On March 5, Slovak voters elected fourteen neo-fascists to parliament. They ran under the banner of People’s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) — a party that openly lays claim to the legacy of the Nazi-aligned People’s Party that ruled Slovakia during World War II.

After a campaign that included calls to create a paramilitary “Home Guard” to fight “Gypsy terror” and promises to end immigration (under the slogan that “Slovakia is not Africa”), far-right leader Marián Kotleba’s party won roughly eight percent of the vote, joining Greece’s Golden Dawn and Hungary’s Jobbik as the most extreme voices in European national parliaments.

Kotleba’s frightening rise is indicative of deeper shifts in Slovak society that spread far beyond the eight percent that voted for him. Of the eight parties that entered the new, highly fragmented parliament, the six most successful all played extensively on fears of Muslim immigration.