By: Metod Berlec
Even today, the left cannot come to terms with basic democratic standards, which also means that they are not always in power.
The speech of the last party leader, Milan Kučan, at a memorial ceremony in Šentjanž at the end of October is new proof that the deep state and the related left-wing network are literally losing their temper. According to Kučan, the current rule of Slovenia is foreign and autocratic. According to him, the government is supposedly repealing the constitution, dismantling the legal system, renouncing the rule of law and the validity of human rights, and increasing social disparities. It is similar with the statement of a group of members of the so-called Commission for Human Rights of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, who wrote in an open letter to the MPs that “government management of the state and control of civil society is already passing into a totalitarian form of government”.
Of course, this talk is far from the truth. The events of recent months show the opposite: the system of separation of powers in our country works, as the judicial branch of power almost systematically annuls decisions and ordinances of the government. In some cases, both the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court have placed the alleged protection of human rights over the protection of health, especially the right to protest and not to wear masks, although we continue to be threatened by the epidemic of the new coronavirus, which relentlessly “mows” daily among the Slovenian population with covid-19 disease. This systematic demolition of government measures to contain the epidemic by the opposition, the media and the judiciary has led us, as a country, to find ourselves at the very top of the world in terms of the weekly average of infections.
It is simply a matter of the transitional left, in accordance with Marxist doctrine, being convinced that they are the only ones suitable “to be in power” in the name of “higher interests”, in the name of some “higher historical mission”, in the name of “first class”. Everything else is unacceptable to them. That is why they are pushing people against the current democratically elected government. For them, “democracy” is when they are in power. When they are not, however, for them everything is “fascism”, “authoritarianism” and “dictatorship”. This means that even today they cannot come to terms with basic democratic standards, which also means that they are not always in power.
Metod Berlec is professor of history and geography; deputy editor-in-chief of Demokracija magazine.