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BRUSSELS: Slovakia opened its polling stations for EU-wide elections on Saturday in the shadow of the shooting of Prime Minister Robert Fico last month.

It was the halfway point of the four-day elections across the bloc to elect the next European Parliament.

Most of the 27 EU countries – including the economic powers Germany and France – will vote on Sunday.

But voting in Italy, the EU’s third-largest economy, begins later on Saturday and the outcome is likely to have a major impact on the composition of parliament and the bloc’s future course.

In Slovakia, the assassination attempt on Fico by a 71-year-old poet on May 15 shook the country of 5.4 million inhabitants and sent shockwaves throughout the EU.

A visibly emaciated Fico had published a video before the election in which he described his attacker as an “activist of the Slovak opposition” and accused him of “aggressive and hateful politics”.

“It was only a matter of time before tragedy struck,” the four-time prime minister said in the 14-minute video.

His party, which addressed the attack in its election campaign events, is opposed to EU arms deliveries to Ukraine and rails against alleged “warmongers” in Brussels.

Violence also occurred in other parts of the bloc.

Late Friday, a man beat Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a square in Copenhagen.

According to witnesses, she was not seriously injured. The police arrested the attacker, whose motive was initially unclear. Denmark will also be holding elections on Sunday.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen condemned the “despicable act” against Frederiksen.

But the most dramatic incident in the election campaign was the shooting of Fico.

In the following period, support for Fico’s left-wing populist Smer-SD party has surged, overtaking its main liberal rival and moving to the top of voting intention polls.

Historically, however, Slovakia has a low voter turnout in EU elections. In the last election in 2019, only 22 percent of voters cast their ballots.

Later on Saturday, attention will turn to the election in Italy, with far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hoping that a strong result for her party will strengthen her position as a key EU strategist.

Polls suggest her post-fascist Brothers of Italy party could come out on top with 27 percent of the vote, reflecting a broader rise in far-right groups across the EU.

This could make her a potential kingmaker – or rather queenmaker – as her support could be crucial in determining whether the current German conservative von der Leyen gets a second term at the head of the Commission.

Meloni has already been courted by the centre-right von der Leyen party – and by French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who wants to set up an EU supergroup of far-right parties.

Meloni has not commented on what she will do, but stressed that her goal is to push left-wing EU parties onto the opposition benches.

Domestically, a convincing performance could help further cement Meloni’s dominance over Italy’s notoriously turbulent political scene.

The Prime Minister was omnipresent in the national media in the run-up to the elections, portraying herself in particular as a bulwark against illegal immigration.

The growing backlash against migrants has boosted the far right across the EU and was one of the main reasons Meloni came to power in 2022.

Overall, polls ahead of the election suggested that right-wing extremist parties could win around a quarter of the 720 seats in the new EU Parliament.

In the Netherlands, where elections were held on Thursday, the anti-immigration party of far-right politician Geert Wilders – which is already part of a new governing coalition – came second in post-election polls.

The fact that Dutch pro-European parties performed better than expected gave centrists some boost in their hopes of stopping a rise of the extreme right.

Von der Leyen’s conservative European People’s Party and the centre-left Socialists and Democrats remain on track to become the two largest groups in the EU Parliament.