By: Gašper Blažič
I personally adhere to the principle of looking at opinion polls with a certain reservation, as there are almost always hidden motives behind the sponsor. When I recently came across the Ninamedia survey suggesting that, based on the survey results, SDS and NSi could form a government on their own, I raised an eyebrow. It seemed too good to be true. Because even if preliminary elections do happen, the deep state will certainly not sit idly by and accept the loss of power. The Ninamedia survey did not include the Pensioners’ Party (The Voice of Pensioners) or the potential future party Collaboration Platform. It is also questionable whether the Let’s Connect Slovenia list could appear again before the next elections, as it received a modest 3.41 percent of the votes in the last elections.
And if such a result, as last measured by Ninamedia, were to happen – that SDS would get 42 seats and could form a coalition with a total of 53 seats? In theory, it sounds nice. Only two parties in the coalition, meaning the most programmatically compatible coalition to date. And of course, a solid majority. This also means somewhat less strenuous governance, as in this case, compromises would only need to be sought between two parties, not, for example, five, as was the case during the Šarec government.
But, as I say, one thing is theory, another is practice. The decision of the NSi leadership not to enter into a coalition with SDS as long as it is led by Janez Janša still stands. This means that if the decision hypothetically still applies after the next elections, and SDS is still led by Janša, and assuming that the results are as shown in the aforementioned Ninamedia survey (which is very unlikely in reality), a quite awkward situation could arise, developing in two directions. The first is that SDS would form a minority government, which could only succeed if it invited another party for support in forming the government. In the Slovenian context, this is very unlikely, as the rule is that parties not in the coalition vote against (with occasional exceptions). The second possibility (unless SDS and NSi find a “third person” for the prime minister) is that the other parties form their majority coalition and invite NSi to join, which would be almost identical to the situation after the 2018 elections when SDS received the most votes but, due to the prior “anti-Janša” coalition, was condemned to opposition status. At that time, there was not much missing for NSi to join that coalition. If it had, it would not be in parliament today. However, it was saved by the fact that the Prime Minister and the president of the then LMŠ (which is now part of Svoboda) Marjan Šarec threw in the towel, leading to the formation of a new government. In the conditions of the Covid-19 epidemic, it would have been very difficult to conduct regular preliminary elections. As is known, NSi actively participated in the coalition, which also included SDS, DeSUS, and SMC (the latter two were part of the coalition before), there were some brief clashes between it and Janša, but they did not affect the functioning of the government. DeSUS left the coalition prematurely (not for the first time) after managing to eliminate the party president Aleksandra Pivec, with the great comeback of Karl Erjavec lasting very little time, and the party, regardless of its “principled” stance, dropped out of parliament. In contrast, NSi survived.
I admit that I am reluctant to delve into the often complex relationship between SDS and NSi (and yes, I am quite tired of it already). Nevertheless, I must remind that the stubborn insistence of the NSi leadership in the “anti-Janša” position is counterproductive. I understand that NSi has its calculations when it comes to leading “opposition” working bodies in the National Assembly, where it has taken the initiative. However, it is challenging to accept that some still obediently listen to Ljudmila Novak and Janez Pogorelc. Especially for the infamous MEP, it holds that if we illuminate her attitude with the help of Edvard Kocbek’s life path, it got stuck somewhere around “Tovarišija”, without considering Kocbek’s fateful year 1975 when he openly spoke about the great tragedy of the Slovenian nation, i.e., post-war killings. These killings were ultimately a result of what began in 1941 with the first measures in the spirit of the revolution. That revolution, which Kocbek still highly revered in “Tovarišija”, seemingly still under the influence of “Premišljevanje o Španiji”. And finally, when we descended on this year’s Ash Wednesday with a plane at Jože Pučnik Airport, my neighbour on the plane, Peter Merše (Domovina), just read the news about how Novak regrets that the petition for the right to a grave and memory (initiated by MEP Romana Tomc and historian Dr Mitja Ferenc) was even included on the agenda of the European Parliament’s Committee on Petitions. We were already used to many things from Ljudmila Novak, but at that time, those who heard about this news just looked at each other in amazement. I do not know if SD MEP (and this year’s ceremonial speaker in Dražgoše) Matjaž Nemec already knew about it, sitting two rows ahead, and probably heard what we were talking about… And yes, Ljudmila missed the opportunity to be silent again. Such comments were made upon our landing.
Certainly, you readers of Demokracija probably followed the Sunday TV duel between Pogorelec and Vinko Gorenak on Planet TV in the show Ura moči. I will not comment on the confrontation itself, but perhaps one response that followed, namely from the prominent NSi member and former deputy Anton Tomažič, who supports the stance that Janša should no longer be prime minister if the right ever forms a government again. He wrote: “Due to his personal qualities, Janša, as the prime minister, can behave ‘like a bull in a china shop’, which was the case in the previous government as well. Because of his stubbornness, he insistently maintained some of his impulsively made decisions, such as the STA and ‘prosecutor’ cases (both objectively rather insignificant!), for almost two years, providing the left with material to convince almost the entire Europe of the fictitious violation of human rights and the rule of law in Slovenia. And although ministers from both SDS and NSi worked diligently and well in the meantime, the negative opinion about the government as a whole prevailed.”
Wait a minute! STA? I am not sure if Tomažič and I really live on the same planet. I remember the STA case well, where it was primarily about the previous management of this institution playing tricks when arranging contractual obligations and rights between STA and the Republic of Slovenia. This sabotage was, of course, just a means to mobilise journalistic-political activists who loudly proclaimed that Janša was financially ruining or cornering STA (although practically the same thing is happening now). Yes, it is true that this case was later also abused on the international scene, but mainly due to favourable conditions in Brussels, where various European (political) commissioners practically ate out of the hands of our left-wing “persecuted”. However, as soon as the STA management changed, and a new director arrived (a former “general” from RTV, who we know is by no means a “Janšist”), the financial situation was quickly resolved. This was managed by the then director of the Government Communication Office, Uroš Urbanija, not the then Prime Minister Janša. Unless Tomažič thinks Janša had so much time that he constantly communicated precise instructions to Urbanija on how to handle STA? And is Janša to blame for the blindness of the left-wing Euro-Commissioner Vera Jourova, who previously rang all the alarms but now applauds the “depoliticisation” of RTVS? And if another prime minister were in office, are you sure things would have unfolded differently?
In short: stubbornness with “anti-Janšism” is a very bad omen for the next elections because it is a very short-sighted act. The transitional left must surely be laughing heartily at such antics. In this case, we will also have the “feathered” Freedom in power in the next term, only with fewer of its MPs (probably fewer than SDS), a different president, and the same agenda as now. While the winning party is in opposition. Dear members and sympathisers of NSi, do you really want such a scenario? I do not.