Slovakia’s left populist Prime Minister Robert Fico is not responding to media inquiries about his new luxurious apartment in the Bratislava city centre.

The purchase of the apartment, which is reportedly more expensive than he could afford on his declared income, has once again raised questions about his finances and his links with businessmen, and what influence these figures get in return. The fact that the news has come out now, a few months after Fico won the September general election, indicates that the former communist is confident that any controversy will not damage him significantly.

Last week business daily Hospodarske noviny reported that Fico purchased the apartment in which he has been living as a tenant of a fellow Smer party member and legislator Dusan Munko. Liberal daily SME inquired with Fico about the purchase shortly after Hospodarske noviny, but did not receive any reply either.

“He himself is fuelling speculations by refusing to transparently inform about the price and resources he used to purchase the apartment”, Xenia Makarova of the Zastavme korupciu [Let’s stop corruption] NGO was quoted as saying by SME.

“Even if Robert Fico was given the apartment for a favourable price from a senior Smer official, from whom he has been previously renting it, why doesn’t he simply admit it?”, Makarova asked rhetorically.

Sme also quoted real estate evaluator Jan Palencar of the National Association of real estate offices, who estimated the value of the property with a view of the Bratislava sky line at €750,000. Hospodarske noviny put the price tag at up to €1mn.

Fico’s total income from his tax returns in the years 2004 to 2022 amounts to approximately €850,000. Fico spent those years working as a legislator and premier and for the last two years he also declared income as a lawyer.

Fico was also legislator in the years 1992-2004 and he represented Slovakia in proceedings at the European Commission and European Court for Human Rights in 1994-2000, but tax returns from those years are not publicly available.

Sme also noted that the public registry record indicates the apartment was not purchased with a mortgage as there is no lien, although it is not clear whether collateral was involved.

Fico has lived in the apartment previously owned by Munko for the past three years and he has a rocky record of responding to questions about his previous dwellings, which all involved rentals of lofty apartments from party colleagues or businessmen.

In the years 2012-2019 Fico lived in the high-end real estate complex Bonaparte owned by Ladislav Basternak before Basternak was sentenced for tax evasion and the apartment went for sale in public auction.

The monthly rent at Basternak’s apartment was €2,650 plus €200 as energy deposit, Fico told media in 2012. In 2018, liberal daily DennikN reported that the rent of the Basternak’s apartment on the real estate market at the time would be between €4,900-€6,000 a month. That is above the €4,000 monthly income Fico made as then premier.

When Fico moved to his present-day apartment in 2021 he told media that “it is really none of your business where I live”.

“It would be your business only once you would have some information that I purchased an apartment for which I don’t have sufficient resources, or that I pay a rent for which I don’t have money,” Fico also said in 2021.

Before moving to Munko’s apartment, Fico was reported to had lived in the Hilton hotel owned by Jozef Brhel and Juraj Siroky and at a luxury estate at Vinosady.  When spotted leaving the estate, Fico told media he only went for a swim upon his friends’ invitation.