Fico is banking on the stigma of a bribery conviction, handed down to Kažimír just before his term ended, eventually forcing Hlas to drop its support for him. A judge found that while Kažimír was finance minister in 2016, he offered a bribe to a tax official to hasten the tax audits of companies owned by an acquaintance. The judge sentenced him to pay a €200,000 fine or serve a year in prison.
Kažimír has always maintained his innocence and has called the charges politically motivated, noting in a recent op-ed that the judge had offered him immunity if he gave the authorities anything on Fico or Pellegrini to build a case against them.
He is currently appealing to the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule within a year, according to six people POLITICO contacted who were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive legal and political issues.
The court ruling has caused some awkwardness for central bank employees, who dislike the optics of working for a convicted criminal, three people who personally know Kažimír said. But, they added, Kažimír’s reputation as “a good manager” who has worked hard to modernize the institution has also offset some of that stigma.
“[Even] people who never voted for Smer and who are really embarrassed by the conviction would like him to stay, because as a governor he’s much better than Kamenický,” said one of them, a former member of parliament.
Old grudges run deep
The roots of the struggle date back seven years to a time when Fico’s third administration was falling apart following the murder of a journalist who had been investigating potential ties between the government and the ‘ndrangheta mafia from Calabria, a region in southwest Italy. Kažimír at the time enjoyed a reputation in European policy circles for the tough attitude he had shown as finance minister from 2012 to 2019 toward Greece’s requests for a bailout amid its sovereign debt crisis.