At the Specialized Criminal Court

February 29: Slovakia Parliamentary Elections

Ask any Slovak what they were doing when they heard about Ján Kuciak’s murder. They will know exactly where they were.  

Slovakia is holding elections on February 29. But to understand them, you need to understand the murder of the young journalist that took place two years ago.

The murder of Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova exposed many levels of corruption in Slovakia’s ruling party, Smer. When the journalist was murdered for investigating organized crime and its ties to the government, many young people, including myself, came together for demonstrations. The Prime Minister and his cabinet resigned. As we face new elections, many Slovaks wonder how the legacy of this crime will shape our political future. 

Before his murder on February 21, 2018, Ján Kuciak wasn’t particularly famous. He had only worked as an investigative journalist for a few years. He became known for his articles about Slovak businessman Marián Kočner and corruption between the social democratic party Smer and the Italian mafia. His investigative methods mostly included working with large amounts of data from open sources and putting all the pieces together.  

We didn’t think we lived in a country where journalists could be murdered for their work. Ján was only 27, an ordinary guy from a small village in northernwestern Slovakia. That summer, he and his fiancée were going to get married. I knew Ján through some common friends.

When we heard about Ján’s murder, we immediately thought of Marián Kočner.

Kočner was a well-known figure in Slovakia. Tabloids dubbed him as a “controversial entrepreneur.” He became known in the early 90s when he took over the private television station Markíza.

In 2017, Ján wrote about the fraudulent tax schemes he had used in his business. In response, Kočner threatened Ján and his family.

Ján had reached out to the Slovak police and filed a criminal complaint against Kočner. No one was assigned to the case. 

When we heard about the murder, my wife and I, along with several of our friends, began to organize protests every Friday. We felt that the crime would only be properly investigated if we kept talking about it. We did not trust the Slovak investigators or our justice system. At the first protest, 25,000 people showed up. After the second protest on March 9, 2018, the Minister of Interior Robert Kaliňák stepped down. Prime Minister Fico stepped down soon after. A new government had to be formed. Peter Pellegríni became the new Prime Minister, though Fico still kept his influence as the head of Smer.

In his last, unfinished story, Ján had begun to draw links between Fico, a former “Miss Universe” model who served as his assistant, and an Italian organized crime group. 

Our initiative Za slušné Slovensko (For a decent Slovakia), continued organizing protests. The Police President Tibor Gašpar stepped down too. This was even more important than we knew at the time. Later we learned that he had ties to an oligarch close to Kočner.

In the following weeks, thousands gathered all around Slovakia. These were the largest protests in Slovakia since the Velvet Revolution in 1989.

Protesting isn’t really in our nature as Slovaks. There is a Slovak saying, “Drž hubu a krok,” which can be translated as: “Keep your mouth shut and keep moving.” But this was different. We gathered to say that we did not not want to live in a country where killing a journalist is normal. For us as organizers, it was very important that everybody felt safe and welcome at our protests. No damage was ever done to anyone or any property.  

We could see the direct impact of our protests on politics in surveys of political preferences. Smer took a sharp dip in support. According to a Slovak survey agency Focus, in February 2020 Smer had support of 17%-its lowest since about 2005. (In 2012, Smer won 45% of the vote).

In March 2019, Zuzana Čaputová, an environmental lawyer from the party Progresívne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia) won the Slovak presidential election by a margin of 16 percentage points over her opponent, Smer’s Maroš Šefčovič. Her victory was widely interpreted as a backlash to populism. 

Slovakia votes for a new parliament in just nine days. The election campaign has coincided with the trial for Ján’s murder. 

The trial takes place in Pezinok, a small city about 20 minutes away from Bratislava. On January 13, the first day of the trial, a large group of journalists waited in freezing temperatures in front of the Specialised Criminal Court. Little white clouds came from their mouths when they spoke. You could mostly hear the Slovak language, but also Polish, Slovenian, Czech, English and French. From 120 seats reserved for the public, about 100 were given to the media. I was among them. 

Behind glass doors, several prison guards managed the security control. Several wore full tactical gear including balaclavas, bulletproof vests and semi-automatic rifles.

As the trial opened, it took about half an hour before the prosecutor finished reading the indictment.

When he read about how the murderer carried out the crime, Ján and Martina’s parents burst into tears. On the opposite side of the court sat four defendants who had been accused of these crimes - Marián Kočner, and several of his associates.

A former soldier turned hit man named Miroslav Marček pleaded guilty to carrying out the murder. He testified that he was the shooter who murdered the couple. He described in detail how he and another hit man prepared for the crime, how they ordered the gun and modified bullets so they wouldn’t make too much noise. How they prepared for several weeks and went to the village of Veľká Mača (where the couple lived) to prepare for the crime. How they bought new cell phones, hoping they would not be traceable. How they signaled each other when the crime was done. How they received payment.

The trial continues at least until April. The prosecutors will present all the evidence they have gathered to convince the court that Marián Kočner ordered this killing. The most damaging piece of evidence against Kočner came from his phone. The police managed to get all of his conversations from the secure messaging app, Threema. They showed his connections to a variety of influential people, including judges. In his text messages shortly after the murder, Kočner joked that he would set up a “Saint Jan Kuciak foundation.” He has denied his involvement with the murder. 

The trial and the upcoming elections are often discussed as separate subjects. 

On the one hand, there is evidence that many of Slovakia's politicians abused their power for personal profit. 

On the other hand, we see other troubling sights in the run-up to this election: the rise of extreme right-wing parties like the People’s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS), which is known for its racist comments and anti-Roma policies. 

Demonstrations, protests and campaigns have weakened Smer. But even though they have lost much of their former support, they are still the front-runner in these elections. 

However, it is unlikely that they will be able to form a government. Opposition parties have already declined to form a government with them after the elections. 

Despite their scarred reputation, Smer’s campaign uses videos mocking the opposition and positioning themselves as “responsible change.” But this is just a shadow of the effective campaign they ran four years ago. 

At the same time, much of the opposition has been made up of far-right and populist parties. The most extreme is ĽSNS, which currently comes in number 3 in the polls. One member of ĽSNS was fined last year for performing a Nazi salute. 

Each of the other opposition parties have made anti-corruption part of their platform--no matter their other views. “Ordinary people and independent personalities” (Obyčajní ľudia a nezávislé osobnosti - OĽaNO) a populist party, run on an anti-corruption and anti-Smer platform. After them in the polls come PS/Spolu, a new party whose roster is filled with civil activists. Their partner is For the People (Za ľudí), a centrist party mostly focused on “repairing the state” run by Andrej Kiska, former President of the Slovak Republic. 

Support of the parties currently in government shrinks with every poll published. It is much more likely that the government will be formed by parties of the opposition, despite Smer’s current lead. Even then, we’re not sure what that might look like. The only option would be a wide coalition of parties with fundamental differences on topics as varied as abortion, marijuana decriminalization, and same-sex partnerships. It is not all that unlikely that there will be more than one parliamentary election this year. 

The judge may give a clear verdict in Ján’s trial, but Slovakia's future is much less certain.