The Fico-Phenomenon

While watching today's political debating programme (as far as one could label the programme as such), I had to think of one of my friend's remarks. A few Fridays ago, we sat in an intellectual environment in the very heart of Bratislava and discussed for hours Slovakia's politics. Unlike me, he is definitely not a newcomer, and we share the same Leiden University background. Having frequently published about Slovakia's history, we approached current politics with historical givens.

Prime-minister Fico - I must admit - for the first time was somewhat grilled by the Markiza TV moderator (his monologue ranting of Soviet-styled propaganda was not accepted any longer, and he was corrected on properly answering the posed questions). Nevertheless a few observations immediately popped up;

Fico clumsily contradicted himself a few times; what he defended a year ago or more recently, suddenly he completely swiped off the table. A fatal mistake for a politician, not even to mention for a prime-minister. The second (co-)guest of the debate, the Slovak Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) leader Pál Csáky put it - although perhaps too meekly to be fully noticed - that the prime-minister had to bear full responsibility for the actions of his cabinet members; even if they belonged to a different party within the coalition.

The strategy of Fico, to evade questions, to deviate from the issue and point the attention to other matters (irrelevant even), seemed somewhat losing effectiveness. My earlier mentioned buddy labelled Fico as a phenomenon, for he was skilfully manipulating everything around him, covering the greatest financial scandals around him in thick mist. Billions of Euros disappearing, without any state attorney to lift a finger, despite causes that were as clearly foul as could be.

For the first time, and it was not a wishful thinking, I saw Fico a bit on the losing side. Admittedly, a well prepared, or rather a more courageous investigative journalist would oppose him more. Some of the audience - as I can observe in different discussions - have a feeling that the anchorman went too far. A critical question is regarded as impertinent by the broad public, instead of a lead to unravelling murky practices. The good guy is bad, and the bad guy is good. Democracy is turned upside down this way. The journalist is there too, to check what the results are of the voted leader - is the voter too embarrassed to admit being deceived (that is, having voted for the wrong guy), or is it a fact of not being used to these mechanisms?

Fico has indeed been an effective phenomenon, soviet style. He made a few deadly mistakes; a greedy person tends to do so; becoming too complacent. Perhaps that will become his downfall after all... All phenomenons have to end sometime.

MS