Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico was in “very serious” but stable condition on Thursday, a hospital official said, after he was shot five times in an assassination attempt that laid bare deep political divisions in the country.
Slovakia will convene a state security council meeting and the cabinet will also meet from 11:00 a.m. (0900 GMT) on Thursday, the government office said.
Miriam Lapunikova, director of the F.D. Roosevelt University Hospital in Banska Bystrica where Fico is admitted, said the prime minister had undergone five hours of surgery with two teams to treat multiple gunshot wounds.
“At this point his condition is stabilized but is truly very serious, he will be in the intensive care unit,” she told reporters.
Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak said doctors had managed to stabilize Fico’s condition overnight, and procedures were underway to secure further improvement.
“Unfortunately, the condition continues to be very serious due to the complicated nature of the wounds, but we all want to believe firmly that we will succeed in managing the situation,” he said.
The shooting was the first major assassination attempt on a European political leader for more than 20 years, and spurred international condemnation, with political analysts and lawmakers saying it was indicative of an increasingly febrile and polarized political climate across the continent.
The gunman shot Fico, 59, during a visit to the central Slovak town of Handlova, initially leaving the prime minister in critical condition and undergoing surgery hours later on Wednesday.
Slovak news media reported the 71-year-old male shooter was a former security guard at a shopping mall, an author of three collections of poetry and a member of the Slovak Society of Writers. News outlet Aktuality.sk cited his son as saying his father was the legal holder of a gun license.
In an undated video posted on Facebook, the alleged attacker was seen saying: “I do not agree with government policy.”
“Liquidated mass media. Why is RTVS (public broadcaster) being attacked? Why are people… Mazak, why has he been kicked out of his post,” he continued, in reference to Jan Mazak who had been removed as chairman of a state judicial council.
Reuters verified the person in the video matched images of the man arrested after Fico’s shooting.
Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok told a news conference on Wednesday that the attack was “politically motivated.”
Fico and his government coalition allies have criticized sections of the media and the opposition, saying they had inflamed tensions in the central European state.
Slovakia’s biggest opposition party, the liberal, pro-western Progressive Slovakia, called off a planned protest and called for restraint to avoid escalating tensions.
