Is the Progressive Slovakia party, led by Michal Simecka, vice president of the European Parliament, a "fascist" party? No, that's not true: It is a center-right liberal party, according to political analysts. It was labeled by some conservative voters and political opponents as "extremist" during the 2023 pre-election campaign in Slovakia, because of its support of sexual minorities' rights.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on October 1, 2023, with a screenshot of a news article about Progressive Slovakia losing in the Slovak general elections held on September 30, 2023. The caption over the image (translated from Czech to English by Lead Stories staff) read:
Great, Slovaks! Fico has won! The end of fascists liberals! And now Czechia!
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Oct 13 07:11:05 2023 UTC)
The original article used in the video is from the Seznam Zpravy news website. The article, reporting on the elections, began by quoting vulgar insults shouted by fans of Robert Fico, the leader of the winning Smer-SSD party, at the headquarters of Progressive Slovakia shortly after the polls closed. Similar statements in Slovak can be seen in the comments below the TikTok video, such as (translated by Lead Stories staff): "Brothers, I keep my fingers crossed for you, and chase these liberals out of your beautiful country," or "a sick bunch, get them out of here."
According to political analysts, Progressive Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia), formed in 2017, is a modern, pro-European, center-right, liberal-leaning party. It is a member of the Renew Group in the Europarliament and of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party. The party platform focuses on the economy, improved health care and changing the atmosphere in Slovak society, which has been plagued by a series of political scandals, including the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend in 2018. The party also supports LGBTQ+ rights and marriage for same-sex couples, values that are difficult to accept for some in traditional Slovak society, iRozhlas reported. Therefore, the party has been labeled as an "extremist" movement by nationalistic, Christian-oriented Slovak voters, and also by some politicians from Fico's Smer party: Some of the party's pre-election billboards presented slogans such as "Let's stop liberals together," Hospodarske Noviny reported.
The Slovak neo-fascist party Republika, which, according to pre-election opinion polls, had a chance to enter parliament, failed to reach the 5 percent threshold in the ballot, as Robert Fico attracted some of its voters, emphasizing national interests and his stance against migration, Transitions online reported.
Robert Fico Smer-SSD party, which won the elections on September 30, 2023, reached a deal with center-left and nationalist parties to form a new government, Reuters reported on October 11, 2023.
