The Slovakian election campaign was turbulent, and featured pro-Russian propaganda, fake news, and anti-Europe slogans.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 A populist candidate whose pro-Russian messaging helps win an election, while liberal pro-European
00:12 candidates lose out.
00:14 Dubious political players spreading Kremlin propaganda with impunity and Russian agents
00:20 handing out bribes.
00:22 A real-life political thriller is being played out in Slovakia.
00:28 The country on the edge of the EU has elected a new parliament after a turbulent and polarizing
00:33 campaign in which pro-Russian propaganda played a major role.
00:38 What does it mean for the rest of Europe and for elections in other EU countries?
00:43 And why does it seem so easy for Russia to undermine Europe's confidence in democracy?
00:48 This is Branov, not Toplu, a small town in eastern Slovakia.
01:07 It's just an hour's drive from the border with Ukraine, where Russia is waging its war.
01:14 Nowhere has the Slovakian election been fought more fiercely than in provinces like this.
01:19 Today, the extreme right Republika Party is holding a rally.
01:23 They hand out chocolate to the public along with lots of anti-Western propaganda.
01:29 Milan Mazurek, a senior party lawmaker, rails against the European Union, NATO and the Americans.
01:37 Pensioners can't afford to heat their apartments.
01:40 Young families are fleeing abroad because they can't make a living here.
01:43 And we're feeding American soldiers.
01:47 It is a message that hits home.
01:49 Many here are disappointed with politicians in Bratislava and Brussels.
01:53 They complain about rising food and energy prices and they question Western support for
01:59 Ukraine.
02:00 Both sides are to blame for the war.
02:04 That's what I think.
02:05 Both sides.
02:06 But the media only tells us one part.
02:09 You only publish what suits you.
02:12 This war will end eventually.
02:14 I'm not afraid of Russia.
02:16 Opinions like these are no surprise to Mikaela Ruzickova.
02:20 She runs the InfoSecurity project which aims to detect and expose Russian disinformation
02:26 in Slovakia.
02:27 Our disinformation space started to form in like 2014 because of the Crimea crisis, you
02:35 know, the annexation of Crimea.
02:37 And nowadays it is really huge.
02:40 It is big and complex.
02:42 There are many actors.
02:43 It is consisted of, you know, the alternative media which are just the websites that are
02:50 spreading false narratives, disinformation, pro-Russian propaganda mainly.
02:55 Mikaela Ruzickova says there are thousands of Facebook pages spreading pro-Russian narratives.
03:02 There are also nearly 300 websites that pose as online news outlets.
03:07 She shows us the page of Hlavne Sprave, a popular conservative portal that pretends
03:13 to publish news.
03:15 Last year Hlavne Sprave made headlines.
03:18 One of its authors was secretly filmed talking to a Russian intelligence officer.
03:23 The video shows him accepting a bribe in return for allegedly spreading Russian propaganda.
03:29 The man was sentenced to a fine and probation and the website was blocked but only temporarily.
03:35 We want to talk to those responsible so we go to the address listed for the publisher.
03:43 But there is nobody there.
03:45 Neighbors say it's long been abandoned.
03:48 No one responds to our inquiries and the phone number given on the site isn't working.
03:59 Instead we visit Dziennik N, the real newspaper that published the video of the bribe.
04:04 Its editor in chief Matus Kostolny says the fact that the affair had no real consequences
04:11 shows how vulnerable Slovakia is to outside interference.
04:17 It shows that even the courts in Slovakia don't understand the situation.
04:20 There is a special war going on in Slovakia and Russians are fighting that war.
04:27 For me and for the country, Russia is the enemy.
04:31 They are not able to understand and this is very serious.
04:35 Pro-Russian propaganda has also been spread by prominent politicians.
04:40 While campaigning, they've regularly repeated slogans usually heard from the Kremlin.
04:45 Among them is Robert Fico.
04:48 The leader of the left-wing nationalist party SMER spoke out against arms deliveries to
04:53 Ukraine and against further sanctions on Russia.
04:57 At a press conference shortly before the election, we asked him this.
05:01 Why are you promoting Russian propaganda?
05:04 Do you think it makes you popular?
05:09 Why don't you give us the right to have our own opinion about the war in Ukraine?
05:14 We are not obliged to repeat the rhetoric of the United States of America or Western
05:18 Europe.
05:21 Fico did well with this message during the campaign, especially in towns and villages
05:26 away from the capital, where the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine are particularly
05:33 noticeable.
05:37 The Ukrainians have money and they have no problem buying anything.
05:41 Slovaks have trouble buying honey because they can't afford it.
05:44 The Ukrainians come and collect a lot of money.
05:47 Natalia Hromoshak often hears false claims and prejudice in Slovakia.
05:52 The Ukrainian came here fleeing the war.
05:55 We meet her in a market in the city of Kosice.
05:58 The country has taken in more than 100,000 Ukrainians, but many here don't believe that
06:04 Ukraine is the victim.
06:08 The propaganda certainly works.
06:10 They don't know much about Ukraine, but that propaganda works.
06:15 They believe Russia is the older brother.
06:20 Mikaela Ruzickova and the InfoSecurity platform are trying to work out why pro-Russian disinformation
06:27 is taking hold in Slovakia.
06:30 There is a common history with the Russian Federation, of course with the Soviet Union,
06:36 and the Kremlin is pushing this narrative even today that Russia is our Slavic brother.
06:44 And it's really working because people have this memory of the common history with the
06:50 Soviet Union.
06:51 They are looking at it as some kind of golden era.
06:55 This is especially true for older Slovaks who look back fondly on those times and feel
07:00 disillusioned about life in the European Union.
07:04 Meanwhile, Moscow's embassy in Bratislava is one of the EU's most active when it comes
07:10 to spreading anti-Western messaging.
07:13 So far, there is no evidence of direct Russian interference in Slovakian elections.
07:19 But many liberal politicians are being targeted by disinformation.
07:23 This is the headquarters of Progressive Slovakia, a liberal pro-European party.
07:29 Its candidate has faced especially tough campaign attacks, including this deepfake video which
07:35 made him appear to announce a massive rise in beer prices.
07:43 The drastic increase in beer prices will be one of the first things a government led by
07:46 us will implement.
07:51 It was a clumsy fake, but Mihal Šimečka of Progressive Slovakia takes the issue seriously.
07:57 What would you do to counter this campaign?
08:01 What we do, well, we try to obviously refute that which is an obvious lie, an obvious slur
08:06 against our party.
08:08 But most importantly, we're trying to run a positive campaign.
08:12 From the very start, we're trying to talk about the kind of positive vision for the
08:17 country that we envisage in our manifesto.
08:22 When election day finally arrives, voters wait in long lines to cast their ballots.
08:28 Many in Bratislava seem to be worried about the direction in which their country is heading.
08:33 We know that there are various hybrid operations going on in Slovakia thanks to foreign influences.
08:41 Even though we have the freedom to vote, it's clear we are also quite influenced by these
08:45 manipulations.
08:50 The last few years have shown that democracy isn't as secure as we thought.
08:55 Election night at party headquarters, there is an anxious wait for results.
09:00 Michal Simečka's liberals are a young party, but in the final campaign sprint, they managed
09:05 to position themselves as favourites, including with clear commitments to Ukraine.
09:10 Would you say that your victory would be a blow to Putin?
09:14 Well, first of all, who needs to deal a blow to Putin is Ukraine and its army, and of course
09:23 the supporters of Ukraine, including Slovakia, and that's regardless of how this election
09:27 plays out.
09:28 Once polls close, the first projections are a release.
09:32 The mood here is good, the liberals are in fact ahead, but Martin Hojcik, who represents
09:37 the party in the European Parliament, remains cautious.
09:42 This is tight, it looks positive, but it's still only exit polls, so we'll have to see
09:48 the final results, but it's also very humbling, I have to say, after months and months of
09:53 work and campaign which was sadly also quite, I don't want to say dominated, but quite polluted
10:02 by lots of misinformation and essentially a hybrid war by third parties.
10:08 Meanwhile at SMER party headquarters, populist candidate Robert Fitzo isn't speaking to the
10:14 media.
10:15 The projections aren't what he hoped for.
10:18 But as the night goes on, things take a turn.
10:21 As more votes are counted, it becomes clear that Fizo's strategy will win him the election.
10:36 The next day he appears triumphant before the press.
10:40 He announces what lies ahead, including talks on forming a government.
10:44 When asked about the war in Ukraine, Fizo says he wants peace talks and that Slovaks
10:49 have bigger problems than Ukraine.
10:53 Your critics could assume that the victory is a win for Vladimir Putin.
11:01 No one is directing us from the outside.
11:03 We don't have a donor list, as is the case with other parties.
11:07 No one's coming here to tell us what we should or shouldn't do.
11:11 So please respect us for disagreeing on some things.
11:14 After all, that's the essence of democracy.
11:19 Fizo's victory could have far-reaching consequences, including for Ukraine in EU solidarity.
11:26 At a conference in Bratislava, we asked disinformation expert Mikaela Ruzickova about upcoming elections
11:32 in Poland and Bulgaria and next year's European elections.
11:37 Will they see similar disinformation campaigns?
11:40 During the discussions with our colleagues, we really see some similar trends.
11:46 The other countries are also struggling with gaining public trust in the institutions,
11:52 as some actors, like also politicians, but the alternative media and social media actors
11:58 as well, are continuously undermining this trust.
12:03 The political situation in Slovakia shows the consequences of a long-term disinformation
12:08 campaign.
12:09 Experts say Russian efforts to manipulate democracies will continue and even increase.
12:15 They'll keep affecting European nations unless the West takes action.
12:20 [MUSIC]