Bratislava, March 23 (CTK) – The murder of young journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee in late February has brought about not only a political crisis and change in the government, but it also became the proverbial last straw for a large part of society, discontented with various scandals, sociologist Michal Vasecka told journalists today.
The scandals occurred during the rule of the longest-serving Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico (Smer-Social Democracy).
This week, mass protests forced Fico to resign and President Andrej Kiska appointed a new government, headed by Peter Pellegrini, also from Smer-Social Democracy.
The Slovak police said the crime may be related to Kuciak’s work. Kuciak wrote about Smer-SD’s alleged implication in organised crime and corruption.
“Slovakia has changed. People have realised that a number of taboos have been breached. They have also realised that Slovakia was coming closer to the oligarchisation of their society,” Vasecka said.
“All of this led to the manifestations that people no longer want to live in this way. Some of them took to the streets and many started public activities across Slovakia,” he added.
He denoted the manifestations of the discontent as the second “Velvet Revolution.” The first, from November 1989, ousted the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
“Slovakia has reached the state in which civic society emancipated itself. When looking at the neighbouring Hungary or Poland, one can see that the protests against the government pushing the countries to authoritarianism did not have such strength as in Slovakia,” Vasecka said.