Populist crisis communication: Presentation of Covid crisis in Slovakia by populist leaders in power

Political leaders frame their responses to crises in different ways. The main focus of this paper is on the populist crisis communication of the Covid pandemic in Slovakia. In particular, how the populists in power presented the crisis when unpopular regulations needed to be adopted while maintaining the popular support of ‘the people’. A discourse-historical analysis is used to capture developments in the communication of crisis using a systematic analysis of all press conferences on the issue of Covid by Igor Matovic, PM of Slovakia at the time. The period covered is from February 2020 when he entered office until April 2021, when he was forced to step down after public pressure for mishandling the pandemic, which led to a coalition crisis. The paper argues that to address the negative progress of the pandemic, Matovic used several discursive strategies to legitimize his introduction of measures such as lockdown, social distancing or nationwide testing. The paper shows that these measures were brought in relying on the use of three main frames to maintain popular support, namely “Blaming and scapegoating”, “The Leader of the people”, and “Common responsibility.” The first frame is used to identify different scapegoats or differentiate ‘the true people’ from others. The second frame represents the portrayal of the populist leader himself and can be divided into three sub-frames: “War fighter”, “Saviour of the people”, and “Responsible leader”. The last frame refers to the common responsibility and a need for people to protect themselves. Framing the pandemic this way, Matovic relied on the simplistic Manichean view of society and use of the image of the threat to ‘the people’ to rally support. He represents the will of the people, in this case, meaning that the regulations were framed for ‘the people’ and the protection of their health and lives. Yet, with the ongoing pandemic, the discursive frames changed as the crisis developed. The development of crisis communication strengthened divisions in society, increased polarization of ‘the people’ and ‘the others’, with the latter category progressively expanding. With regulations becoming more and more unpopular, Matovic responded with blame-shifting being more present and every person or group that disagreed with proposed rules became the target and reason for the worsening situation, and thus the enemy of the ‘true people’. It is these antagonistic politics and discursive practices that led to the coalition break-down, forcing Matovic to step down.