Robert Fico
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| Robert Fico | |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office July 4, 2006 |
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| Preceded by | Mikuláš Dzurinda |
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| Born | 15 September 1964 Topoľčany, Slovakia |
| Political party | Direction - Social Democracy (Smer) |
Robert Fico (15 September 1964 in Topoľčany) is the current Prime Minister of Slovakia (since July 4, 2006).
His relatively new left-wing party Direction - Social Democracy (Slovak: "SMER - Sociálna demokracia") was the winner of the parliamentary elections in 2006, receiving approximately 30 percent of the votes.
[edit] Life
He studied at the Law Faculty of the Comenius University at Bratislava and later became an employee of the Institute of State and Law of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1987 and as such, he was allowed to travel to the USA.
He studied in the United States from 1989 to 1991 and on returning home to Slovakia joined the Party of the Democratic Left in 1992 and became the vice-chairman of that party. He also became the deputy head of the Law Institute of the Slovak Ministry of Justice, was elected to be a member of parliament, and worked as Slovakia's representative at the European Court of Human Rights.
In 1999 he founded the Smer - tretia cesta (Direction - the Third Way) party and became its leader. After the unsuccessful attempt to form a so-called "Third Way" party, he tried to carve out his party as a modern social democratic party. He was criticized by some right-wing parties in Slovakia for populism because of his criticism of market and social reforms without allegedly offering detailed alternatives.
In the parliamentary election of 2002 Smer obtained 13.46% of the votes and became the third largest party. It was much less than pre-election estimates and was considered to be a failure by Fico.
Fico is married with one child.
[edit] Election victory
In 2006, his party (renamed Direction - Social Democracy) won the parliamentary election with 29.1% of the votes and formed a coalition government with Vladimír Mečiar's HZDS and Ján Slota's SNS. Both parties were part of the coalition government ruling in Slovakia between 1994-1998 and were criticised for their anti-democratic style of governing.
As a result of the fact that Robert Fico formed the government with the Slovak National Party (a nationalist party whose leader is accused of making anti-Hungarian statements), he was condemned by the Party of European Socialists, of which the Smer party was a member at the time. In October 2006, Smer was suspended from PES membership. [1]
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Mikuláš Dzurinda |
Prime Minister of Slovakia 2006 - current |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
Provisional Government for Slovakia (as part of Czechoslovakia):
Vavro Šrobár (1918)
Slovak Soviet Republic:
Antonín Janoušek (1919)
Autonomous Slovakia (as part of Czechoslovakia):
Jozef Tiso (1938 – 1939) | Jozef Sivák (1939) | Karol Sidor (1939)
First Slovak Republic:
Jozef Tiso (1939) | Vojtech Tuka (1939 – 1944) | Štefan Tiso (1944 – 1945)
Presidents of the Board of Commissioners (as part of Czechoslovakia):
Karol Šmidke (1945 – 1946) | Gustáv Husák (1946 – 1950) | Karol Bacílek (1950 – 1951) | Július Ďuriš (1951 – 1953) | Rudolf Strechaj (1953 – 1960)
Slovak Socialist Republic / Slovak Republic (as part of Czechoslovakia):
Štefan Sádovský (1969) | Peter Colotka (1969-1988) | Ivan Knotek (1988-1989) | Pavel Hrivnák (1989) | Milan Čič (1989-1990) | Vladimír Mečiar (1990-1991) | Ján Čarnogurský (1991-1992) | Vladimír Mečiar (1992)
Slovak Republic:
Vladimír Mečiar (1993-1994) | Jozef Moravčík (1994) | Vladimír Mečiar (1994-1998) | Mikuláš Dzurinda (1998-2006) | Robert Fico (2006-)
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