“The message of this election was clear,” said Tania Staric, a journalist and presenter on Slovenian television (RTV). “Voters said ‘NO’ to the previous government.” And yet, shortly before the election, it was far from clear that the experienced and powerful ethno-populist Prime Minister of Slovenia, Janez Jansa, who maintains strong ties with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, would lose the election. Even more unlikely was the defeat of a young politician, the leader of the Liberal Movement for Freedom (“Swoboda”), Robert Golomb. Just days before Sunday’s showdown, opinion polls suggest Slovenians are heading for a head-to-head battle, in the worst case scenario for Jansa. In the end, Golomb won by a wide margin, bringing to power a party that six months ago … did not even exist.
According to the final results of the elections, “Svoboda” wins 41 of the total 90 seats in the new Parliament of the country. The outgoing Prime Minister Janez Jansa’s Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) has 27 seats. The Christian Democrats (NSi) with eight seats, the Social Democrats with seven and the Left Party with five are also represented in Parliament. The last Jansa government included the SDS, the NSi, the Center Liberal Party (SMC) and the Pensioners’ Party (DeSUS). And in the next government? “All political parties are losing ground,” Tania Staric said, noting that traditional parties were exhausted in their disputes, but in the end “the votes of those who oppose the outgoing government went to the new candidate”.
Lack of trust in “established” or “authoritarianism”?
Voters have shown that they do not trust what they consider to be a “political establishment”, but this is nothing new. “We have been seeing this trend for at least the last ten years,” says Tania Staric. For his part, political analyst Aliaz Pengov Bittenk described the voters’ behavior as a “clear rejection of a regime that was becoming increasingly authoritarian, especially in the last two years.”
Of course, there are also contradictory elements in the behavior of the electoral party. “Voters punished those who told them things were not going well,” said Pengov Bittenk. “At the same time, however, they agreed with the assessment that things were not going well and so they brought to power a Messiah, who promises to have the magic wand …”
The new prime minister is unknown
The leader of the “Freedom Party” is an energy expert. Until recently, he ran a state-owned company in the industry, but with which he came into conflict, as a result of which he became known throughout the country. However, most of his collaborators remain unknown, points out Tania Staric. According to Bengov Bittenk, “the success of Golob’s party is a proof of the messianic mentality – not to mention the complex – that the Slovenes have, that a Messiah will come and solve all our problems. We had seen something similar with Miro Cerar in 2014 “.
Among other things, Golob promises a “new social contract”. But for Pengov Bittenk the main problem is that in Slovenia “we do not have a basic social consensus on who we are and where we are going. The previous government wanted to turn the country into a ‘free democracy’. The opposition was radically opposed, it had other ideas. “There should be a consensus in society on right and wrong, but that does not happen.” At the moment, the political analyst notes, there are two alternatives and they are equally painful: either the path to a free democracy or the one for the consolidation of public finances, with the austerity programs that it entails.
“Young people have shown interest”
Voter turnout reached 70%, one of the highest in Slovenia’s short history. The credit for this development belongs, among other things, to citizens’ initiatives, such as the “March 8 Institute”, which started its activities with references to Women’s Day and gender equality, but to quickly expand to other forms. political activism.
“The high turnout dispels the myth that Slovenians are not interested in the future,” said Nika Kovac, the institute’s director. “The opposite seems to me to be the case: there is now a consensus on fundamental social values, such as public health and education, a sense of community, cooperation and solidarity.” Nika Kovac says that in recent months she has been receiving threats and verbal attacks from fans of Janez Jansa, while even the threats to her life have not been absent. “I have never experienced anything worse than what happened in the last two months,” he said. “I was threatened, we were insulted and attacked. But in the end, every obstacle for good … “
DW: Gasper Andrinek – Giannis Papadimitriou
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