DID YOU see how Štefan Harabin and Robert Fico kissed? The warm emotional exchange between the head of the Supreme Court and the prime minister illustrates two important things. Firstly, the slow return to a socialist-era aesthetic in politics. Last week, Fico and Harabin's embrace recalled that of Leonid Brezhnev and Czechoslovak president Gustáv Husák; this week the prime minister went to check the harvest in typical chairman-of-the-central-committee style.
What’s next? May 1st marches? A victory parade?
More importantly, the recent love scene is symbolic of Smer’s take-over of the judiciary and the state. It took place at the presidential palace, during the appointment of the new general prosecutor, Jaromír Čižnár.
All the potentates involved in the ceremony – the head of state, the justice minister, the Supreme Court boss, and now the chief prosecutor – owe their jobs to Fico.
Slovakia has never had a truly functioning system of checks and balances, but it’s getting even worse. Instead, we have a system of hugs and kisses.
