Boiling over: an attempt on the Slovakian PM's life

This episode delves into the dramatic and disturbing assassination attempt on Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fizzo, exploring its implications for democracy and stability in Slovakia.

1. The assassination attempt on PM Fizzo is a stark manifestation of the deep political divisions in Slovakia.
2. Fizzo's political maneuvers aim to transform Slovakia into a quasi-autocratic state, mirroring trends in Hungary and Poland.
3. The political climate in Slovakia is expected to worsen with the upcoming change in presidency, potentially facilitating more autocratic reforms.
4. European leaders are alarmed by the attack, seeing it as a threat to democratic norms across the continent.
5. The episode underscores the fragile state of democracy in regions experiencing political polarization and authoritarian tendencies.

1: The Assassination Attempt

The episode opens with a dramatic recounting of the assassination attempt on Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fizzo, emphasizing the political shockwaves it sent across Europe. Jason Palmer: "Video shows an older man with a handgun race toward the prime minister."

2: Fizzo's Political Background

Discussion on Fizzo's political history, from a left-wing populist to a right-wing nationalist, and the controversies surrounding his leadership. Matt Steinglass: "He's a populist... and has attempted a comeback over the last few years."

3: Autocratic Measures

Analysis of Fizzo's policies aimed at dismantling democratic institutions and aligning Slovakia with autocratic regimes. Jason Palmer: "So he shut down the country's anti-corruption authority..."

4: Future Implications

Speculation on the future of Slovak politics, especially with the upcoming presidential change, and its impact on democratic norms. Emily Steinmark: "And what are the chances of that? Do you think that the temperature of Slovakian politics can be reduced after this attack?"

1. Stay informed about international politics to understand how local events can have global implications.
2. Support democratic institutions and processes, both locally and globally.
3. Recognize and resist the spread of populist and nationalist rhetoric that threatens democratic values.
4. Encourage transparent and accountable governance in all political dealings.
5. Foster dialogue and understanding across political divides to combat polarization.

An attempt on Robert Fico’s life comes at a time of deep-running polarisation in his country—much of which is his own doing. A vote today among auto workers in America’s historically union-unfriendly south will indicate whether an organised-labour revolution can take hold (9:26). And the perception of time varies depending on what you are looking at (17:24).

People

Robert Fizzo, Zuzana Chaputova, Olaf Scholz

Content Warnings:

None

Matt Steinglass
Hi, this is Matt and Sean from two black guys with good credit. If you own or operate a business, whether it's a local operation or a global corporation, partnering with bank of America could be your smartest move. By teaming with bank of America, you'll enjoy exclusive digital tools, award winning insights, and business solutions so powerful you'll make every move matter. Position your business to capitalize on opportunity in a moment's notice. Visit bankofamerica.com bankingforbusiness to learn more.

What would you like the power to do? Bank of America NA copyright 2024.

Emily Steinmark
The Economist hello and welcome to the intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Far fewer workers join labor unions in Americas south than they do elsewhere in the country. But autoworkers recently voted to unionize in Tennessee. A vote being held today will show whether that was a one off or the start of a revolution. And time flies. Time stood still.

A week is a long time in politics. The perception of time is really flexible, but what flexes it? Some new research suggests that what we're looking at might do it.

But first, in the small slovakian town of Handlova yesterday afternoon, Prime Minister Robert Fietzo was greeting supporters after a government meeting. Then gunfire.

Video shows an older man with a handgun race in toward the prime minister. Mister Fizzos bodyguards dragged him into a car and the attacker was detained. Slovakias president Zuzana Chaputova said it was an attack on democracy.

Germanys chancellor Olaf Scholz called the shooting unbearable.

Democracy, he said, is characterized by the non violent expression of differences of opinion.

Its notable that these leaders should frame the assassination attempt as a danger to democracy. Many would describe Mister Fizzo in the same terms. Mister Fietzeau was operated on last night at a hospital near Handlewa, the town where he was shot. Matt Steinglass is our deputy Europe editor this morning. He is reportedly no longer in life threatening condition, although he apparently was last night, but his condition apparently remained serious.

Jason Palmer
He was supposedly hit in the stomach and in a joint of his arm. More broadly, it's a very dangerous moment for slovakian politics, and Slovakia is not the only country in Europe that is facing this kind of intense political polarization. Okay, Matt, let's start with the prime minister himself, who is Robert Fietzow. Robert Fizzo has been a dominant figure in slovakian politics for almost two decades. He was originally prime minister from 2006 to 2010, and then again from 2012 to 2018.

He's a populist. His party smear was initially a left wing populist outfit, but in 2018 he was forced to resign after massive nationwide protests that got kicked off when a young journalist, an investigative journalist, was assassinated while he was investigating corruption and the political affairs of a prominent businessman. Those demonstrations shifted the focus of salachian politics, and ultimately Fizzo had to resign, and that forced him to change his brand somewhat. As he has attempted a comeback over the last few years, he's shifted to standard issue right wing nationalist populism of the sort that you would see in Viktor Orban's Hungary. He's become explicitly an ally of Viktor Orban.

He rails against immigration, he alleges all sorts of internal plots, deep state machinations against his party, and he tried to end Slovakia's support for, for Ukraine in its fight against Russia, although ultimately he's had to back away from that somewhat. In any case, it worked. It polarized slovakian politics extremely sharply. The accusations of scheming and so forth proved popular, and there was broad disillusionment with the progressive anti corruption governments. And all of that allowed Fizzo to stage a successful comeback and win the elections last September.

Emily Steinmark
Now, without wishing to speculate too much about the would be assassins motives, there is sort of an implicit suggestion that they would be political in some way. Why might that be? We really cant say anything definitive about what motivated this attacker. All we know is that hes a 71 year old person, apparently from the region. But the fact that Mister Fizzo was shot is somewhat less shocking because of the intense level of polarization in the countrys politics.

Jason Palmer
Since coming back to office, Mister Fizzo has carried out a series of measures that look like an attempt to turn Slovakia into the kind of illiberal, quasi autocratic pseudo democracy that you see in Hungary. So he shut down the country's anti corruption authority with some measures in, I believe, February. And it was not entirely coincidental that some very prominent members of his party were under investigation by that authority. He reduced the penalties for people accused of corruption cases and he initially said that he was going to cut off all slavonic arms aid to Ukraine. That was a campaign promise.

Slovakia has been a steadfast ally of Ukraine up until his election. He was ultimately forced to back off on that, partly because there are a lot of slovakian arms companies that make a lot of money selling arms to Ukraine. So he allowed them to go ahead and sell. But he's still positioning Slovakia in the peace camp. His allies have made overtures to allow Bratislava to be used as a site for so called peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

A representative of his government attended Vladimir Putin's reinaguration ceremony in Moscow. And in April, he passed a law scrapping Slovakia's independent public broadcaster, which he says, of course, is biased against him. It would replace that independent broadcaster with a directly government controlled broadcaster, which most people expect will just be a sort of a propaganda mouthpiece for his party, much like the public broadcasters became in Poland when a right wing populist government was in power there. And much as Hungary's public broadcaster has become. It does sound like a lot of the measures we've heard you lay out before in autocracies in the making.

Yes. And in fact, there's another big one. Most recently, Mister Fizzo pushed forward an initiative that would force NGO's, which received more than €5000 in funds from abroad, to register as foreign organizations, which is very similar to the kind of foreign agents law that we've seen in Russia starting over a decade ago that was imitated in Hungary. It's a way to try to stigmatize civil society organizations as manipulative agents of foreign powers. And in fact, the georgian government has just passed a law of the same kind which led to massive demonstrations for months into Belisi and has put that country's government on very shaky footing.

Emily Steinmark
And all of this then adds up, as you say, to a dangerous moment for Slovakia's politics. Yes, theyre getting possibly more dangerous. Up until recently, Slovakias President Zuzana Chaputova, who is a very progressive reformist president who was elected in the aftermath of that 2018 assassination of the journalist that I mentioned. And up until now, she has been restraining prime minister Fiso's worst impulses. Shes been vetoing bills that undermine democracy and forcing them to be revised.

Jason Palmer
But she is stepping down. She found the political atmosphere too vicious. So she didnt run in the reelection campaign, and in June shes going to be succeeded by an ally of Mister Fizzo, Peter Pellegrini. Once hes in place, itll be much easier for Mister Fizzo to push through autocratic measures. But for now, she is trying to reduce the temperature.

She said she wants people to stop using hateful rhetoric and not to rush to judgments over who carried out the assassination.

Emily Steinmark
And what are the chances of that? Do you think that the temperature of slovakian politics can be reduced after this attack? That seems unlikely. It certainly is unlikely to last very long. You could already see that Mister Fizzo's allies have rushed to blame the opposition for the attack, to blame the opposition for the polarized atmosphere.

Jason Palmer
They're going to use this assassination attempt to their own political advantage, which will only ratchet up the level of resentment and mistrust in slovakian society. And Slovakia is not the only country in Europe that has these kinds of divisions. All across the continent, there is decreasing trust in the body politic. There's increasing polarization. This is a very difficult problem to confront.

Emily Steinmark
Matt, thanks very much for joining us. Thank you, Jason.

D
Hi, this is Janice Torres from Yokiero di Nero. From a local business to a global corporation, partnering with bank of America gives your operation access to exclusive digital tools, award winning insights, and business solutions so powerful you'll make every move matter. Visit bankofamerica.com banking for business to learn more. What would you like the power to do? Bank of America NA Copyright 2024.

E
Safety is a main thing because we all have families. When I go to work, I want to be able to leave like I can. I shouldn't have to come out broken or almost dead or that's Renee Berry. She's been working at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for 14 years now. Well, my story is I work in logistics, okay, what you call a sumo.

I was working in my area. You know, we have to empty a rack. The rack probably by itself, probably weigh about 500 pounds. In her role, she's working on the assembly line, moving parts around that are involved in making cars. As she says, she wants to leave work as healthy as she came in.

F
But one day last July, that didn't quite happen. So we had a new Forkley driver. He came in to pick up that rat. He picked it up on the tip. So when he picked it up, it fell off.

E
When it fell off, it hit me. It knocked me into a bend, but it could have fell on me. If it fell on me, it would have killed me. And she was badly injured. I have a rod in my arm.

I have basically a built up rotator cover. He had to put synthetic. I got screws, I got bolts. A year later, she's still not fully recovered. I had surgery July 19 last year, and it's going on a year, and I'm still going through what I'm going through.

My life, it's changed. And what's the sad part about it? I have a two year old grandbaby. I can't even pick her up. It was what prompted her to decide to join a union drive at the plant last month.

F
At the end of April, she and her coworkers voted to make Volkswagen the first foreign carmaker in the south to unionize. I fell to the ground. And I cried and I put my hand in the air and I said, thank you, lord. You heard our cry. The UAW, America's biggest auto union, hopes that the Volkswagen win will set off a domino effect across the south, a region that has historically been very hostile to unions.

But was it a fluke or a bellwether that's being tested right now as we speak? Rebecca Jackson is our southern correspondent. Today, 6000 workers at the Mercedes Benz plant outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama are finishing up voting on whether to unionize. We should know the answer of what they choose very soon. So what's your view on that fluke versus bellwether question, that the degree to which this unionizing will prove contagious?

Well, one way to track how potent a movement is is by looking at how anxious its opponents are. And right now in the south, people who are against unions are pretty worried about this. On April 16, six southern governors published a letter warning workers of the ugly reality that unions put jobs in jeopardy and that the UAW cares far more about re electing President Biden than it does about southern workers. One week later, Georgia passed a bill that bans union friendly firms from getting any state tax relief. And Kay Ivey, Alabamas governor, told Mercedes in no uncertain terms that they had to fix the problems that led to organizing at the plant before the vote even began.

They tried to do so in a sort of frantic moment by firing their american boss and replacing him just before the vote. At the Mercedes Benz plant in Alabama, managers are doing their best to make sure that the union vote fails. Every day. Had a startup meeting that they talked bad about the union. That's Jeremy Kimbrell.

He's worked at the plant since the year 2000. And they started showing anti union videos every day. We had captive audience meeting where the CEO gets up and says, we don't need a union here. They can't help you. Then they started an app we use for company information.

G
Now they start inundating the app with anti union stuff. He says that the plant is in full on anti union mode. So the south, as you say, clearly more anti union than, for example, over here in Europe, even perhaps more so than elsewhere in America. Why is that? This goes back to the story of how the south rebuilt itself.

F
It's hard to tell the story of the south and its economic revival without talking about unions. In the 1980s, carmakers started moving from the Midwest to the south, and they did that specifically because there weren't unions. The southern political establishment pushed unions out in a way to keep down wages and make the South a business friendly place that could lure new companies. And that really worked. They implemented right to work laws that let workers opt out of paying union dues, and that made businesses even more likely to come in.

Between 1990 and last year, the share of auto manufacturing jobs in the south doubled from 15% to 30%. Businesses also tried to make sure that unions didn't come in. They had all these clever tactics, like putting factories in places where workers lived far from each other and couldn't get together, and where they had little knowledge of unions. And they used questionnaires to screen out prospective hires who might be sympathetic to organizing. So given all of those structural factors and all of that history, then it's sort of a minor miracle that Renee and her colleagues were able to get unionization at Volkswagen.

Yeah, Jason, that's right. I mean, this is a pretty historic moment, and I think a few things set the stage for this year's pivot. The first is a total revamp of UAW. After years of falling membership, their organizing muscles had atrophied. That was until Sean Fain took over in 2023.

And when he came in as president, he came in with the guns blazing. By November, strikes at the big three carmakers in Detroit had led to record pay raises across the country. Workers down south who were left out of those deals looked on with a new appreciation for what a union could do for them. And the union set its sight on tougher targets down south. Another factor was Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction act.

The IRA, which spurred huge investment in clean energy projects. Nowhere has benefited more from that money than the southeast, where tons of new battery factories and electric vehicle manufacturers are popping up. More jobs and more money means that these firms are less likely to up and leave if their workers unionize. A rush of federal funds also means businesses themselves are less beholden to state politicians, who tend to be more politically conservative. So if the next battleground for this is at Mercedes Benz in Alabama, what do you think is going to happen?

Its really hard to say. The people I spoke to really see this vote as a toss up. And Mercedes is doing much more than Volkswagen did to try and shut down organizers. This campaign looks a lot like one that Nissan ran in 2017 in Canton, Mississippi. That fended off a years long UAW campaign.

Still, Jeremy Kimbrell is bullish. When you look down at Mercedes. Hell, we're taking on the head of the beast, man. He reckons that his colleagues are finally fed up with what he calls the Alabama discount. So their wages are better.

G
Their insurance is so much better than ours. It's like two different universes. And so it's easy to look at that and say, well, why are we getting paid less? And that's because you're those dumb hicks down in Alabama. That's what we came down here for, to pay you all less.

So that's Alabama discount. If you a business, you come to Alabama and these workers will do the same work for less and they won't put up no fight. Jeremy at least is determined to change that. But regardless of who wins at Mercedes this weekend, southern organizers will fight on. Rebecca, thanks very much for your time.

F
Thanks for having me, Jason.

Emily Steinmark
As the saying goes, time flies when you're having fun. Its intuitively obvious that time can seem to speed up or slow down depending on what youre doing or how youre feeling. And also, it turns out what youre looking at. According to new research in the scientific journal Nature Human Behavior, peoples sense of time can actually be influenced by how memorable images in front of them are. Emily Steinmark writes about science for the Economist.

H
Scientists behind this study think it could be a way for the brain to do more processing before they need to make a snap decision. Okay, there's a lot to unpick here. People's sense of time can be influenced by how memorable the images are that they're looking at. I mean, how do you even go about studying such a question? Yeah, it's an interesting one.

So Martin Weiner and his team at George Mason university, so he's a cognitive neuroscientist. They wanted just to test how visual stimuli, different images on a screen, can change how people perceive time. And they did this by taking several awesome participants in different experiments and showing them images of different scenes. So this could be an empty box room or a filled stadium. And they showed the participants the different images for between 309 hundred milliseconds.

So not for very long at all. And then the people that they showed the images to were asked to judge whether they were looking at the specific image for a long moment or a short moment. And the responses revealed that if you view a large scene, so say an empty warehouse or sort of a big library, something like that, people thought more time had passed, so they were more likely to say long after viewing a picture like that than in other situations. And what they saw also was that the opposite happened when the scenes were cluttered with objects. So, for example, an overfall garage.

And what was odd about that was it actually went against previous research, not. The first time that science has tackled this question, eh? Well, what did previous research suggest? There was this idea that when something was larger, either in magnitude or in number or in size, this would seem to stretch out time for people. So if they looked at something big, then that would feel bigger time wise.

For example, if you flashed numbers in front of people's eyes, they would think that they had looked at the higher numbers for longer than the smaller ones. But the thing with the clutter, they would be looking at more, but it seemed to contract time rather than extend it. So it was kind of going against that. And so the scientists thought, well, maybe theres something else at play, and they decided to run another set of experiments looking at memorable and less memorable images instead. Well, hang on, how is that even defined?

Emily Steinmark
Memorable and unmemorable? Yeah, its a curious one. So it seems that humans are quite consistent in what they think is memorable. So they remember pictures of people and actions and centrally placed objects better than what you might think of as a boring picture. Right.

H
So if you have a portrait of a man with a bunch of little flowers in his bed, that's very memorable, whereas if you have a picture of just a couple of leaves, then that's less memorable. And so they dipped into this 60,000 large data set of images and ran these experiments again. And what they found was that the more memorable the image, the more people's sense of time was stretched. And in turn, you suggested at the beginning there that this has something to do with decision making, somehow. Walk me through that.

So what they did was they went to a neural network that is designed to work similar to the human visual system. They fed this neural network a bunch of these memorable and non memorable images. And what they found was that the more memorable the image was, the quicker the neural network processed it. They actually believe that this higher processing speed could be revealing something about what happens in human brains when they see something memorable. So I still need talk through it there.

Emily Steinmark
What is it that could be going on in human brains here that connects the memorability of an image with the perception of time? Researchers think that the brain tries to do more processing time when it encounters something that is important or memorable. So your brain wants to pay more attention to it, and so it tries to do more processing, as in gather more information, gather more details about the situation that you're in. And they propose that it does this by slowing time down to get more processing done, potentially before the body reacts. Right.

H
So there could be an advantage from an evolutionary point of view, if you're face to face with a predator. That's a very important, very memorable situation. And you need to be able to gather as much information as possible before your body decides what to do. And so they say, well, perhaps it is doing that by slowing down that sense of time before fight or flight kicks in. Perhaps.

For now, thats just a hypothesis, but certainly it is very memorable. Well, thanks Emily, for a chat worth remembering. Thank you.

Emily Steinmark
Thats all for this episode of the intelligence. But hang on a sec. Have you heard our subscriber only Saturday edition yet? Now, dear listener, is your chance for the rest of may well be offering free access to the weekend intelligence, our special end of the week episode that dives into poignant, compelling, and sometimes very personal stories from our correspondents. This weekends episode was a tale reported by two of them, one based in America and the other in Mexico.

What they found at the border doesnt line up with the usual narrative of crime and drugs and tensions. They found two countrys citizens enjoying some baseball. If youre already a subscriber to economist podcasts plus thank you. Now spread the word for us about all that comes with it. Tell your friends and family they can hear the weekend intelligence for free until the end of the month.

Jason Palmer
Planning for your next trip? Elevate your travel style with Quince. Quince has all the jet setting essentials you'll want for your next getaway, like european linen, premium luggage options, buttery soft italian leather bags, and so much more. And it's all priced at 50% to 80% less than similar brands. Plus, Quince only works with factories that use safe and ethical manufacturing practices.

Pack your bags with high quality essentials you'll be wearing for vacations. To come with Quince, go to quince.com trip for free shipping and 365 day returns.