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Friday, March 29, 2024

At Hofer prices

By: Dr. Milan Zver

The formation of a new Slovenian government continues. Producers of Slovenian public opinion are creating a climate that we are in a hurry. It has always been the case that all radical changes of power have taken place quickly; evolutionary normality can only interfere with this, as some problem could come to the fore, e.g., the lack of staff, which also plagues this new government, and the poverty of content that it offers. They did not offer a programme before the election – they are AGAINST the party, not FOR it; but now they have formulated only a few starting points that would be ridiculous if they did not contain danger. Uncertainty awaits us in the fields of economy, foreign policy, social affairs, and education. We have never experienced such an empty offer in a democratic Slovenia.

In addition to these essential questions, we must ask ourselves how this electoral miracle could have happened at all. It is probably known that voter turnout has been declining practically linearly since the first democratic elections in independent Slovenia. And this at all levels: local, parliamentary, and presidential. Then comes the year 2022 and elections to the National Assembly. The previous government successfully dealt with the pandemic, provided huge European development funds, adequate visibility in Europe and the world, achieved high economic growth, the highest employment in the Slovenian economy, healthy public finances, efficient social transfers, the lowest unemployment, etc., etc. But in the St. Florian Valley, such a government falls quickly?!? And this with a convincing ten percentage points, given the fact that 20 percent more voters came to the polls than usual. Twenty percent, without any contingency contributing to that percentage. The question then arises as to whether the mobilisation potentials of the (extreme) left really reach that high!

I do not think so, and it would be fair to repeat the vote count. These two figures, 10 and 20 percent of the “surplus” in this election, simply cannot be explained even within the normal framework of modern political science. Therefore, a recount – which is, of course, an expression of distrust in the electoral mechanism, including the State Electoral Commission (SEC) – would reveal the illegalities that have arisen and dispelled the suspicion of electoral controversy and, ultimately, increase their legitimacy. If this is the case in the USA, why not in Slovenia as well? Today’s hackers, who are always one step ahead and light years ahead of our SEC, which does not even know how to calculate mandates, can easily set up governments or overthrow them. In short, in recent days I have been listening to the analyses of everyone: most of them accuse the electoral system we have, and, sorry to say, “stupid folk” who can elect something like that. The electoral system is bad so it could not be worse. Even a democratic culture is not too high. I also accept that Janković manages to bring everyone to the elections, especially those for whom Slovenia is not an intimate option. Metropolis “rules”! But this time, I am pointing the finger of guilt directly at counting the electoral votes. I have always analysed the electoral process in Slovenia. I have never criticised data processing, not even in the first election, when there were as many as a dozen invalid ballots. But I am deeply convinced that something must have been very wrong this time! I think that under normal circumstances it is not possible to win the photo finish by 10 percentage points or increase the turnout by as much as a fifth!!!

We can buy the claim that Slovenians chose the “Hofer price” in this election, that is: effective advertising, even if you do not need it, you still buy it because it is cheap. Although the likeable Bizovičar is convincing in the advertisement for Hofer, he can never prove that this time the Slovenes chose quality for the “Hofer price” at the level of the popular music virtuoso André Rieu, whose visual identity he obviously likes.

Doubt is not always a sign of fair play, but it is certainly an expression of critical and reasonable monitoring of social events. And even if we accept defeat and admit, in slang, that we have been “outwitted” by cheating us, buying at this price will soon sober people up: higher taxes are coming, lower wages, higher living costs, lower quality of life, emigration of the most productive, paying for illegal migrants, many of whom have already voted this time. All of this will now strike back at those who revanchistically threaten, like lightning from the clear. Political cycling is nothing compared to what awaits the new government if it takes us back into history, so easily, at the “Hofer price”.

Dr Milan Zver is an MEP and a member of the SDS.

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