Slovakia’s anti-globalist prime minister is reportedly recovering well after recently surviving an assassination attempt.
The assassination attempt against populist Prime Minister Robert Fico came just weeks before the European Union elections.
Fico is in recovery at a hospital near the town of Handlova.
He was attacked in Handlova by a 71-year-old gunman on May 15.
Doctors at F.D. Roosevelt University Hospital in Banská Bystric said that Fico’s condition has improved since the attack.
“Based on the examination results, today’s medical board meeting confirmed the gradual improvement of the prime minister’s health condition,” the hospital said.
The attack jolted European politics only weeks before the European Union (EU) parliamentary elections.
Slovakia also held presidential elections in the spring.
Politics in Slovakia is deeply polarized between supporters of Ukraine and Russia.
Fico has stirred controversy by cutting off all aid to Ukraine.
Ukraine borders Slovakia to the east.
Fico is also taking certain steps that some view as autocratic and hostile to freedom of the press.
He was shot multiple times while greeting supporters in Handlova, a small town in central Slovakia 85 miles from the capital Bratislava.
The nation’s leader has yet to return to the capital.
After the attack, Fico was rushed to a hospital 17 miles from the scene of the shooting.
Doctors immediately began life-saving surgeries.
The attacker, 71-year-old Juraj C., was initially described as a lone wolf.
However, the government has since said it is possible others were involved.
Fico’s allies have blamed the media in Slovakia for fanning tensions with hostile coverage of conservative anti-globalist politicians.
“I can confirm to you that the reason it was a politically motivated, attempted premeditated murder is as the suspect himself said: the media information that he had at his disposal,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok told reporters.
“I think each of you can reflect on the way you presented it.”
Fico has sometimes been compared with Viktor Orban, the populist leader of neighboring Hungary.
Like Orban, Fico has been smeared by opponents as an aspiring autocrat who is friendly with Russia.
Fico is the founder of a populist political party, Direction-Social Democracy.
Under his leadership, Fico’s party has opposed plans to settle huge groups of migrants in Slovakia, a small, mountainous Central European country of just 5.4 million.
He is the longest-serving prime minister in the history of the Slovak Republic.
Fico previously served from 2006 to 2010 and from 2012 to 2018 before his current term began in 2023.
