President Zuzana Čaputová (source: Sme - Marko Erd)
President Zuzana Čaputová has said she will launch legal action over what she says are false claims about her made on May 9 by Smer party leader and former Prime Minister Robert Fico.
"Today, Robert Fico again spread lies about me being an American agent, about the Soros government, and consultations in the American embassy. Around the same time, I had two more hearings in regard to new death threats made against me and my loved ones," Čaputová said on social media on Tuesday.
She said several courts, including the Constitutional Court, had all stated that the accusations were unfounded and that they went beyond the boundaries of what could be considered a political attack.
"MP Fico knows this. And he also knows that making someone a target with his hateful lies has already killed in Slovakia," the president added.
Fico's comments came after the president's May 7 decision to appoint a technocrat government. He attacked the move as "anti-democratic" and said that the yet-to-be-appointed PM, Ľudovít Ódor, was "Soros's pick".
Several politicians, including Speaker Boris Kollár (Sme Rodina) and still acting PM Eduard Heger (Demokrati), slammed Fico for his comments.
On May 10, the president invited several political leaders to discuss the future technocrat government with them. She did not invite Fico for his attacks on her.
Her Office added on Wednesday that she is consulting her next legal steps with the American embassy, the SITA news agency wrote.
In March 2022, the Bratislava I District Court ordered Smer MP Ľuboš Blaha to stop making claims that Čaputová was a traitor, an agent of foreign countries and a puppet of the United States.
It ruled that Blaha had "severely violated the president’s personal rights".
At a gathering in Nitra a few weeks later to mark May 1 festivities, Blaha whipped up the gathered crowd when he broke into an obscene chant involving a sexual slur aimed at the president.
