By: Dr Metod Berlec
There is still a month and a half to go until the pivotal parliamentary elections that will decide Slovenia’s future. Whether we continue down the Venezuelan path toward poverty, comprehensive collapse, and a multicultural cesspit – or return to the right path, the path of preserving the Slovenian nation‑state, of development, and of prosperity for all.
The latest public opinion polls suggest that six to eight parties may make it into the next parliamentary term – more than in the current one, which has five (GS, SDS, SD, NSi, and Levica). According to all polls, Janša’s SDS is ahead of Golob’s Freedom Movement. The Ninamedija poll places them followed by the joint list of NSi, SLS, and Marko Lotrič’s Fokus, Levica with Vesna, and Anže Logar’s Democrats. Also close to the parliamentary threshold are Zoran Stevanović’s Resni.ca and Vladimir Prebilič’s Prerod. The Mediana poll shows a slightly different order. SDS maintains or increases its lead over the Freedom Movement. In third place is SD, followed by the joint list of Levica and Vesna, the Democrats, and the joint list of NSi, SLS, and Fokus. Next is the Pirate Party of Slovenia, ahead of Resni.ca and Prerod. But these are only polls, which have recently become completely unreliable.
It is telling that most polling agencies and media automatically classify Anže Logar’s Democrats as a right‑wing party, even though that is far from accurate. Logar’s own statements indicate this: he repeatedly insists that after the election he wants a mixed coalition or government that would also include the largest left‑wing party – meaning the Freedom Movement. Only in that case, he says, would his party enter the government. It is therefore no surprise that SDS president Janez Janša warned in an interview for the previous issue of Demokracija that a vote for Logar is “a vote for a new Golob mandate.” Janša: “Everyone knows that the left, as always, will consistently exclude SDS from all government combinations, which means that according to Logar, the only possible combination is him and the left.” Meanwhile, the transitional left is doing everything it can to portray Logar as an automatic satellite of SDS. Their aim is to prevent left‑wing votes from flowing to him. By attacking him, they make him more acceptable to right‑wing voters. The goal is to limit the reach of SDS and the joint NSi–SLS–Fokus list, not that of the transitional left. It is clear that a right‑wing government will only be possible if SDS and the joint NSi–SLS–Fokus list together win at least half of the parliamentary seats.
Slovenia can move forward only if it gets a genuine centre‑right or right‑wing government, not some kind of mixed SZDL‑style grand coalition (GS, SD, Levica and Vesna, Prerod, the Democrats, and perhaps even Resni.ca, if it enters parliament). Such a large left‑wing coalition would, and will, preserve the current derailed transitional system: complete control over all three branches of government, over the left‑entrenched Constitutional Court, over state and para‑state agencies, various commissioners, advocates, ombudsmen, the majority of the media, and business elites suffering from the so‑called Stockholm syndrome. Is that what you want? I believe not.
