Robert Fico took office in October after his centrist populist Smer party won the general election. (File)
Bratislava:
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s life is no longer in danger following an assassination attempt, Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak said on Sunday.
Robert Fico has been in the hospital since Wednesday, when a gunman shot him four times, including in the abdomen.
“He has emerged from the immediate threat to his life, but his condition remains serious and he requires intensive care,” Kalinak, Fico’s closest political ally, told reporters.
The Slovak prime minister underwent a five-hour surgery on Wednesday and another surgery on Friday, both at a hospital in the central city of Banska Bystrica.
“We can consider his condition to be stable with a positive prognosis,” Kalinak said outside the hospital, adding: “We all feel a little more relaxed now.”
Kalinak added that Fico will remain at Banska Bystrica for now.
The suspected shooter, identified by Slovak media as 71-year-old poet Juraj Cintula, was charged with attempted premeditated murder and was placed in pre-trial detention by a special criminal court on Saturday.
Fico was shot as he walked to greet supporters after a government meeting in the central mining town of Handlova.
Kalinak previously said that Fico suffered four gunshot wounds, two minor, one medium and one severe.
Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said that if one of the shots “had been just a few centimeters higher, it would have hit the prime minister’s liver.”
Fico, 59, took office in October after his centrist populist Smer party won the general election.
He is serving his fourth term as prime minister after campaigning on peace proposals between Russia and Ukraine, Slovakia’s neighbor, and suspending military aid to Kiev, which his government did.
Kalinak said the government would continue without Fico “in accordance with the program he has outlined”, including two meetings next week.
The assassination attempt deeply shocked the EU and NATO member country, with 5.4 million inhabitants, which has been sharply divided over politics for years.
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