Slovaks vote as journalist’s murder drives ‘desire for change’

BRATISLAVA: Slovaks voted on Saturday in a general election where the governing populists risked being punished amid popular outrage over the 2018 gangland-style murder of a journalist whose stories exposed high-level corruption in the Eurozone country.

Allegedly a hit ordered by a businessman with connections to politicians, the killing of Jan Kuciak, which also took the life of his fiancee Martina Kusnirova, has become a lightning rod for public outrage at graft in public life.

Reeling from the fallout of the murder, surveys suggest that Robert Fico’s governing populist-left Smer-Social Democracy (Smer-SD) party is waning and threatened most by OLaNO, a surging centre-right opposition party focused on rooting out corruption.

According to Bratislava-based political analyst Radoslav Stefancik, the election is primarily about the desire for decency in politics. “Instead of protesting against the ruling Smer-SD party on the streets, people will do so in polling stations,” Stefancik told AFP.

The double murder triggered the largest anti-government protests since communist times and toppled Fico as prime minister, with his party colleague Peter Pellegrini taking over the reins.

It also propelled Zuzana Caputova, a liberal lawyer and anti-graft activist, out of nowhere to win last year´s presidential race in this country of 5.4 million people.

Having vowed to immediately push through anti-corruption measures should he win office, OLaNO leader Matovic, a 46-year-old MP, appears to have galvanised voter outrage over the murders and the high-level corruption they exposed.

An eccentric self-made millionaire and former media boss, Matovic set up “Ordinary People and Independent Personalities – OlaNO” a decade ago.

Analysts suggest the media savvy but unpredictable politician could become premier if he manages to unify the splintered opposition. Although Fico has ruled out a post-election coalition deal with the far-right Our Slovakia LSNS, the two parties joined forces this week in parliament to pass a Smer-SD bill giving pensioners extra benefits, a move the opposition condemned as pork-barrel electioneering.