Page 38 - bne_April 2021_20210401

38 I Central Europe bne April 2021
The crisis matters because it could halt a promising reform drive to clean up the country’s police and judicial system. Even while the pandemic is ongoing, dozens of policemen, prosecutors and judges who did the bidding of powerful businessmen close to Smer are now
in jail or facing prosecution. Marian Kocner, who is suspected of ordering Kuciak’s murder but found not guilty, is now serving 19 years in jail for brazen fraud.
The narcissistic stylebook
Political analysts interviewed by bne IntelliNews blamed the government crisis squarely on Matovic’s emotional, narcissistic and irrational style of governing, as well as his personal feud with Sulik. Matovic and Sulik both played a big part in the collapse of
the last centre-right government in 2011, and history appears to be repeating itself.
Matovic, like his billionaire Slovak compatriot, Czech Prime Minister Andrej
OLaNO’s support soared from 6% four months before the 2020 election to first place with 25%. He then brought all the centre-right and rightwing parties into government, giving him a record constitutional majority of 95 seats in the 150-member parliament.
But Matovic has continued to act like an opposition politician even when in power, publicly attacking his own cabinet colleagues – calling Sulik
an “idiot” on radio – and using Facebook to whip up public opinion against them.
“He can’t govern from day to day,” says Simecka. “It’s boring solving the everyday problems of the pandemic. He is not that type.”
The pandemic has accelerated what would have been an inevitable crisis anyway. Slovakia has had one of the worst death rates in Europe, with almost 9,000 deaths in a population of 5.5mn. The government’s handling
Ivan Korcok (SaS) called the vaccine
“a tool of hybrid war” and slammed the way Matovic had maximised publicity for the Russian shipment, while he had ignored the import of Western vaccines and continually criticised the European Commission’s procurement efforts.
The For the People party thought it had already vetoed the vaccine. When they found that Matovic and the OLaNO health minister had gone ahead anyway, they and SaS demanded the minister’s resignation.
Matovic initially wavered, suggesting
he would cancel the procurement, and after negotiations he agreed to sack the health minister. But then – after asking the opinion of his 286,000 Facebook followers – he refused to cancel the Sputnik V deal and said the minister would stay until the Sputnik vaccinations began. At that point, For the People and SaS demanded his resignation as their price for staying in the cabinet.
Political cycle revolves
If the coalition parties can agree to restructure the cabinet under a new premier, the big question is whether Matovic will be able to behave himself on the backbenches.
“Matovic wouldn’t be able to stand that someone else is in the light of the cameras,” says Simecka. “He would try to be the centre of attention again and make problems.”
But other observers argue the government still has a chance of succeeding.
“They did quite good things but the pandemic prevented them from being more effective,” says Grigorij Meseznikov, head of the IVO think-tank. “They can continue, there is no doubt about this.”
Yet even if the government staggers on, it is doubtful that it can fulfil the hopes of those in 2018 who attended the biggest demonstrations since
the 1989 Velvet Revolution against communism. Handling the pandemic and the economic rebuilding afterwards would challenge even a strong, united government.
“It’s boring solving the everyday problems of the pandemic. He is not that type”
Babis, is a wealthy businessman who formed his own conservative populist party and used anti-corruption to build his brand. A 47-year-old publishing tycoon who admits to plagiarising his academic thesis, Matovic launched his OLaNO party in 2010, gathering around him a loose group of “independent personalities” who had little in common except for loyalty to him and a vague conservative orientation.
He raised his profile by using publicity stunts and social media to campaign against the corruption of Robert Fico’s government. He even flew to the south of France to make a YouTube video outside a mansion allegedly owned by one of Fico’s former ministers.
Through his focus on corruption he was in the right position to ride the street protests following Kuciak’s murder
all the way to the Government Office.
www.bne.eu
of the pandemic has been erratic, and a loosening of restrictions over the summer is blamed for the subsequent surge in infections.
Slovakia won headlines for nationwide antigen testing last year but critics argued the massive effort was just another publicity stunt, and President Zuzana Caputova said the tests may even have made Slovaks complacent and worsened the pandemic.
Matovic’s stunt of going behind the backs of his coalition partners to order Sputnik V brought about the final act of the crisis.
The Russian vaccine is controversial both because it has yet to win approval from the European Medicines Agency – patients would have to sign a form taking personal responsibility – and because it is Russian. Foreign Minister