The rulers inactive have no large impression of protests in large cities specified as Bratislava or Košice. Smaller towns are the key to success, with large numbers of residents supporting the Fica government.
The Prime Minister of Slovakia remains intact. “I truly ask myself why people will protest today,” Fico writes. That's what broke the bitter spell. Residents already know where the key to success lies, or the overthrow of Smer's rule. “ Then we will find ourselves in a fresh reality,” he says in a conversation with POLITICO 49-year-old Milo Janac, who is simply a bartender on a regular basis but besides serves as the spokesperson for the office of Mayor of small Gelnica.
Pro-Western protest movement in Slovakia, which has been revived by the Pro-Pro-Saxon trajectory Prime Minister Robert Ficy, expanded on Friday, and it is estimated that 110 000 people took part in evening demonstrations in 41 cities in the country and another 13 cities across Europe.
According to SafetyCrew, a organization safety consulting company, the crowds were estimated to be 42-45 1000 in the capital Bratislava and over 20 1000 in the east city of Košice.
The key to overthrowing Robert Ficy's rule
Unlike erstwhile demonstrations, the unrest this week besides shook smaller agrarian cities, which have so far been bastions of support for the ruling populist Smer party.
49-year-old Milo Janac telling POLITICO that 2 weeks ago he was returning by train from a protest in Bratislava to his hometown of Gelnica (6202 inhabitants) erstwhile his attention was drawn to the press interview. “ It’s no large deal erstwhile 50,000 people show in Bratislava and 15,000 in Košice, ” she explains. But erstwhile 300 people protest in Gelnica, it’s over. ”
Gelnica, a impoverished mining town settled in the 13th century by cultural Bavarian Germans, lies in the Slovak Rudawa in the east of the country. The average monthly gross wage in August 2024 was EUR 1241 (about PLN 5207), which is the 3rd lowest among 79 districts in Slovakia. Smer Fico won in Gelnica with 30 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary election.
TOMAS BENEDIKOVIC / AFPThe Citizens' Collective "Peace for Ukraine" called for the participation in the rally for democracy and country membership in the EU, on 24 January 2025.
— I took it as a challenge, and even on the train I started sending messages to people to ask if they could help,” explains Janac, who works as a bartender in addition to writing. He besides serves as spokesperson for the office of Mayor of Gelnica.
— Robert Fico has a large vote of support where I live. I know he will not resign, no substance how many people will appear in Gelnica, but if these protests begin to spread among smaller cities, we will find ourselves in a fresh reality,” Janac says.
Fico, who belonged to the Communist organization of Czechoslovakia before 1989, returned to power in October 2023 for his 4th word as Prime Minister. Together with Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, he created a pro-Russian salon in the European Union, and before Christmas Ub.r. paid a visit to Moscow to Russian president Vladimir Putin, notwithstanding the unofficial EU ban on meetings with the highest Russian officials.
“The failure of our future”
Fico late claimed, without providing evidence that Georgian legionaries together with Ukrainian military counterintelligence fueled protests in Slovakia to overthrow his government.
Janac believes that the protests were indeed intended to halt Fico from "bringing us back into the past into the embrace of the Kremlin", but stresses that they besides had another goals.
— Under Fico of Europe's economical tiger, we have become 1 of the poorest countries in the EU," Janac said. “Our education strategy is simply a disaster, and our wellness care is so bad that 10,000 people die unnecessarily all year. Our young people see no prospects here and leave the country. We are losing our future, he adds.
On Friday, Janac attracted crowds — about 400 people appeared at a protest in Gelnica. Actor Milan Knażko, 1 of the main figures of the 1989 velvet revolution, which put an end to communism in the erstwhile Czechoslovakia, called on protesters to "not let the people of the past bargain our future and our children's".
Lucia Stasselova of the Bratislava NGO Mier U Krajine (Peace of Ukraine), who organized protests, accused Friday Fico about being “the main hero of the Russian hybrid war in Slovakia”.
However, in a post on social media, the Slovak leader quoted a message from the European Commission president Ursuli von der Leyen that the EU executive body "does not see any signs that Slovakia is considering leaving the European Union" and that "cooperation between the Commission and the Slovak Government is constructive and productive".
“I truly ask myself why people will protest today,” Fico writes.
