Candles are placed in memory of slain journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova as Slovaks celebrate the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico and his government as a way out of the political crisis triggered by the slayings of an investigative journalist and his fiancee, during a rally in Bratislava, Slovakia, Friday, March 16, 2018. Anyone who read Kuciak’s last article could see the absurdity of a murder investigation being supervised by the very same people Kuciak pointed to in his reporting: the minister of the interior Robert Kaliňák and prime minister Robert Fico (who have since stepped down in response to public protest). Kiska asked Pellegrini, Fico’s deputy, to form a new government, but rejected Pellegrini’s first proposal over the person picked to be interior minister, who had ties to former Interior Minister Robert Kalinak and therefore the corruption concerns. Mr Kuciak was reporting on alleged Italian mafia ties to associates of then-prime minister Robert Fico, and corruption scandals linked to his leftist Smer Social Democracy party, when he was shot dead in February. If politicians had called for rallies, they would not have achieved protests on this massive scale.
Protests continue in Slovakia after last week's collapse of the government, which included the resignation of Prime Minister Robert Fico.