By Albin Sybera The victory of the Slovak parliamentary speaker Peter Pellegrini by close to a 7% margin in April’s second-round presidential election run-off was a showcase of populist mobilisation of the electorate using trumped-up fear messages channelled through social media networks. It also heralds the shrinking media plurality in the country and should serve as yet another warning bell for Europe ahead of the elections to the European Parliament. “Liberal media, NGOs fed from abroad, the whole Slovak progressive world suffered a serious defeat,” populist Prime Minister Robert Fico decla…
