BANSKA BYSTRICA, Slovakia (NEWSnet/AP) — The Slovak interior minister said Thursday that a “lone wolf” has been charged in the shooting that seriously wounded Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said Wednesday that an initial investigation found “a clear political motivation” behind the attack on Fico while he was attending a government meeting in a former coal mining town.

The minister did not specify what the motivation was.

A hospital official where Fico was being treated said on Thursday that he was in serious but stable condition, and that he was being kept in an intensive care unit after a five-hour surgery.

In the meantime, Slovak politicians have called for calm in their country after Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot multiple times by a would-be assassin on Wednesday.

Fico, age 59, has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond, and his return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American message led to even greater worries among fellow European Union members that he would abandon his country’s pro-Western course.

Outgoing President Zuzana Caputova, a political rival of Fico, said Thursday that the heads of the country’s political parties would meet in an effort to bring calm and “refuse violence.”

“We want to call on everyone to to be responsible,” Caputova said at a news conference in the capital Bratislava.

Caputova was speaking alongside Peter Pellegrini, a Fico ally who is Slovakia’s president-elect. Their joint message was a gesture toward reducing the inflamed political tensions that have gripped the country in recent months and an appeal to Slovaks not to give in to political divisions.

“This assassination attempt deserves a joint and unequivocal condemnation,” Pellegrini said. “I call on all parties in Slovakia to interrupt or at least significantly reduce their campaign for the European Parliament election, because the campaign is naturally linked to confrontation, and confrontation is the last thing Slovakia needs at the moment.”

The shooting happened outside a cultural center in the town of Handlova, about 85 miles northeast of the capital, government officials said

Slovakia’s Security Council was set to meet in the capital of Bratislava on Thursday to discuss the situation, a government office said, adding that a government meeting would follow.

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