By: Dr. Metod Berlec
“At least since 2008, the smile of history that favoured the Slovenian state has been fading,” recently emphasised Slovenia’s first foreign minister, Dimitrij Rupel, in an interview for our magazine.
This is also reflected in the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and purchasing power. After gaining independence, Slovenia gradually developed economically, reaching 91% of the European Union’s GDP in 2008 under the first Janša government. However, under left-wing governments, this figure began to decline, and only last year did we manage to climb back to that level. It is clear that if we had not had mostly incompetent leftist governments in power for the past 17 years, we could already be above the EU average. Instead, we find ourselves in a situation where many former socialist European countries have caught up with or even surpassed us.
In the long run, the state of the country is deteriorating, as the current ruling coalition is implementing measures that are leading us in the completely wrong direction – toward a full-blown crisis. At the same time, we are in a position where the system of checks and balances is failing entirely, as the transitional left controls all three branches of government – legislative, executive, and judicial – not to mention its dominance over the so-called “fourth branch” of power: the media. As a result, we are witnessing populist rhetoric about reforms “that no government has dared to implement”, yet these reforms remain nowhere to be seen. Instead, there is shameless political staffing and numerous scandals characterised by the three C’s: crime, corruption, and cronyism. Meanwhile, the ruling coalition continuously seeks so-called internal enemies to target. At first, it was entrepreneurs and craftsmen, who were further burdened with taxes. Then, it was doctors, accused of exploiting public healthcare. Now, they have turned their attention to Slovenian farmers, who are already drowning in excessive bureaucracy that discourages them from farming.
In short, the government’s reckless, poorly planned, and harmful actions follow a familiar pattern: they first create a problem – literally causing chaos, as seen in the case of the electricity network fees – only to then pretend they are solving it. And this happens week after week, month after month. It is clear that Slovenia needs a political alternative (which is being carefully developed programmatically and strategically under the leadership of the SDS) as the parliamentary elections are fast approaching. If they are held as scheduled, they will take place at the end of March next year. However, there is a possibility that they may come earlier, as even those within the Gibanje Svoboda realise that an early election would be in their best interest. Otherwise, they risk having the behind-the-scenes power brokers introduce yet another “new face” – causing them to disappear like a soap bubble…