By: Dr Matevž Tomšič
With the results of this year’s parliamentary elections in Slovenia, few political actors can be satisfied. The current governing coalition received a significantly smaller share of the vote and consequently fewer parliamentary seats than four years ago. But the right‑wing bloc, which represents the alternative, also failed to achieve its goals. Both main players, the Slovenian Democratic Party and the coalition of New Slovenia, the Slovenian People’s Party, and Fokus, are far from an absolute majority in parliament, let alone the “constitutional majority of reason” sought by Janez Janša. The newly established party Democrats, led by Anže Logar, also performed worse than predicted. Meanwhile, the would‑be “new face” of the left, Vladimir Prebilič, did not manage to get his party Prerod across the parliamentary threshold at all.
In fact, the only one who can truly be satisfied is Zoran Stevanović, as his party Resni.ca managed to enter parliament. With populist attacks on the “left–right establishment” and simple yet punchy messages, he succeeded in appealing to those discontented voters who feel deeply alienated from the entire Slovenian political scene. It may well be that this party will become the decisive swing factor in forming the new governing coalition.
Forming a new government will in general be very difficult, as it is clear that neither of the two political blocs will secure a majority of forty‑six MPs. Even if such a government is formed, it will most likely be highly unstable. It is hard to imagine, for instance, the Democrats and Levica finding common ground. Nor can we rule out the possibility that no one will be able to form a government at all, in which case new elections could take place later this year.
Expectations of a pronounced “shift to the right” in these elections therefore did not materialise, although, by all logic, they should have. The recent revelations of conversations among certain key political insiders clearly showed that a kleptocratic network is governing the country, one that has effectively captured the state. Under normal circumstances, a political force serving this network, whose central pillar is the largest governing party, and engaging in numerous abuses of power would suffer a decisive electoral defeat.
But Slovenia is evidently (still) not a normal country. The ruling parties managed to neutralise the highly incriminating evidence against them. The mainstream media faithfully assisted them in this effort. They uncritically amplified the narrative that this was foreign interference in Slovenian elections and that these actors were allegedly acting on instructions from the largest opposition party (despite the lack of any convincing evidence). It was a combination of fear‑mongering about Janša and about foreigners. Again. If the “foreigners” four years ago were the Hungarians, this time it was the Israelis. This shows that the supposedly cosmopolitan left is perfectly capable of xenophobia. Combined with excessive spending and the distribution of pre‑election “goodies,” this strategy produced a result that is, given the record of their governance, surprisingly favourable.
It has become clear that the ideological “concrete” underpinning the left’s monopoly on power has still not crumbled. Many people continue to succumb to fear of internal and external enemies, fear spread by left‑wing politics and by media and NGOs aligned with it. In addition, they support statist redistribution, in which the state takes money from citizens and distributes it according to its own judgment, instead of allowing people to spend it as they see fit. This socialist mentality is evidently still very much alive more than three and a half decades after the collapse of the former system, far more so than in most other former communist countries.
If Slovenia ends up with another government similar to the current one, nothing good awaits us. In that case, the kleptocratic network will remain untouched, and the developmental decline that is already clearly visible will become much more pronounced.
