By: dr. Vinko Gorenak
It cannot be true, but it is. I have not wished you anything good in 2022 yet. Let me correct the mistake right at the beginning. So I wish you all the best in 2022. I think this year should be more than important, at least in the electoral sense. Elections to the National Assembly are waiting for us, as well as local elections and the election of the President of the country.
Former President Milan Kučan even says that this will be “the last battle of his generation”. I hope so and I hope they lose it. It would be time for the normalisation of Slovenia. The harsh reality has taught us for almost 80 years that if leftists are not in power, they become violent and try to seize power by force. With tens of thousands of Slovenes murdered in 1945, they even succeeded. Today, the situation is only seemingly different. The ideology of the leftists has remained the same, only slightly adapted to the realities of the present time. If leftists are not in power, they try to take power with the help of the street, as well as violence. This was happening during the second Janša government (2012-2013), and it is also happening during his third government. Even before it was created, leftists were already on the streets and threatening with death. In more or less aggressive rhetoric, street violence continues to this day and will continue to do so until the National Assembly elections. It is clear that in the event of their electoral victory, there will be no more street violence, like in 2013, but it is also clear that street violence will continue in the event of the formation of a right-wing government. So everything has been in place for 80 years. Leftists take power as something natural and expected, but if they are not in power, street violence is necessary. Even Milan Kučan is set in his ways, he simply supports street protests. But such a situation is not something democratically normal, where left and right alternate in power.
Elections to the National Assembly 2022
According to President Borut Pahor, the elections to the National Assembly in 2022 are scheduled for April 24th, 2022. I agree with Milan Kučan that they will be very important and that they will probably be the “last battle of his generation”. The classic democratic standard of Western democracies is the exchange of left and right in elections after one or two terms, rarely otherwise. In our country, however, the left political force, if I deduct DEMOS, is in power most of the time, and the right has only been in power for seven years. It is already clear here that something is seriously going on in our political reality. The time to come will therefore be really extremely important. There is nothing new at the left political pole. They are trying to enforce the old, but already failed formula of the “new face” in the image of Robert Golob. It just does not seem to suit the right-wing political pole, but the truth is different, much less such a choice suits the left-wing political pole. Let us ask ourselves what does the left political pole offer? Nothing more than they offered in 2018 when they formed a minority government with support over the coalition Levica party. Less than two years later, however, they quarrelled, threw “in the towel” and fled.
By the way, this term “throw in the towel” is known to practically everyone today, and most do not know who was the first to utter it in our political space. This was my humble self, and I used the term “throw in the towel” two days after the resignation of Marjan Šarec in the show “Faktor” by Bojan Požar and Aljuš Pertinač. If I had anything from the authorship of these words, I would certainly get rich by today.
The dominant media are, of course, doing their own thing and supporting left-wing political parties. Not everything is ideal on the right either. The SDS with Janez Janša is certainly a political constant that gains and does not lose, it can hope for quite a larger number of MPs. NSI Matej Tonin, contributes a lot to the current government and more. As soon as public opinion polls show the significant progress of this party, it already starts to pour out on them and show the MPs’ outburst from the National Assembly, which is far from the truth. It all depends on those who are not in parliament today or whose polls show a drop out of the new National Assembly. If Počivalšek, Kangler, Podobnik, Kovšca, Primc, Jelinčič, Čuš and Pivec will be able to organise themselves independently or in connection, success at the right political pole is guaranteed. I have a hard time imagining getting less than ten MPs.
Local elections 2022
Local elections are more important than they seem at first glance. Of course, we can assess them in different ways, but the main indicator is the number of elected mayors and the number of elected councillors. Among the mayors, the so-called independent mayors have been leading for years, but if we deduct these, the scales are leaning considerably towards the right-wing political pole, which also applies to the number of councillors. I do not expect anything to be significantly different this year.
Presidential elections 2022
Borut Pahor’s two presidential terms have shown a lot and more. All previous presidents of the country were from the left political pole and everyone, except Borut Pahor, behaved in the same way. The behaviour of Danilo Türk, who in 2011 did not respect even the basic democratic standard of giving the mandate to form a government to Janez Janša when the attempt to form a government by Zoran Jankovič failed, was particularly characteristic. Borut Pahor is certainly a turning point in presidential history. He behaves like the president of all citizens, although one time the left does not like it, and the other time the right does not like it, which is the only right thing to do. The difference between the left and the right in relation to him is also important, but even more telling. On the right, he sometimes hears criticism, and on the left, he has been practically abandoned and even openly threatened, not least with demonstrations in front of the Presidential Palace. In this context, therefore, it is more than important who will be the new president of the country. The practice so far shows greater fragmentation on the right political pole than on the left. On the latter, they were able to unify more and often support a candidate or two. The key question of the 2022 presidential election is whether the right-wing political pole will be able to offer a single candidate who will be more at the center of the political space and will also be able to address center-right voters.
Dr Vinko Gorenak is the State Secretary in the PV Cabinet, a former Member of Parliament and Minister of the Interior, a university professor and a member of the SDS.