Robert Fico

No government in Slovak history has faced challenges like those confronting the new administration led by Matovic and his anti-establishment OLANO party. Along with the deadly virus, it has the contagion of decades of corruption to content with.

In the first parliamentary election since the murder two years ago of journalist Jan Kuciak, the Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OLANO) party took almost 25 per cent of the vote, compared with 18.5 per cent for SMER-SD.

It was SMER-SD's first loss in a general election since 2006 and its worst showing at the ballot box since 2002.

Call it the "subsidy paradox": EU cash meant to encourage development ends up misused by populist governments whose very existence undermines the bloc's cherished values. Worse, it gives them stamina and strength.

The report, Fighting Words: Journalism Under Assault in Central and Eastern Europe, issued on Wednesday by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the University of Oxford evaluates the situation of the media in the region by drawing on interviews with about a hundred journalists in 16 countries during 2019.

If presidential and EU elections in 2019 were any indication of what to expect in parliamentary polls on February 29, Slovaks can brace for a robust couple of months of campaigning.

Shortly after the verdict, former Prime Minister Robert Fico leapt to Mazurek's defence in a Facebook video.

"Milan Mazurek only said what nearly a whole nation thinks," said Fico, leader of the governing SMER-SD party. "If you execute someone for truth, you will turn him into a national hero. Should we be afraid to say that part of the Roma people abuse the social system?"

But the organisers called a pause over the summer holidays and asked protesters to reconvene on November 16, the day before the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. 

Can the protest movement now regain momentum through a new wave of protests, and even if it does, will it ever have a decisive impact on Czech politics?

"As soon as I took the position, this issue, especially the question of the rainbow flag, came up," said Patakyova, who defied political pressure and kept the flag flying. She also became a prominent supporter of Bratislava's annual Pride march.

Slovakia is one of only six EU countries that do not allow legal partnerships or adoption of children by same-sex couples.

For many Slovaks, the texts are a reminder of the sheer depth of corruption in a country still reeling from the shooting of 27-year-old Kuciak and his fiancée in Bratislava in February 2018.

They see the texts as proof that Kocner, who was already in custody when he was charged with ordering Kuciak's murder, thought he was above the law, though he denies any wrongdoing.

And when, in February 2018, the country was convulsed by the first murder of a journalist in independent Slovakia, protesters again came out in defence of independent journalism and against the cosy ties between business, crime and politics that made the killing possible.