How Slovak voters turned against Ukraine ‘threat’

The village of Choňkovce in eastern Slovakia is only 10km from the border with Ukraine, but proximity no longer translates into sympathy for those escaping the war-torn country. 

Last weekend almost half of the 540 villagers voted for the party most vocally opposed to continued support for Kyiv: Smer, the party of populist leader Robert Fico, who is slated to return as prime minister and who has also opposed sanctions against Russia.

The rest of Choňkovce’s votes went predominantly to two other anti-migration parties with which Fico is in talks to form a ruling coalition.

“In the past year the mood has changed here,” said Ján Skyba, the former mayor of the village and a Smer party member. “We’re still happy to help the poorer Ukrainians, but not the rich ones who are driving cars that you can’t even find in Slovakia.”

Smer capitalised on growing resentment towards Ukrainian refugees to clinch first place in Slovakia’s parliamentary election on Saturday, a victory that was seen as a further sign of fraying western support for Kyiv. Fico has echoed Russian propaganda lines about the war, telling an election rally this autumn that the conflict started in 2014 when “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started murdering the Russian population of Donbas [in eastern Ukraine].”

On Tuesday, Fico defended his party’s right to “voice our sovereign opinions” against Ukraine, even if that risked his nominally centre-left party being kicked out of the European centre-left group in the European parliament. 

In the communities near the Ukrainian border, sentiment was not always as negative. People from Choňkovce sent eight trucks of humanitarian aid to Ukraine and housed refugees after Russia’s all-out invasion last year, the former mayor said.

But locals have since grown unhappy about Slovak authorities seemingly prioritising aid to Ukraine over their own struggling citizens.

“There is deep resentment among our citizens about the state’s generosity towards Ukraine compared to the neglect shown by successive governments in Bratislava towards the inhabitants of Slovakia’s poorer eastern areas,” Skyba said. 

The pushback against Ukrainians intensified even though most refugees only passed through Slovakia on their way to other EU countries or returned to relatively safe parts of Ukraine. Indeed, of the 1.7 million people who crossed the border from Ukraine since the war began, only 109,000 have registered in Slovakia, according to the UN agency for refugees.

Choňkovce’s only remaining Ukrainian refugee is Irina Nedaskivska, who fled her native town of Irpin which was heavily attacked by Russian forces in March last year when they tried to occupy Kyiv.

“What I know is that when I came here everybody welcomed me as one of them,” said Nedaskivska, who has found work as a helper at a cow farm in Choňkovce. “I’m not interested in politics, I work hard and I don’t misuse the system here.”  

But war-related issues have added to the negative views about Ukraine among Slovakia’s farming communities. Last spring Slovakia joined a Polish-led coalition of EU member states that unilaterally banned grain imports from Ukraine, defying the EU’s common trade policy. Bratislava settled its dispute with Kyiv last month, but farmers remain concerned. 

As a farming powerhouse, “Ukraine is a threat,” said Dušan Timko, a Slovak farm manager who believes Ukraine has an unfair competitive advantage. “We’re in the EU and getting controlled for pesticides and everything else, but nobody knows what gets regulated in Ukraine.” 

Ukrainians are not the only ones targeted by Fico and his potential allies, including his former protégé Peter Pellegrini, who have stoked anti-immigrant fears. Late on Wednesday the Slovak caretaker government announced restrictions on its border with Hungary to stop a recent influx of migrants, mainly from the Middle East, pre-empting action on one of Fico’s election pledges.

Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic have recently all imposed border checks with Slovakia, even though all four form part of the free-travel Schengen area.

Locals are fearful that these checks could result in more migrants settling in Slovakia rather than passing through their country on the way to more affluent EU nations.

“Our luck is that our politicians didn’t make us rich enough to be anything more than a transit place,” said Jarmila Doričová, another Slovak farm manager. “The problem will come when our neighbours will really close their borders, because then illegal migrants will stay here.”

Former mayor Skyba argued eastern Slovakia had no need for migrant workers: “We have our own children and Roma people who can help us.”

But the large Roma community in eastern Slovakia sees Fico’s stunning comeback as a threat. “Fico always made everything worse for us,” said Dávid Balo, a Roma construction worker. During Fico’s last government, “the police kept raiding our villages, which really just meant beating us up,” Balo said. 

Fico, 59, is now seeking his fourth mandate as prime minister. His last term ended abruptly in 2018, when he resigned after weeks of street protests over the killings of an investigative journalist, Ján Kuciak, and his fiancée. One of Ján Kuciak’s last investigations focused on alleged ties between Smer and Italian mafia groups.

Elena Cinová, a teacher who unsuccessfully ran as a liberal candidate in the eastern town of Humenné, said fear-mongering worked in poorer areas where people felt a mistaken nostalgia for the strong rule of Fico, coupled with bitter disappointment with the politicians who succeeded him. “People forgot Fico was in power when Kuciak was murdered, and somehow they now feel nostalgia for Fico,” she said. 

In the bigger eastern town of Sobrance, election day was busy for Gabriela, a waitress at the Mirage café where her boss offered free coffee to anybody who voted for Smer or other anti-immigration parties.

Gabriela voted for Smer last weekend, switching from the liberal Progressive Slovakia party for which she cast her ballot in the last election. 

Her voting preferences reflect a broader shift among Slovak voters. Last year, she said she collected emergency clothing for Ukrainians and cried on the day that Russian tanks started rolling towards Kyiv.

But now she said she shares Fico’s concerns about Ukraine and illegal migration and is looking forward to his strong leadership compared with the “little-experienced” Michal Šimečka who leads Progressive Slovakia.

Since leaving office, Fico remained entangled in separate corruption cases and escaped an attempt by his opponents last year to lift his parliamentary immunity. 

“People say Fico is corrupt, but I think everybody at the top of our politics is corrupt,” Gabriela said. “Outsiders sound scared by what we voted, but they don’t understand our situation here.” 

Additional reporting by Eva Kubániová in Choňkovce