my first interview with him in 1997 he spoke quietly and sadly about the injustice of Slovakia\u2019s exclusion from the EU and NATO, but when he looked at me with his hooded eyes the effect was as chilling as being fixed by a wounded bear.<\/p>\n

The darker side of these rhetorical gifts is the way Mec\u030ciar and Fico lambasted political opponents, creating a hugely divisive political culture. Especially when on the defensive, both few into cold rages, Fico for instance publicly accusing journalists of being \u201cdirty prostitutes\u201d who were besmirching the country\u2019s good name. As with Orba\u0301n and Kaczyn\u0301ski, opponents are not only enemies but traitors to the nation.<\/p>\n

In terms of political content, Fico mined the rich seam of Slovak nationalism, xenophobia, and racism that Mec\u030ciar had exploited before him. In his rst term, Fico played on fears of Hungarian irredentism to prove he could be as nationalist as his coalition partners, but by his third term he was in coalition with the largely ethnic Hungarian Most-Hi\u0301d party and was on good terms with Orba\u0301n. He aped him by using the 2015 refugee influx into Europe to whip up fears among his voters, fighting in the 2016 election under the slogan \u201cProtect- ing Slovakia.\u201d His rhetoric against Islamic refugees was among the harshest in the region, even though he was careful to admit just enough to avoid EU infringement proceedings. \u201cHe did benefit\u2014he was able to sustain himself as PM\u2014but he created all this space for the fascists,\u201d says Vladimi\u0301r Bilc\u030ci\u0301k, foreign a airs expert for the new liberal Spolu [Together] Party. \u201cHe pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable discourse, including on the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A Vision of a Strong and Protective State<\/h2>\n

Mec\u030ciar and Fico also fulfilled the first of academic Cas Mudde\u2019s two populist features by claiming to be fighting on the side of the little man against a corrupt elite. Like Orba\u0301n and Kaczyn\u0301ski, when in power, Fico used wel- fare handouts to buy support from poorer voters. In opposition he slammed both Mec\u030ciar and Dzurinda as corrupt, though his own party was to become dominated by business groups, and graft under his rule was to rival any- thing in previous administrations, though it has yet to reach the heights of Orba\u0301n\u2019s kleptocracy.<\/p>\n

Yet there are also key differences between Fico and Mec\u030ciar and the neighboring strongmen. The most obvious, though perhaps the least important, is that Fico is a self-proclaimed socialist, whilst the others are authoritarian conservatives.<\/p>\n

The documentary shows both that Slovakia\u2019s weakness is its predilection for strong leaders, but that its strength is its popular anger when they overstep the mark.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fico\u2019s ideal is a strong state that protects its people, but this is a vision that Mec\u030ciar, Orba\u0301n, and Kaczyn\u0301ski all share. \u201cI am an e\u0301tatist,\u201d he told me in 2006 at the start of his first term. \u201cI respect the role of the state. The first goal of the government is to guarantee that if someone is in a bad social situation, the state must provide such conditions that they can live normally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fico believes the Left has neglected this duty to its cost. He told a Party of European Socialists (PES) conference in Prague in 2016 (a grouping that suspended Smer once and in which he has never felt at home) that they had not only ignored their voters\u2019 fears over immigration and multiculturalism but they had also forgotten about their bread and butter issues, such as wages and living standards, allowing the populist Right to steal their clothes.<\/p>\n

A second more substantial difference is that Fico has nailed the EU\u2019s colors to his mast, while Mec\u030ciar, Orba\u0301n, and Kaczyn\u0301ski use the bloc more as a punch bag. Fico took Slovakia into the eurozone and now proclaims his desire for the country to be in the inner core.<\/p>\n

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Slovakia Was Sliding towards Dictatorship<\/h2>\n

Yet again the differences are less than they first appear. Fico was at first ambivalent about EU membership, famously campaigning on the issue in the 2002 election with the slogan \u201cYes, but not with bare arses.\u201d In interviews with me at the time he complained that there needed to be more discussion about the costs of Slovak membership, that the country was unprepared, and that there would be a popular backlash.<\/p>\n

Even now that he has become an EU enthusiast, Fico attacks the bloc when it suits him, such as over refugees or anything that he divines will play well with his domestic audience. It is clear that Fico supports the EU largely because it is a strong selling point against the Euroskeptic parliamentary opposition; whether he would continue to back it if it stopped being in his political interest is very doubtful.<\/p>\n

There are some real similarities between the two strongmen in their background, style, and policies that help explain their dominance of the Slovak political scene.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The third and key difference between Fico and Mec\u030ciar, and between him and Orba\u0301n and Kaczyn\u0301ski, is with the second part of Mudde\u2019s definition of populism: despite everything, Fico remains a pluralist, while the others believe that they alone represent the general will and should be able to rule unchallenged. Under Mec\u030ciar, Slovakia was even sliding towards dictatorship. One of the documentary\u2019s strongest sections shows how Mec\u030ciar\u2019s secret police even kidnapped President Michal Kova\u0301c\u030c\u2019s son and probably commissioned the murder of witness Ro\u0301bert Remia\u0301s\u030c.<\/p>\n

Mec\u030ciar Inoculates the Country against Authoritarian Populism<\/h2>\n

Fico may bully journalists and other politicians, clash with President Andrej Kiska, and squash opposition within his own party; he may also have nobbled the police, prosecutors, and judiciary; but he has not tried to undermine democracy, stifle the media and NGOs, or remake the state in the way Mec\u030ciar, Orba\u0301n, and Kaczyn\u0301ski did. He has always worked skillfully to patch together coalitions, and even when Smer held an absolute majority in 2012-16 he ruled responsibly. \u201cFico used single-party government power with restraint because he saw what happened to Mec\u030ciar,\u201d says Bilc\u030ci\u0301k. \u201cHe does not want to go down in history books like Mec\u030ciar.\u201d He also finally resolved the recent political crisis by resigning, when Kuciak\u2019s murder was clearly something he had no responsibility for.<\/p>\n

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So what does all this tell us about Slovak politics and how it di ers from its neighbors? Slovakia\u2019s short 25-year history as a state may help explain its weakness for strongmen such as Mec\u030ciar and Fico, but it also fails to give them the deep roots of grievance and trauma that have provided such fertile soil for Orba\u0301n and Kaczyn\u0301ski. \u201cHungary and Poland are limited and de ned by their heavy history,\u201d says Milan Nic\u030c, senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.<\/p>\n

The crisis of the Mec\u030ciar years has also in a way inoculated the country against authoritarian populism. Not only is his fate a warning for politicians such as Fico but the network of civic movements that sprung up to mobilize opposition to Mec\u030ciar also provides a positive example that still resonates today, as the documentary tries to show.<\/p>\n

Gloom-mongers fear that Fico will now still direct events from behind the scenes, just like Kaczyn\u0301ski does in Poland. However, they should recognize that the way Slovak demonstrators forced out a powerful premier is the envy of their counterparts in Budapest, Warsaw, and even Prague, who are also protesting against corruption and obstruction of justice. \u201cIt shows something healthy about the system and that democracy is working better here than in Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republic,\u201d says Fta\u0301c\u030cnik. Orba\u0301n in particular has built up such a strong state machine backed by loyal supporters (and assisted by a fractured opposition) that many Hungarians have given up on politics or chosen to emigrate. Nvotova\u0301 need not have worried: as events have now shown, Slovak democracy by contrast is very much alive and kicking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mec\u030ciar, Tereza Nvotova\u0301 (2017) The fall of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in mid-March was greeted almost like another East European \u201cColor Revolution\u201d or even a reprise of the Velvet Revolution that brought down Communism in Czechoslovakia. Foreign journalists rushed to witness the biggest popular demonstrations in the country since 1989. They cheered on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":7356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,317,236,318,162],"class_list":["post-9493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nezarazene","tag-culture","tag-documentary","tag-fico","tag-meciar","tag-slovakia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10523,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9493\/revisions\/10523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}