This week’s televised debate among Slovakia’s nine presidential candidates often sounded as though it was taking place in Moscow.
“As president, I want to extricate Slovakia from the dungeon of nations that is the European Union,” declared Milan Nahlik, a policeman who unsuccessfully ran for parliament four years ago.
“As president, I would vote for the lifting of sanctions against Russia, because they are contrary to international law,” said Stefan Harabin, a former Supreme Court judge and third most popular candidate, echoing Russian arguments that sanctions needed to be approved by the UN Security Council.
“Mr Harabin, you are directly responsible for the large and forceful manner in which we handed over our national sovereignty to Brussels. And today you act as if you had nothing to do with it,” shot back Marian Kotleba, a neo-Nazi candidate trailing in the polls.
He was referring to Harabin’s erstwhile support for the Lisbon Treaty, which empowered the European Union to sign international treaties on members’ behalf, but fell short of a greater aspiration, to introduce majority voting on defence and foreign affairs, thus preserving member states’ power to veto decisions.
Loss of national sovereignty on external relations was a fear leading candidate and former premier Peter Pellegrini played off as well.
“Pellegrini pulled out a carefully prepared insidious lie and a story about how Germany and France will order that Slovakia must “assemble our fully armed soldiers at the railway station” for deployment to Ukraine and “no one will ask us,” wrote journalist Tomas Bella at the independent newspaper Dennik N.
Pellegrini, who leads the Hlas party, a splinter group of the ruling Smer party of Prime Minister Robert Fico and now in coalition with it, has styled himself as the pro-peace candidate, repeating Pope Francis’s recent controversial statement, “You have to find the courage to raise the white flag.”
In Slovakia, the president’s role is largely ceremonial.
However, as the official commander in chief of the armed forces, the president can declare war and mobilise, declare martial law, and return a law for parliament to reconsider. He or she can also appoint and recall judges including Supreme Court justices, demand reports from the government on specific areas, or call a referendum on a policy issue.
Are any candidates more aligned with Ukraine and its Western allies?
The lone pro-Western voice in the field and the only candidate supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion, was that of former foreign minister Ivan Korcok, who places a close second to Pellegrini in opinion polls.
“Peace in Ukraine can be tomorrow, and it will be when the Kremlin regime headed by President Putin stops killing innocents and destroying the entire country. Peace cannot be capitulation,” Korcok said.
Korcok also agrees with Ukraine that Russia should give back all five regions it has invaded since 2014.
“I do not think Ukraine should give up part of its territory in order to achieve peace,” he recently told the AFP news agency.
How are Slovaks likely to vote?
Despite the crowded field in Russia’s favour, Slovaks seem fairly evenly divided between Korcok and everyone else.
A poll last November suggested 60 percent of respondents would vote for Pellegrini, versus 41 percent for Korcok. But in a January poll, Pellegrini’s lead narrowed to within the margin of error – 40 percent versus 38 percent.
A March 18 poll put them even closer, with Pellegrini leading by just one point, at 35 percent.
“It is unlikely that anyone will gain the more than 50 percent of the valid votes needed to be elected in the first round – something that has never happened in almost 25 years of direct presidential elections,” wrote Michaela Terenzani in The Slovak Spectator.
If she’s right, a run-off vote between the two leading candidates – likely Pellegrini and Korcok – will have to take place on April 6.
Does Slovakia officially support Ukraine?
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion two years ago, Slovakia became an ardent supporter and arms contributor to Ukraine, its eastern neighbour.
Apart from ammunition, it sent self-propelled artillery, an S-300 air defence system, transport helicopters and MiG fighter jets. Slovakia quickly received an additional NATO battle group and Patriot air defences for its own security.
Its liberal president, Zuzana Caputova, was one of the first Western leaders to stand beside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv three months after the invasion.
According to a Eurobarometer poll at the time, 80 percent of Slovaks felt sympathy towards Ukrainians.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shakes hands with Slovakia’s President Zuzana Caputova in May 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion began [File: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via Reuters]
So how did Slovakia become split down the middle?
“There are so many disinformation channels. There are so many paid agents, propagandists, that Slovakia is contaminated with fake news,” Dennik N journalist and activist Michal Hvorecky told Al Jazeera.
“Most of this fake news is dealing with the Russian war in Ukraine, the situation in the Donbas, Ukrainian democracy, especially with hatred towards the West,” Hvorecky said.
When communism collapsed in Europe, Slovakia rushed headlong into the EU and NATO, along with the rest of its former Soviet neighbours, becoming a member of both organisations in 2004. Russia invaded Ukraine for aspiring to those same choices.
Why would half of Slovaks now deny Ukrainians that choice?
“In 1968 we were occupied by half a million Soviet soldiers. Now, 50 percent of Slovaks will tell you, we are not part of the West, we are not part of the east, we are somewhere in-between,” said Hvorecky.
“We somehow tend to forget that many people feel themselves as losers of transformation. Long after this forgotten past 30-40 years ago, they will tell you there was more stability, there was more security,” he said.
Anti-liberal premier Fico and former justice Harabin belong to that generation of former communists, and the Smer and Hlas parties were largely built from the political talent of the Soviet era.
The younger generation feels quite differently.
A simulated election run in 180 secondary schools across the country this week showed that people too young to vote on Saturday would elect Korcok in the first round with 57 percent of the vote.
Pellegrini and Harabin would get 15 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
In addition to sympathy with the Kremlin’s narrative and a generational hankering for the past, Slovakia suffered economically from Ukraine’s war.
It is one of a handful of landlocked Eastern European states, along with Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, which could not easily replace Russian pipeline oil when the EU banned it in December 2022.
Slovakian support for energy sanctions against Russia was among the lowest in the EU.
What’s at stake for Slovakia, and Europe?
Caputova entered politics through environmental activism and campaigned to abolish coal. She supports Ukraine, free media, LGBTQ rights, gender equality and women’s rights to choose abortion.
In almost every respect she has stood for what Fico’s three-party coalition, formed last December, abhors.
Fico stopped all military shipments to Ukraine days after winning October’s parliamentary election.
His environment minister, Tomas Taraba, denies climate change.
His culture and media minister, Martina Simkovicova, owns an online television station that amplifies Russian messaging about Ukraine.
His defence minister, Robert Kalinak, has been indicted along with Fico for allegedly using tax records to run smear campaigns against political rivals. His foreign minister, Juraj Blanar, broke with an EU policy of ostracising Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, and met with him last Saturday.
Observers believe a Korcok victory would at least preserve a liberal voice.
“As a president you don’t have executive power but people can hear you. Your voice can be very strong. You can talk in parliament, you can talk on national television. It’s a very respected position,” said Hvorecky.
That is partly what motivated him to revive protests against Fico in Bratislava last October, and the response has given him hope.
“People all winter long, November, December, all the way to March, were protesting almost every week in the frost, snow, wind, rain, every Thursday there were mass demonstrations,” he said.
He fears a return to the days of Fico’s previous premiership, when investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kusnirova, were murdered while investigating tax breaks to oligarchs. Mass protests following the murders in February 2018 forced Fico to resign.
What would a Pellegrini victory mean for Slovakia under Fico?
While nominally head of a separate party, Pellegrini is close to Fico. He replaced Fico as prime minister after Fico resigned. Smer went into the 2020 parliamentary election with Pellegrini leading the ballot.
“When Pellegrini is president, Fico’s way to power will not be blocked any more by any balance. There will be no balance of power,” said Hvorecky.
“Pellegrini presents himself as an independent political personality, but he acts mainly as Fico’s subject … Korcok does not have Fico in his head or on his shoulders the whole time. He is free and says what he thinks,” wrote journalist Matus Kostolny in Dennik N.
Even if Pellegrini wins, Fico’s progress may not be easy.
SMER-SSD party leader Robert Fico has suggested Ukraine give up its land in order to end Russia’s war [File: Radovan Stoklasa/Reuters]
Slovakia, Hungary and Poland once formed an illiberal bloc, following similar blueprints to strangle opposition media outlets and control judiciary appointments.
Poland last year departed that group when it brought to power a centre-left coalition under Donald Tusk.
Hungary’s opposition to Ukraine’s EU candidacy and further financial aid were sidelined in the European Council last December and February.
Above all, none of the illiberal candidates has seriously contemplated leaving either the EU or NATO. That suggests the growing threat of Russia is making these bodies increasingly important, and sovereignty in foreign and defence policy increasingly irrelevant.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
