Barely one year since forming his fourth cabinet, populist Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is struggling to hold together his three-party left-right coalition.

The government – which was elected with a narrow majority of 79 seats in the 150-member Slovak National Council – had already been destabilised by jostling between the centre-left Hlas party and the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS) over who should succeed Peter Pellegrini as parliamentary speaker after the Hlas leader won election as president in April. 

But these disputes took a more serious turn last month when three legislators elected on the SNS  list, led by Rudolf Huliak, defected from the unstable SNS parliamentary grouping, leaving Fico with the slimmest possible majority of 76 legislators.

This has raised speculation about early elections, a possibility Fico has himself encouraged. At a conference of his Smer party last month, commemorating the 25^th anniversary of the leftwing party’s foundation, Fico told his colleagues, “let’s be realists and be preparing for other alternatives of political development in Slovakia as well, besides the parliamentary elections in the regular term in the year 2027”.

Fico also rebuffed Huliak’s demand to become minister for environment, saying, “as a premier and chairman of Smer-SD, I principally reject the maintaining of government majority by accepting political blackmail” .

Fico’s admission of the possibility of early elections has reinvigorated the parliamentary opposition to his cabinet, after a difficult year in which they have been steamrollered by the government’s controversial reforms, which have targeted the judiciary, media and NGOs, moving the country closer to the semi-authoritarian model put in place by Viktor Orban in neighbouring Hungary.

The government has faced a series of country-wide demonstrations over reforms such as the dismantling of the Special Prosecution Office against corruption, or sweeping changes to the criminal code that have already led to several Smer officials being freed in high-profile graft cases. More protests were sparked by the  restructuring of the public broadcaster and purges at the country's key cultural institutions.   

“We have reasons to be in a positive mood ahead of the [national election] campaign if it really comes down to early elections because there is a genuine frustration over this cabinet,” Tomáš Valášek, legislator for the centrist Progressive Slovakia (PS) party, told bne IntelliNews in the library of the parliament, which has stunning views over Bratislava and the Danube River. Valášek pointed to the recent polls, which have shown PS (22.6%) edging ahead of Smer (21.9%).

Valášek argues Fico’s party is in power primarily to “secure impunity for themselves” from corruption prosecutions, adding that “our worst fears were confirmed” during the past year when Fico’s cabinet introduced legislative changes unseen in the country since the semi-authoritarian era of the country’s founder, Vladimir Mečiar. 

Early elections or protracted coalition rows?

He says that “it seems that the conflict between Mr Huliak and his two companions and the rest of the coalition is real”.

“Today [November 28], when we speak, they are only digging deeper and deeper trenches,” he said, adding “there is not [a visible] trend that they would be reconciling. Quite contrary, the positions are only getting tougher”.

However, Boris Zala, a former Smer MP and MEP who left the party over its corruption scandals and shift rightwards, remains sceptical of the possibility of early elections. 

“I don’t think Robert Fico is heading towards early elections. I wouldn’t even say there is a serious coalition crisis going on,” Zala told bne IntelliNews in a telephone interview, pointing out that all the government-backed bills “have so far been approved”.

Moreover, Fico “has tools to negotiate”, Zala continued, saying that Fico’s comments “have more a form of mild blackmail towards the Huliaks, in the sense that if you want, we can have early elections”, knowing that the trio of Huliak, Pavel Ľupták and Ivan Ševčík are the ones most exposed to the risk of early elections. 

Valášek agrees that Huliak has nowhere to go, given that  “an even more extremist party [than SNS], Republika, also ruled out cooperating with him” and that he “does not have any other political alternative at the moment and so I am not sure he is interested in early elections”.

So far Fico’s not-so veiled threats seem to working. Just a day after Zala talked to bne IntelliNews, Fico’s coalition was able to pass the state budget for 2025 with a majority of 79 legislators. This included backing from Huliak and his two rebel colleagues, who, however, signalled that their backing was only for the state budget and that their obstruction of the government would continue.  

Slovak media have reported that Fico held talks with the three almost daily this week and that he has made concessions by allocating more money in the budget for hunters, fishermen and beekeepers, which are seen as one of the trio’s key demands. 

Under the influence

Although Fico declared flatly to his followers on Facebook that “there is no coalition crisis” and that “the opposition will again have a head full of sadness” in response to the budget's passing, he gave a performance in parliament and at a press conference afterwards that was wayward by even the premier’s low standards, intensifying the speculation over the coalition’s tensions and Fico's drink habits. 

In the parliament he reportedly flipped the finger to the right-wing populist Igor Maťovič, while at the press conference he swore at the media.  

“Stop fucking lying, stop fucking lying to the public,” Fico said,  concluding “that is all I wanted to say about the state budget”.    

Commentators remain therefore unsure how grave the coalition’s problems really are. Ivan Štulajter, former media advisor to former centre-right premier Eduard Heger and currently liberal daily DennikN correspondent, told bne IntelliNews that “the situation is very complicated” .

He says “the break-up of the coalition” may not be imminent, but it cannot be “ruled out” either, pointing  out that Smer’s key coalition partner, the centre-left Hlas party, is not “really firmly united either”.

When Fico’s coalition held an unprecedented vote for the removal of  PS leader Michal Šimečka from his post as the vice chair of the parliament – a role traditionally reserved for the opposition leader – three Hlas MPs failed to support the government.

“There are three legislators who clearly signal that they do not agree with everything that is happening inside the ruling coalition, particularly with the hardline extremism and far-right gesturing,” Štulajter added.   

At the same time, Fico might be able to win support from some opposition MPs on certain issues.

“I don’t think it is worth it” for Fico to risk early elections, Štulajter says, adding that “there is also the minority government” possibility, with some form of “silent support” from legislators outside of the ruling coalition. 

Štulajter pointed to the election of the radical Smer legislator Richard Glück – best known to the public for engaging in a fistfight with Matovič at the height of the election campaign in September last year – as the chair of the defence and security parliamentary committee. 

Glück has become one of the young faces of Smer and was elected to the committee post by 85 legislators – six more than Fico’s coalition possesses. The vote prompted speculation that some of the 11 legislators from the centre-right Christian Democrats (KDH) could have backed him as well, Štulajter highlighted, adding that it is possible that those legislators could back Fico again. 

Zala argues that Fico “would certainly not obtain the backing of the whole KDH parliamentary grouping, but it cannot be ruled out that individual KDH legislators might back the cabinet on individual legislative steps,”, adding that “even this would have a major impact” on the parliamentary grouping. 

Given all this, early elections would seem to be premier’s last option.

“Robert Fico will do everything so that the [early elections] situation does not take place,” Štulajter says, adding that the recently passed budget austerity package will put Smer in “a really bad position” for an election campaign.  

Valášek admits that “it seems more realistic that they [the ruling coalition] will stumble on for months, who knows, coalition legislators are confident they can work like this for years, which is a misery for this land”.

Smer still has a better coalition potential

Even were Fico forced to accept the inevitability of early elections, he would still be in pole position to be able to form another government. Zala says that “PS could beat Smer, but the question is whether it [PS] would be able to from the government” in a situation where “Fico might have a better coalition potential”. 

Although SNS’ popularity has been falling and it might not make it past the 5% threshold to enter parliament next time, support for the non-parliamentary neo-fascist Republika party has been surging to 8% or above.  

Apart from PS, Smer and Hlas, it appears to be the only other party certain to cross the threshold. PS’ potential allies, the KDH, the neoliberal SaS and the centre-right Democrats, are all currently teetering around the 5% threshold. 

Fico even shocked the Slovak political scene recently by saying that the 5% threshold should even be raised, something that prompted President Peter Pellegrini to tell him  “to again pay more attention to solving real issues which this country as well as Europe is facing”.

Zala could envision Smer forging a coalition with Republika. Such an extremist coalition “wouldn’t be a problem for Fico”, who has steered Smer firmly into radical rightwing waters, abandoning any remnants of the party’s left-wing politics, Zala argues. The question is how Hlas and President Pellegrini would react, Zala says.

Pellegrini’s successor as Hlas leader, Minister of Interior Matúš Šutaj Eštok, “is closer to the current Smer leadership” than the president, he says, and might therefore be amenable. 

Pellegrini himself, a longtime Fico ally, has been striking a more independent stance in recent weeks, and Zala confirms that “the way I know Pellegrini already since he was an 18-year-old, I think he disagrees with some of the activities of this government”.

However,  he points out, “the constitution does not enable” Pellegrini to interfere with the cabinet formation “even if he personally would have an issue with it”.