By: Dr Metod Berlec
In this super-election year, the parliamentary elections are already behind us, and the presidential and local elections are ahead. Above all, the first ones have a great symbolic meaning, since according to the Slovenian constitution (Article 102), the president of the Republic of Slovenia is the highest political official in the country, who “represents the Republic of Slovenia and is the supreme commander of its defence forces”. The President of the Republic is directly elected by citizens who are eligible to vote every five years. Any citizen at least 18 years old can run for president, but can only be elected twice in a row. The number of mandates is not limited, but it is unlikely that someone could become president of the republic again after a five-year “break”. The first president of the Republic of Slovenia was Milan Kučan, the last head of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovenia, followed by the long-serving Prime Minister Janez Drnovšek, followed by the diplomat Danilo Türk, who was connected to the old Udba mafia networks, and now, for almost ten years, the former president of the Social Democratic Party and the head of the left-wing government, Borut Pahor.
With the current presidential race, which begins in earnest during these summer days, the most interesting thing is that we witnessed the first spark of the transition left, which is literally drunk with victory after the parliamentary elections. This is shown by the arrogant behaviour of the President of the National Assembly, Urška Klakočar Zupančič, as well as the Prime Minister, Robert Golob, who thinks that he won on his own merits. As we point out in this year’s Demokracija magazine, the first month of Robert Golob’s reign is characterised by personnel changes and purges, and their goal is to completely control both the legislative and executive powers and to get the assets of all state investments as soon as possible. Or as our experienced journalist Vida Kočjan wrote: “At the same time, the country is in a big price shock and above-average inflation (in June it was already 10.8% and higher than the EU average), and Golob’s government is not paying enough attention to this. Even what it has accepted so far appears to be nothing and even harmful to the country and its citizens.”
Well, this Golob’s self-sufficient vehemence is clearly getting on the nerves of the godfathers from the background, led by Milan Kučan. The latter, together with Danilo Türk, supported Nataša Pirc Musar’s presidential candidacy because she is a woman and is said to understand very well the importance of constitutionalism, the rule of law and the rule of human rights. He has no doubts about the abilities of the vice-president of the Gibanje Svoboda party, Marta Kos, but he does have a “systemic concern”. He finds it systemically unacceptable that three key positions in the country – the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, and the President of the National Assembly – should be three leading people from the same party. “This is questionable from the point of view of the principle of separation of powers. This would be my obstacle if I had to decide on the candidacy of Marta Kos,” Kučan told the N1 portal. So it bothers him that within the block of the transitional left all three key functions would be controlled by the Gibanje Svoboda party. President of Gibanje Svoboda and Prime Minister Robert Golob responded to this at the presentation of Marta Kos’s candidacy for the presidency. In his opinion, these concerns are unnecessary, saying that Kučan was also the president of the Union of Communists before his candidacy. “I have respect for Mr. Kučan, but maybe sometimes he also makes a mistake.”
Of course, it is a statement that resonated strongly and will have long-term consequences for relations between key actors on the transitional left. Exceptionally, however, it is possible to agree with Kučan that it is systemically unacceptable that the three key leading positions in the country should be controlled by people from the same party. It would also be unacceptable for the state of Slovenian democracy if all three of these key positions were controlled by representatives of the transitional left, even if they were from different parties. The fact is that the new left, as a transmission of the former party, controls both the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. At the same time, in addition to the Constitutional Court, it controls all state or parastate institutions, agencies, offices, key non-governmental organisations, not to mention the media. For months now, with the help of journalistic political activists, he has been terrorising the management of RTV Slovenia. That is why it is all the more important that the representative of the transitional left does not occupy the office of the President of the Republic in the fall. In this case, they would be faced with one hundred percent hegemony of the transitional left, which even their role model – the great Kremlin dictator – would not be ashamed of…
