By: Dr Matevž Tomšič
Every rejection of a law in a referendum is an undeniable failure for the one who proposed it. This is especially true when the proposer is the government. It is a clear message of the citizens’ dissatisfaction with its work.
The previous government suffered a failure with the rejection of the Water Act, which was overwhelmingly voted down. The same applies to the current government following the rejection of the law on special pensions for “deserving” artists. In such cases, blaming low voter turnout does not help. What representatives of the ruling coalition, led by Prime Minister Golob, are doing now – trying to claim that those who did not participate in the referendum actually support the law – is cheap and transparent, in short, unconvincing. For those who voted, we know their will and stance. For those who did not vote, we do not. We can only assume the issue seemed largely irrelevant or outside their area of interest.
Every referendum vote on a government-proposed law is, to some degree, a vote on the government itself. Many participants do not dive deeply into the content of the law but want to express their (dis)approval of those who proposed it. Since laws are usually proposed by the government, the result of the vote is a message from the citizens about what they think of it.
This was also the case in the recent referendum. That does not mean the proposed law was unproblematic. It was yet another attempt to reward “our own,” this time in the field of artistic creation. Just as the ruling coalition wants to funnel taxpayers’ money to sympathetic media through changes in media legislation, this law aimed to award financial benefits mainly to like-minded artists. Supporters of the law claim that monetary supplements would be granted based on objective criteria, mainly awards that individuals have received. But in art, such criteria are never objective – they are always subjective. And nowadays, they are becoming increasingly arbitrary. That means (as art historian Milček Komelj stated in an interview for this weekly) that just about anyone can be called an artist. And practically anything can be declared a work of art. There is a growing tendency – not only in Slovenia but across the Western world – to carry out political activism under the guise of art, but only the kind aligned with the left. As a result, most awards go to left-leaning authors, often for works lacking aesthetic value but carrying “political messages.”
Yet the main reason for the law’s rejection was a revolt against the current government and ruling coalition, their inefficiency and incompetence, as well as the indecency and pettiness of its members, who continuously undermine the integrity of state institutions through their behaviour.
The biggest embarrassment, however, was caused by the government – specifically two of its coalition parties – when they called on people to boycott the referendum. It is outright scandalous for the Prime Minister, ministers, and MPs to show such disdain for one of the most important mechanisms of direct citizen participation. To make it even more absurd, this government has listed the promotion of civic engagement as one of its goals. But it only did so because it realised more people would oppose the law than support it. By calling for a boycott, it aimed to prevent reaching the rejection quorum (if turnout is too low, the result of the referendum is invalid). But in doing so, it “shot itself in the foot.” Enough people still turned out, and because some who might have voted for the law stayed home, the difference in favour of the referendum’s initiators was enormous.
Of course, these results cannot be directly used to predict the outcome of future parliamentary elections. But they do serve as encouragement for continued political initiative from the opposition.
