The protest has united the opposition, together with Slovakia’s liberal progressive, enterprise supporters Freedom and Solidarity and conservative Christian Democrats who all argue that Fico is a risk to democracy.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Slovakia’s capital to mark the thirty fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Velvet Revolution that ended many years of communist rule within the former Czechoslovakia to oppose the insurance policies of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico.
The protest has united the opposition, together with Slovakia’s liberal progressive, enterprise supporters Freedom and Solidarity and conservative Christian Democrats who all argue that Fico is a risk to democracy.
“The authorities takes our freedom and democracy,” learn a banner within the crowd.
“Slovakia is and will likely be a part of Western civilization,” veteran conservative politician František Mikloško, who was one among Slovakia’s leaders in 1989, instructed a crowd in central Bratislava.
“We don’t desire anybody to push us in the direction of Moscow.”
Freedom and Solidarity chief Branislav Gröhling stated Fico was main the nation “in the direction of an authoritarian regime like in Russia and communist China”.
Michal Šimečka, president of progressive Slovakia, presently the nation’s hottest get together, stated the opposition would do the whole lot needed to guard freedom and democracy.
“Slovakia is and will likely be a nation of free individuals. And free individuals won’t stay silent,” he stated.
Fico and his left-wing Smer (Direction) get together received final yr’s parliamentary elections on a pro-Russia, anti-America platform.
His authorities has pushed forward with a plan to overtake public broadcasting, a transfer that critics say would give the federal government full management of public tv and radio.
That, coupled with strikes to amend the prison code and eradicate a particular anti-corruption prosecutor, has led opponents to worry he may lead Slovakia down a extra autocratic path, following the lead of Hungary beneath populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Fico’s views on the struggle in Ukraine and different points differ sharply from the European mainstream.
Fico has ended his nation’s navy assist to Ukraine, opposes EU sanctions on Russia, needs to dam Ukraine from becoming a member of NATO and plans a visit to Russia.
The fall of communism
The Velvet Revolution, so referred to as due to its nonviolent character, happened from November 17 to November 28, 1989 and was one among a number of anti-communist actions that occurred in Eastern Europe within the late Eighties.
Demonstrations and strikes in opposition to the one-party authorities of the Czechoslovak Communist Party concerned individuals from throughout the civil spectrum, from college students to older dissidents.
ANNOUNCEMENTThe consequence was the tip of 41 years of one-party rule within the nation, the dismantling of the centrally deliberate financial system and the transition to a parliamentary democracy.
In 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully break up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
