By: Peter Jančič (spletnicasopis.eu)
The government raised the minimum wage by 16 percent this week, and at the same time published a call for proposals for a media campaign promoting the government’s achievements, worth 40,000 euros. This promotion of “successes” is scheduled to run from 9 to 18 February 2026, right before the official start of the election campaign. If it seems to you that this amounts to misuse of public money ahead of the elections to fund campaigning for the governing parties, you are absolutely right. Just one more in a series of repugnant abuses.
It is strange only that they are not also seeking a media strategy that would present Robert Golob in the press before the elections as the best prime minister in the history of the country, if not of the entire EU. With money, they can buy anything. For their own, of course. Finance Minister Klemen Boštjančič accompanied the minimum‑wage increase with a warning that the state budget approved by parliament contains no money for this raise and that the funds will have to be found through reallocations. It is not difficult to determine who is responsible for the lack of money in the budget. The main culprits are Prime Minister Golob and Finance Minister Boštjančič, as well as the MPs of both coalition partners of Svoboda, namely Matjaž Han’s SD and Asta Vrečko’s Levica, who failed to include the planned minimum‑wage increase in the state budget that the government now intends to pay out. Reallocation, which is an emergency measure, means that money intended for essential public services will instead be spent on yet another sudden pre‑election move to buy voters. The important services that were planned will not happen. A similar phenomenon is very likely behind the 90‑million‑euro deposit that the health insurance fund transferred to the finance ministry this month. Even though healthcare services are lacking and waiting lines are growing longer, the health insurance fund is apparently swimming in money, likely including funds for long‑term care, which we all pay for but the government does not provide. Just as it does not provide healthcare services within reasonable timeframes. And this pays off for them. Another 90 million in liquidity for buying voters before the elections.
The fact that the government did not plan a 16‑percent increase in the minimum wage (only a bit under three percent) and will now have to find the money through reallocations does not affect only the prime minister and ministers. The consequences will be everywhere: waiting times in healthcare will grow longer because the money will go to wages; kindergartens and nursing homes will have to charge more for services; and prices in shops will rise due to higher wages and all the taxes and contributions that come with them. And this is not the first unplanned expense. Earlier, the ruling parties hastily handed out winter supplements outside their own budget plans. But at least in that case, they passed a law to authorise spending more than the budget allowed. Now, with the minimum wage, they are bypassing the National Assembly altogether by using a government decree to determine state spending. The unlikely explanation is that our government is made up entirely of amateurs who cannot think even one step ahead. The far more likely explanation is that elections are approaching, and internal polling has thrown the governing parties completely off balance. The money‑throwing spree at the end of last year, winter supplements and everything else, did not work. Polls show that voters will not trust the governing parties with another mandate. Despite all the purges, the subordination of the police, the media, and state‑owned companies, and the helicopter‑style scattering of public money. So Luka Mesec, together with Golob and Boštjančič, struck once again outside the state’s financial plans. Meanwhile, the government’s communication office, led by Petra Bezjak Cirman, ordered media buys for propaganda about all these government “successes.”
At the same time, the governing parties launched a campaign on social media, using their “people’s forces”, claiming that the “evil opposition” opposes giving the lowest‑paid workers more money through the minimum‑wage increase. Even though the opposition had absolutely no say in the matter. The state budget for this year, which does not include the raise, was approved by the governing MPs in parliament. Meaning they were the ones against the increase, not the opposition. The raise outside the budget plan, when there is no money but they will distribute it anyway, was decided by the government, in which the opposition has no representatives. Even if the opposition wanted to vote against it, they cannot. But here, anything can be falsely pinned on anyone. We are a country of the art of deceitful spins and shady actors who present themselves as “the people” or NGOs, even though they were founded by politicians, paid for political campaigns, and use political spins and manipulations to steer media debates in favour of government policies. And they succeed in media outlets where the ruling parties have installed their own directors and editors through purges, or in outlets owned by tycoons aligned with the ruling parties and financed by the government. These media then demand that Anže Logar (or Janez Janša or anyone else) explain to political activist Nika Kovač how they are on the “correct” political side. An activist who runs an institute founded by Simon Maljevac, whose revenues have increased by more than a thousand percent during this government’s term. As for how obedient the host of Tarča, Erika Žnidaršič, is to them, how they instruct her on how to spin, March 8th Institute even publicly boasts about it.
It is an institute that hides who funds it, though we do know that it is also financed by legal entities from abroad. Our law prohibits the financing of campaigns and political parties from abroad, and also prohibits payments from legal entities, whether foreign or domestic. In other words, it prohibits financing political campaigns in the way that March 8th and its campaigns for the governing parties are being funded right now. Without a single employee, it handles more money than most parties that will run in the elections.
Why does nothing happen to them? Because they are fraudsters working for the governing parties. More detailed information on how this party‑affiliated institute falsely presents itself as a scientific institution (an “institute”) and why parties channel their propaganda activities through such entities, together with the financial statements of March 8th obtained from AJPES, can be read here: Nika Kovač and March 8th Racing Toward a Million Euros.
Nika Kovač is also Prime Minister Golob’s adviser on combating hate speech. As a political activist, she writes columns for Siol.net, where the ruling parties have carried out two purges. Recently, Delo, financed by the government, declared her Slovenian Woman of the Year, because of her fight against right‑wingers. Against the opposition. At the low level of the governing coalition parties.
Paid from abroad. And by hidden legal entities. Entities that are not allowed to give a single cent to parties or to election campaigns. Unless, of course, it is for “our” Nikas. Then everything is allowed. The “independent” media fall silent. They see nothing, they hear nothing… The only problem, always and exclusively, is Janša. We are a country of double standards and violations of every rule, especially before elections. In Finance, Simona Toplak described the situation like this, though she forgot to mention Matjaž Han.
The state budget is out of touch with reality not only because of the latest minimum‑wage increase, the winter supplement, and similar sweets the ruling parties hand out to buy extra voters, while “forgetting” to include them in the budget. The problems also stem from the fact that last year our economic growth collapsed, all while the deficit has already ballooned to two billion. This will be the legacy this government leaves to future generations.
They are spending even what they do not have, because the polls look so bad for them ahead of the elections that reasonable solutions no longer help. And they hope that the bill for the unreasonable ones will arrive only after the elections.