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    Resilience of Europe’s populist right carries warning for US Democrats

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    In the afterglow of electoral triumph, hope springs renewed for Democrats confined to the frustrating impotence of political opposition.Boosted by last week’s electoral wins in New York City, Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere, as well as California’s affirmation of Proposition 50 allowing for congressional redistricting, party members suddenly feel able to dream that future elections may herald an escape route from the Donald Trump era.Yet the experiences of other countries that have grappled with the rise of rightwing authoritarian or populist movements provide a cautionary antidote to such optimism.It suggests that even the rosiest Democratic scenario – one that would see the party retake control of (at least) the House of Representatives in next year’s midterms, and win the White House in 2028 – might not be enough to permanently break the feverish intensity of Trump’s Maga movement.Defeated rightwing populists are capable of mounting electoral comebacks after suffering setbacks at the polls – as Trump himself proved by winning the 2024 presidential election after his defeat by Joe Biden four years had lulled many commentators into writing him off.Three recent elections in east-central Europe attest to the electoral resilience of populist forces, with politicians or parties that had previously been voted out following mass protests returning to office.In the Czech Republic, the populist ANO party, led by the wealthy oligarch Andrej Babiš, is on the verge of a return to government in a coalition with a far-right anti-immigrant party and a previously fringe anti-environmental grouping after it finished as the biggest bloc in last month’s parliamentary election.It will mean Babiš returning as prime minister four years after an electoral defeat propelled by conflict of interest scandals, and mass protests against his government that resembled the recent No Kings demonstrations in the US.His comeback matches that in neighboring Slovakia of Robert Fico, a former socialist who was a guest speaker at this year’s CPAC gathering in Maryland. Fico, an anti-immigration hardliner who has abandoned his country’s support for Ukraine in favour of ties with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, returned as prime minister in 2023 when his Smer party won an election five years after he resigned following popular street protests sparked by the murder of an investigative journalist.View image in fullscreenIn another striking resurgence, the candidate of Poland’s rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS), Karol Nawrocki, narrowly won last June’s presidential election against a liberal centrist candidate of the governing Civic Platform, Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw.Nawrocki’s victory came less than two years after the nationalist and socially conservative PiS was ousted from power in parliamentary elections by a coalition headed by the Civic Platform.The PiS revival prompted Anne Applebaum to write in the Atlantic that “all elections are now existential”.“Small numbers of voters swinging one way or the next will decide the nature of the state, the future of democracy, the independence of the courts,” she added.Albin Sybera, a Czech commentator, said that although local conditions in all three countries differed, all demonstrated “the resilience of populism”.“The resilience feeds on similar ingredients and polarization is one common theme,” he said.“Another is the failure of liberal or centrist parties to find a lasting solution to economic discontent resulting from a rapidly changing economic landscape that has seen traditional manufacturing jobs disappear – a scenario familiar to many parts of the US, as well as former communist states in eastern Europe.“There is definitely something in common [with the US] in the Czech case and in the Slovak case, to some extent, in the dissatisfaction of the vulnerable parts of the society, in combination with the failure of the liberal political parties to address this,” said Sybera.Such parties are further energized by standing for an animating vision – usually a strident view of nationhood harking back to a supposed golden bygone, as exemplified by Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, and often (though not always) bolstered by religious faith and socially conservative values.“If you look at all the major political forces in western democracies, the only one with any real ideology, any real passion, any real project, is the far right,” said Steven Levitsky, professor of politics at Harvard University and co-author of How Democracies Die.“The far-left, center-left, liberal-center, Christian Democrats – none of them have a real project. They will unite in their opposition to the far right. But I can’t think of a social democratic party in the world that has people getting up out of bed early Saturday morning to work for the party.”The erosion of the traditional left versus right political axis in most western democracies provides a further boost to populists. Politics revolves less around traditional arguments about government spending and taxation – although these arguments still take place – than between urban cosmopolitan secularism and more rural traditional nationalism.“Politics in most western democracies is now primarily cleaved along what you can call cosmopolitan versus populist lines,” said Levitsky. “We call it left-right, but it’s urban-liberal, secular on the one hand, and more rural religious, ethno-nationalist on the other.”The tendency of centrist and leftist parties to prioritize defending democracy – a core theme of Biden’s presidency and adopted as a campaign issue by Kamala Harris – may also play into the hands of the far right.Populations the world over may be less motivated by democratic ideals and freedom than previously thought, believes Eric Rubin, a former US ambassador and ex-president of the American Foreign Service Association.“One of the things I’ve learned from 40 years as an American diplomat is that some of the basic assumptions we grew up with are not necessarily true. Some of them were ideological,” he said.View image in fullscreen“The assumption, that people, given a choice, will prefer democracy, they want to elect their own leaders, they want freedom of speech and all the other freedoms – as a default, that’s probably true but there are trade-offs.“If you ask most people in the world, would you give away some freedom for economic security or prosperity or national security, I think in most countries the answer is yes. But I think we convinced ourselves, à la Barack Obama, that the arc of history bends toward progress.”Such pragmatism fits with another factor explaining the populist bounce-back facility – the growth of anti-incumbency sentiment, particularly prevalent following the Covid pandemic.“The generalized unpopularity of incumbents hits everybody, not just the liberals,” said Levitsky. “It hits the far right. It affected Trump in 2020. It’s going to affect the Republicans in 2026 and 2028.”But that assumes that the continuation of an even electoral playing field in the next two election cycles that Democrats suspect Trump is scheming to tilt in Republicans’ favor.An exception to the trend has been Hungary’s strongman prime minister, Viktor Orbán – who visited Trump at the White House on Friday – and who has won four consecutive elections aided, critics say, by ruthless gerrymandering. But he faces a tough re-election fight next spring as polls show his Fidesz party trailing the main opposition.Trump has repeatedly hailed Orbán’s illiberal philosophy – characterized by, according to opponents, a takeover of institutions such as the courts and universities, buying up independent media by the prime minister’s cronies, and unfair elections – as a model for his own governing style.Rubin believes the US’s current trajectory has close parallels to Hungary and warned that the combination of a 1929-style crash and a determined ideological project could pose a dire threat to democracy.“Don’t assume that this is about winning majorities over to whatever the cause or the plan is,” he said. “It’s about finding a way to keep and seize power regardless of what the majority wants.” More

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      Trump says he believes Ukraine can regain all land lost to Russia since 2022 invasion

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      Donald Trump has said he believes Ukraine can regain all the land that it has lost since the 2022 Russian invasion in one of the strongest statements of support he has given Kyiv.The US president delivered his upbeat assessment by claiming Russia was in big economic trouble in a post on Truth Social after meeting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in New York.He wrote: “After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.“With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option. Why not?”Trump added: “Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years, a war that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win.”The US president said this was not making Russia look distinguished, but instead a paper tiger, pointing to the long queues for petrol inside the country. He added: “Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act.” He also promised “to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them”.Earlier, Trump said that he planned to enforce his demand that Nato countries stop importing Russian oil – including Hungary, led by his close ally Viktor Orbán.In his speech to the UN general assembly the US president renewed his demand for Europe to end its “embarrassing” purchase of oil and gas from Russia, saying until it did so he would not impose his long-promised economic punishment on Moscow.Trump also said he believed Nato aircraft should shoot down Russian aircraft if they entered its airspace, but later qualified his remarks by saying it depended on the circumstances.He made his remarks alongside Zelenskyy, whom he described as a “brave man”. Asked if he still trusted the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Trump said he would know in a month’s time.It came after the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, had given less wholehearted support for shooting down Russian planes in Nato airspace, saying this should only happen “if they’re attacking”.View image in fullscreenIn his speech to the UN Trump mocked Nato allies’ failure to curb oil imports, saying: “China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war by continuing to purchase Russian oil. But inexcusably, even Nato countries have not cut off much Russian energy and Russian energy products … I found out about it two weeks ago, and I wasn’t happy.“They’re funding the war against themselves. Who the hell ever heard of that one? In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs.“But for those tariffs to be effective, European nations, all of you … gathered here right now, would have to join us in adopting the exact same measures.”Trump did not specify the measures, but he has been stalling on a package that includes tariffs against countries that do business with Russia, such as India and China. He has already imposed 50% tariffs on India, but is also in the middle of negotiations that could see those lifted.Regarding Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, Trump said: “He’s a friend of mine. I have not spoken to him [about importing Russian oil], but I have a feeling if I did, he might stop, and I think I’ll be doing that.”In response to Trump’s demands, the EU is trying to bring forward the date by which it ends the import of liquid natural gas imports from Russia to 2026 – a year earlier than planned. The EU is opposed to imposing vast tariffs on China or India, but is looking at more targeted measures against Indian and Chinese oil refineries.Trump said he would be discussing the issue with EU leaders, adding: “They can’t be doing what they’re doing. They’re buying oil and gas from Russia while they’re fighting Russia … They have to immediately cease all energy purchases from Russia. Otherwise, we are all wasting a lot of time.”The EU’s 19th sanctions package also proposes export controls on another 45 companies that are deemed to be cooperating on sanctions evasion. Those include 12 Chinese, two Thai and three Indian entities that have enabled Russia to circumvent the bloc’s sanctions.View image in fullscreenHungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, told the Guardian that Hungary could not wean itself off Russian energy supplies. He said: “We can’t ensure the safe supply [of energy products] for our country without Russian oil or gas sources,” while adding that he “understood” Trump’s approach.“For us, energy supplies are a purely physical question,” he said. “It can be nice to dream about buying oil and gas from somewhere [besides Russia] … but we can only buy from where we have infrastructure. And if you look at the physical infrastructure, it’s obvious that without the Russian supplies, it is impossible to ensure the safe supply of the country.”Budapest relies on the Druzhba oil pipeline and the TurkStream gas pipeline to receive Russian hydrocarbons.Slovakia, the second EU country still importing Russian oil, said it had already spoken to the US about the issue, and received a sympathetic response. “As long as we have an alternative route, and the transmission capacity is sufficient, Slovakia has no problem diversifying,” said the economy minister, Denisa Saková.Hungary and Slovakia are the two countries that have most frequently called for the EU to reduce its support for Ukraine. More

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      The Guardian view on Romania’s presidential election upset: a vote for stability and the west | Editorial

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      As Romanians voted on Sunday in arguably the most consequential election in the country’s post-communist history, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, will have been preparing to welcome a fellow disruptor to the European stage. The first round of a controversially re-run presidential contest had been handsomely won by George Simion, a Eurosceptic ultranationalist who views Donald Trump as a “natural ally” and opposes military aid to Ukraine. On the back of a 20-point lead, Mr Simion, a 38-year-old former football ultra with a taste for violent rhetoric, was so confident of winning that he made a confrontational visit to Brussels in the last days of his campaign.Those expectations were confounded in remarkable fashion at the weekend. In a dramatic reversal of fortunes, Nicușor Dan, the centrist mayor of Bucharest, benefited from the highest voter turnout in 30 years to triumph comfortably. One of the first foreign leaders to congratulate Mr Dan was a relieved Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who, in Hungary and Slovakia, already has to contend with two Putin-friendly governments on Ukraine’s western border.First and foremost, the stability promised by Mr Dan’s victory is good news for Romania, which has been in political turmoil since the original presidential election was cancelled amid allegations of Russian interference. Having made his name as a politically independent anti-corruption campaigner, he must now attempt to unite a deeply polarised country in which inequality, graft and poor public services have proved to be, as elsewhere, a launchpad for far-right populist insurgents.More broadly, the size of the second-round turnout – which included a huge diaspora vote – suggests that hitching a ride on the Trump bandwagon is as liable to motivate a mainstream backlash in Europe as generate Maga-style momentum. Given the global volatility unleashed by Mr Trump’s reckless, bullying style, and the dark shadow cast over eastern Europe by Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical ambitions, the strategic attractions of hugging the EU and Nato close are more readily apparent than they used to be. Handed the opportunity to turn east, a substantial majority of Romanian voters looked west.Elsewhere though, on a “super Sunday” of three European elections, outcomes were more ambivalent and less uplifting from a progressive perspective. The centre also held in Poland, where the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, narrowly won the first round of another crucial presidential election, ahead of the nationalist historian Karol Nawrocki. But the high combined vote for hard- and far-right candidates suggests that result may be reversed in two weeks’ time. One and a half years after Donald Tusk was given a prime ministerial mandate to bring Poland back into the European mainstream, Eurosceptic ultranationalism remains a force to be reckoned with.In Portugal, a snap election triggered by the centre-right governing party saw it retain power, but was notable mainly for the record number of votes cast for the far-right Chega party. Postal ballots could yet propel Chega to second place, ahead of the Socialist party, after a dismal night for the Portuguese left.Mr Dan’s famous victory was undoubtedly the story of the night, confounding a narrative of an inexorable rightwards shift in central and eastern Europe. But amid an ongoing cost of living crisis, and as mainstream parties echo far-right agendas on migration, the politics of Europe continue to feel anxious, polarised and alarmingly unpredictable.

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      El posible segundo atentado contra Trump genera alarma en el extranjero

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      Existe la preocupación generalizada de que las elecciones de noviembre no acaben bien y de que la democracia estadounidense haya llegado a un punto crítico.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]En los nueve años transcurridos desde que Donald Trump entró en la política estadounidense, la percepción global de Estados Unidos se ha visto sacudida por la imagen de una nación fracturada e impredecible. Primero un atentado contra la vida del expresidente, y ahora un segundo posible atentado, han acentuado la preocupación internacional, suscitando temores de una agitación violenta que podría desembocar en una guerra civil.Keir Starmer, el primer ministro británico, ha dicho que está “muy preocupado” y “profundamente perturbado” por lo que, según el FBI, fue un intento de asesinar a Trump en su campo de golf de Florida, a menos de 50 días de las elecciones presidenciales y dos meses después de que una bala ensangrentó la oreja de Trump durante un mitin de campaña en Pensilvania.“La violencia no tiene cabida alguna en un proceso político”, afirmó Starmer.Sin embargo, la violencia ha tenido un lugar preponderante en esta tormentosa y tambaleante campaña política estadounidense, y no solo en los dos posibles intentos de asesinato. Ahora existe una preocupación generalizada en todo el mundo de que las elecciones de noviembre no acaben bien y de que la democracia estadounidense, que solía ser un modelo para el mundo, haya llegado a un punto crítico.En México, donde este año se celebraron las elecciones más violentas de la historia reciente del país, con 41 candidatos y aspirantes a cargos públicos asesinados, el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador dijo en una publicación en la plataforma social X: “Aun cuando todavía no se conoce bien lo sucedido, lamentamos la violencia producida en contra del expresidente Donald Trump. El camino es la democracia y la paz”.En un momento de guerras en Europa y el Medio Oriente y de inseguridad global generalizada mientras China y Rusia afirman la superioridad de sus modelos autócratas, la precariedad estadounidense pesa bastante.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Calls to Pause Slovakia’s E.U. Election Campaigning Raise Questions

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      Calls are growing in Slovakia for political parties to suspend campaigning for the European Union elections, just three weeks away, in the wake of the assassination attempt on the prime minister in the sharply polarized country.The president-elect of Slovakia, Peter Pellegrini, and others say the step is necessary to avoid further inflammatory political discourse, which has escalated further since the shooting that left Prime Minister Robert Fico badly wounded. At least one party, the opposition Progress Slovakia party, said it would immediately suspend its campaign, to help “end the spiral of attacks and blame.”The local news media reported that another party, the Christian Democratic Movement, had also paused campaigning.It is not clear how long such suspensions would last or what that would mean for Slovakia’s participation in the E.U. elections, which happen every five years. Voters across the European Union will elect 720 European Parliament representatives, with polling scheduled to take place in all 27 of the bloc’s members from June 6 to 9. Slovak voters are set to cast their ballots on June 8.Candidates for E.U. elections come mostly from established national parties, so voters tend to be familiar with their agendas. A temporary suspension in campaigning would therefore not necessarily affect Slovakian voters’ ability to decide whom they support, provided that campaigning does resume and that elections are held as planned.Officials at the European Parliament and the European Commission did not respond to requests for comment on the calls to suspend campaigning and whether it could have an impact on the bloc’s voting.National electoral authorities are responsible for handling the voting, and the results are managed locally. The number of members of the European Parliament each country gets to elect depends on the country’s population size. The largest, Germany, gets the most lawmakers — 96 in total. Slovakia, significantly smaller, will elect 15 members of the European Parliament. More

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      Peter Pellegrini Wins Slovakia’s Presidential Election

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      The victory for Peter Pellegrini, an ally of Slovakia’s populist prime minister, strengthens Central Europe’s ties to Moscow.Voters in Slovakia on Saturday strengthened the grip of Russia-friendly political forces in Central Europe, handing victory in a presidential election to a candidate who opposes providing military and financial aid to Ukraine.With 99 percent of the votes counted, the official tally showed Peter Pellegrini, an ally of Slovakia’s populist prime minister, Robert Fico, the winner with 53 percent of the vote in a presidential runoff. Despite the presidency’s limited powers in Slovakia, the election was widely watched as a test of strength between political camps with starkly different views on Russia.The defeated candidate, former Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok, is a stalwart supporter of Ukraine and critic of Mr. Fico, a pugnacious veteran politician who has aligned with Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary in opposing aid to Ukraine and challenging mainstream opinions within the European Union.With Mr. Fico at his side, Mr. Pellegrini declared victory early Sunday, soon after Mr. Korcok conceded defeat.Mr. Korcok came first among nine candidates in an initial round of voting on March 23, but he lost in Saturday’s face-off with Mr. Pellegrini, who appears to have picked up votes that in the first round went to an anti-NATO nationalist who finished third.In the campaign leading up to the vote, Mr. Pellegrini copied tactics used by Mr. Orban during an election in 2022 in Hungary, in which his governing party falsely claimed that the main opposition leader wanted to send Hungarian soldiers to fight against Russia in Ukraine. Mr. Pellegrini used the same smear against Mr. Korcok, casting him as a warmonger intent on sending Slovak troops into Ukraine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Slovakia Presidential Election 2024: What You Need to Know

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      Ivan Korcok, a veteran diplomat hostile to the Kremlin, and Peter Pellegrini, a Russia-friendly politician allied with Slovakia’s populist prime minister, will face each other in a runoff.Why does this election matter?Who is expected to win?When will we learn the result?Where can I find more information?Why does this election matter?The Slovak presidency is a largely ceremonial post, but the election has been closely watched as a test of strength between political forces that want the polarized Central European country to follow Hungary in embracing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and those that want to keep the country aligned with the West.In a first round of voting on Saturday, two candidates on opposing sides — Ivan Korcok, a veteran diplomat hostile to the Kremlin, and Peter Pellegrini, a Russia-friendly politician allied with Slovakia’s populist prime minister — finished ahead of seven other candidates. But neither won the majority needed to avoid a runoff, according to results announced early Sunday.The two men will face each other in a second round on April 6.The race started with 11 candidates, several of them belligerent nationalists who favor close relations with Russia. Two dropped out before the vote on Saturday.The departing president, Zuzana Caputova, a stalwart supporter of Ukraine, used her limited powers and the bully pulpit to try to block Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia from taking the country on the same path as Hungary. Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary has tilted away from NATO toward Moscow, gained a tight grip on the news media and limited the independence of the judiciary.With most ballots counted, Mr. Korcok, a former ambassador to the United States and an ally of Ms. Caputova, had 42 percent of the vote, compared with 37 percent for Mr. Pellegrini.Mr. Korcok’s strong result exceeded what pre-election opinion polls had predicted and delivered a blow to Mr. Fico. The prime minister was hoping for a resounding win by Mr. Pellegrini, who shares his skepticism of supporting Ukraine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Slovakia Appears Set to Join the Putin Sympathizers After Election

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      The front-runner in the parliamentary vote has pledged “not to send a single cartridge” to neighboring Ukraine, a sign of the flagging European support for a victim of Russian aggression.The victory of Robert Fico, a former prime minister who took a pro-Russian campaign stance, in Slovakia’s parliamentary elections is a further sign of eroding support for Ukraine in the West as the war drags on and the front line remains largely static.Slovakia is a small country with historical Russian sympathies, and the nature of the coalition government Mr. Fico will seek to form is unclear. He may lean more toward pragmatism, as Italy’s far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has done since her election last year. Still, the shift in Slovakia is stark: It was the first country to deliver fighter jets to Ukraine.The election results come as disquiet over the billions of dollars in military aid that the West has provided to Ukraine over the past 19 months has grown more acute in the United States and the European Union, with demands increasing for the money to go to domestic priorities instead.House Republicans declined to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, in Washington last month, and tensions between Kyiv and the White House over Ukrainian military strategy have surfaced. In Central Europe, once the core of fierce anti-Russian sentiment among fearful frontline states that endured decades of harsh communist rule as reluctant members of the Soviet bloc, the war is now viewed with greater nuance.Mr. Fico’s victory, taking about 23 percent of the vote on a platform that included stopping all arms shipments to Ukraine and placing blame for the war equally on the West and Kyiv, is a case in point.He laced social conservatism, nationalism, anti-L.G.B.T.Q. rhetoric and promises of generous welfare handouts in what proved to be an effective anti-liberal agenda, especially in small towns and rural areas.“The wear and tear from the war is more palpable in Central Europe than Western Europe for now,” said Jacques Rupnik, a professor at Sciences Po university in Paris and an expert on the region. “Slovakia demonstrates that the threat at your door does not necessarily mean you are full-hearted in support of Ukraine.”Ukrainian artillery positions firing at enemy forces near the front line in the Donbas region this month.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesA Globsec survey in March of public opinion across Central and Eastern Europe found that 51 percent of Slovaks believed either the West or Ukraine to be “primarily responsible” for the war. Mr. Fico, who served for more than a decade as prime minister until 2018, played off this sentiment.He adopted some of the rhetoric of Hungary’s pro-Russian prime minister, Viktor Orban, who has resisted the overwhelming Western position on Ukraine that Russia’s brutal invasion of the country was a flagrant violation of international law that must be resisted in the name of liberty, democracy and the sanctity of national sovereignty.“Fico was inspired by Orban, but does not have the same deep ideological roots, and is more of a pragmatist,” said Ludek Sekyra, a Czech businessman who chairs the Sekyra Foundation, a supporter of liberal causes. “He has been adept in exploiting unease over the vast influx of Ukrainian refugees, small-country resentment of the European Union and Russian sympathies that do not exist in the Czech Republic.”A possible coalition with another former prime minister, Peter Pellegrini of the social democratic Voice party, which won almost 15 percent of the vote, may increase the likelihood of pragmatism from Mr. Fico, who was responsible for Slovakia’s adoption of the euro and has shown strong pro-European sentiments in the past.With Slovakia, Hungary and Serbia all showing significant sympathy for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the tides have shifted in this part of Europe. Even Poland, an ardent supporter of Ukraine that has taken in more than 1.5 million refugees from there during the war, recently decided to close its border to low-price Ukrainian grain imports.The governing hard-right nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) in Poland is in a tense electoral standoff this month against the liberal opposition. Although the country’s de facto leader, Jarosław Kaczynski, remains staunchly anti-Russian, his nationalism and conservative values mesh with Mr. Orban’s and Mr. Fico’s. A PiS victory would undermine European unity further as the war shows no sign of a possible resolution.Mr. Kaczynski opposes the kind of European political, military and economic integration of which President Emmanuel Macron of France is a fierce advocate. There has even been murmuring of a possible Polish exit from the European Union — a far-fetched notion but one suggestive of the European tensions that the war has begun to feed.The NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, left, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at a news conference in Kyiv on Thursday.Sergei Supinsky/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEven in Western Europe, a recent German Marshall Fund survey found that support for Ukrainian membership in the European Union stood at just 52 percent in France and 49 percent in Germany. In Germany, only 45 percent of respondents favored Ukrainian membership in NATO.Still, overall, the survey found that on both sides of the Atlantic, some 69 percent of people favor financial support for Ukraine’s reconstruction, while countries including Britain, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Lithuania showed strong support for the Ukrainian cause across the board.“More and more, we are hearing a clear message to Mr. Zelensky: Please cut a deal with Putin,” said Mr. Rupnik.After the immense sacrifice of the Ukrainian people in defense of their country against a flagrant Russian aggression, that, however, is the thing most difficult for Mr. Zelensky to contemplate, let alone pursue.That a country on the Ukrainian border should now have voted for a man who has said he will “not send a single cartridge” of ammunition across that border can only increase the pressure on Ukraine’s leadership.It also poses evident problems for a European Union already worried that Donald J. Trump may retake the White House next year, and facing internal divisions that a Polish election may sharpen further. More

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      Tight Finish in Slovak Vote Makes Government’s Shape Hard to Predict

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      In much of Europe, the election was seen as a bellwether of mainstream support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. But voters seemed most concerned with pocketbook issues.Two exit polls released early Sunday after Slovakia’s parliamentary election showed a tight finish between a liberal party that wants to maintain robust support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and a Russia-friendly populist party, in a vote that many in Europe saw as a bellwether of support for the war.But neither of the top two finishers came close to winning a majority, leaving the shape of the next government — and its policy toward Ukraine — dependent on the performance of smaller parties with widely differing views on Russia and on their readiness to form a coalition with either Progressive Slovakia, a liberal grouping, or a rival party headed by Robert Fico, a pugnacious former prime minister strongly opposed to helping Ukraine.Faced with a plethora of choices between communists and far-right nationalists, Slovakia, a small Central European nation that borders Ukraine, voted on Saturday in a general election freighted with outsize consequences about the West’s support for Ukraine.Twenty-five parties from across the political spectrum put up candidates for Parliament, but the first- and second-place finishers — separated by less than two percentage points, according to exit polls — offered diametrically opposed positions on Ukraine.Exit polls indicated that Progressive Slovakia, a liberal party that wants to continue support for Ukraine, had finished just ahead of Mr. Fico’s Smer party.Analysts cautioned that the official vote count, which was expected to drag on until Sunday morning, could put either party in the lead but with such a narrow margin that both have a shot at forming a coalition government. Early official results that gave Mr. Fico’s party a strong lead came mostly from villages, which are more conservative, and did not include liberal-tilting cities like Bratislava, the capital.The seemingly close result leaves Voice, the social democratic party of Peter Pellegrini, an estranged former ally of Mr. Fico, as a likely kingmaker.Despite near-constant political upheaval since the last election in 2020, Slovakia, a member of the European Union and NATO, has been a particularly robust and steady supporter of Ukraine in its war with Russia, welcoming refugees and providing millions of dollars’ worth of mostly Soviet-era weapons. It was the first country to provide Ukraine with fighter jets and air defense missiles.Given Mr. Fico’s vociferous opposition to aiding the Ukrainians, the election was closely watched across Europe as an indicator of mainstream consensus on the war.But Slovakia’s election, for most voters, was not primarily about Ukraine, said Dominika Hajdu, an analyst with Globsec, a research group based in Bratislava. “It was more about values, conservatism versus liberalism” and bread-and-butter issues, like food and fuel prices.As in many other European countries, Slovakia has a proportional voting system that helps smaller parties win seats, so long as they get 5 percent of the vote, and that makes the shape of the government dependent on which smaller parties meet the threshold.Mr. Pellegrini, whose Voice party finished third, according to exit polls, campaigned on promises to strengthen the state and lower grocery prices. He shares the anti-immigrant views of Mr. Fico, his former boss, and of the far-right nationalist party Republika. Unlike Mr. Fico and the far right, though, Mr. Pellegrini has shown no interest in halting support for Ukraine.Voice, the party of former Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, could be a kingmaker.Darko Bandic/Associated PressMr. Fico’s party, Smer, led in the polls throughout much of the campaign but lost momentum in recent days, as previously undecided voters, apparently put off by Mr. Fico’s often aggressive style, sought calmer alternative candidates.Mr. Fico served for more than a decade as Slovakia’s prime minister until he was forced to step down in 2018 amid widespread public outrage over the murders of Jan Kuciak, a young investigative journalist who was digging into government corruption, and his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova.Mr. Fico was succeeded as prime minister by Mr. Pellegrini, a protégé who later formed his own rival party.Progressive Slovakia, which narrowly failed to win seats in the last election, appears to have benefited in Saturday’s vote by its distance from Mr. Fico and the often squabbling center-right politicians who have run the country for the last three years in a series of unstable coalitions.Previously, the only E.U. member to speak out forcefully against aiding Ukraine was Hungary, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an increasingly authoritarian leader whose constant clashes with his nominal partners in NATO and the E.U. on a range of issues have made his country a noisy outlier with limited influence.Slovakia, governed since 2020 by a series of mainstream, if fractious and very unstable, coalition governments, played an important and early part in rallying Europe’s support to Ukraine and cannot be as easily ignored as Hungary, which officials in Brussels and other major European capitals have come to see as an inveterate troublemaker.Michal Simecka, who leads the Progressive Slovakia party, is a former journalist and a member of the European Parliament. Vladimir Simicek/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe failure of any party to win anything near a majority on Saturday opened the way to laborious back-room haggling over the composition of a new coalition government which could leave either of the probable top two finishers — Mr. Fico’s Smer party or Progressive Slovakia, led by Michal Simecka, a former journalist and liberal member of the European Parliament — in overall charge.Mr. Fico vowed during the campaign to “not send a single cartridge” of ammunition to Ukraine if elected and staked out increasingly pro-Russian views, a position amplified by a galaxy of small but influential Moscow-friendly news media outlets in Slovakia and pro-Russian voices on social media.The vice president of the European Union’s executive arm in Brussels, Vera Jourova, a Czech politician responsible for digital policy, called last week on digital platforms like Facebook and TikTok to do more to blunt what she described as Russia’s “multimillion-euro weapon of mass manipulation” ahead of elections in Slovakia, and in Poland in mid-October.The Slovak vote, she said, was a “test case” for Russia’s ability to influence voters’ choices through online disinformation.Slovakia has deep pools of genuine sympathy for Russia stretching back to the 19th century, when an early Slovak nationalist politician and writer, Ludovit Stur, despairing of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s grip on the region, looked to Russia, a fellow Slavic nation, for help. He suggested that land inhabited by Slovaks be absorbed by the Russian Empire.Russia has worked hard to strengthen these historical sympathies through pro-Russian media outlets and groups like Brat za Brata, or Brother for Brother, a belligerent motorcycle gang affiliated with the Kremlin-sponsored Night Wolves bikers’ group in Russia, which has an influential presence on social media. A Globsec survey in March of public opinion across Eastern and Central Europe found that 51 percent of Slovaks believed either Ukraine or the West to be “primarily responsible” for the war. The figure is much lower in other Eastern European countries.Any shift away from support for Ukraine by whatever coalition government is ultimately formed would be unlikely to reduce the flow of arms significantly, given that Slovakia has already given most of what it can spare. Still, it could help bring into the mainstream calls for an end to support, or at least a reduction, which are so far limited to Europe’s political fringes.The slow progress of Ukraine’s counteroffensive against entrenched Russian positions in Ukraine’s south has dampened expectations of a quick victory and amplified voices in France and other major European countries opposed to an open-ended commitment to arming Ukraine. More