By: Dr Metod Berlec
There are ten days left until the presidential elections. According to an opinion poll conducted last week by Mediana for the newspaper Delo and POP TV, SDS MP Anže Logar currently enjoys the greatest support among voters, followed by lawyer Nataša Pirc Musar (originally supported by Milan Kučan and Danilo Türk), third place however, with a significant gap behind the leaders, it belongs to the SD MEP Milan Brglez, who is also supported by Golob’s Gibanje Svoboda party.
It seems that the second round will decide on the new president of the country. But there is still a close battle of the favourites, as only two can make it to the second round. According to this poll, Logar would get 23.6 percent of the votes, Pirc Musar 20.4 percent, and Brglez 15.3 percent. Next comes the doctor and candidate of the non-parliamentary party Re.snica Sabina Senčar with 6% support, then at the end are the member of the Levica party Miha Kordiš with 4.9%, the member of NSi party Janez Cigler Kralj with 4.2%, and the mayor of Kočevje Vladimir Prebilič with 3.4% support. The data of this opinion poll show that more than 13 percent of the respondents are undecided. Compared to the opinion poll from 14 days ago, the share of those who would support Logar in the elections remained the same or increased slightly. The situation is different for Nataša Pirc Musar, who lost almost eight percentage points of support, while Milan Brglez, who entered the presidential race late, gained a little more than six percentage points.
According to the mentioned poll, it is clear that nothing has been decided yet and that every vote will decide. Nataša Pirc Musar and Milan Brglez, as the main candidates of the transitional left, have been dealing with each other on the public scene in recent days, and the question is who will come out as the winner. Pirc Musar is undoubtedly burdened by her husband’s transition-tycoon baggage, but Brglez appears stiffer and more extreme leftist. For the originally democratic, spring party, it is undoubtedly important that Logar makes it to the second round of the presidential elections, where he has a realistic chance of winning due to his moderate centre-right stance. As he says in an interview for the current issue of Demokracija magazine, he takes a central position because he is a centre-right candidate, and he is aware that more than 50 percent of the vote is needed to win the presidential election. “A candidate who is widely acceptable, who is ultimately supported by voters from both political poles, can win. And that is right, because only such a candidate can be the president of all citizens.” The positive thing about this is that Logar officially appears as an independent presidential candidate, that he is supported by his parent party SDS, and now also SLS. Its new president, Marko Balažic, announced publicly that the party, through democratic processes, concluded that “Dr Anže Logar embodies what Slovenia needs at this moment: a human-oriented view, the awareness that in the capacity of President of the Republic of Slovenia, he represents all Slovenians, and experience in international affairs at a time that requires a clear view. He also has the potential to, together with the young faces of the new leadership of the Slovenian People’s Party, bring new energy to Slovenia from the right of the centre.” In short, they have shown their political intellect, because together with the SDS they are betting on a candidate who did not enter the race just to present the views of his party, but to seriously compete for victory in the elections for the President of the Republic of Slovenia.
“In order for Slovenia not to fall into an autocracy (a political system in which one person or a small group has unlimited, arbitrary power, autocracy), as they have in Russia, one must be an active citizen,” I wrote in the editorial of the 39th issue of Demokracija magazine. “It is necessary to leave the comfort of the sofa and go and submit signatures for the call for three legislative referendums.” People heard this and similar appeals in the originally democratic media and went en masse to submit signatures for the call for three referendums: on amendments to the law on the government, on amendments to the law on RTVS, and amendments to the long-term care law. In short, to stop the arbitrariness of the ruling neo-socialist government. More than enough signatures were collected for all three referendums, which must be officially announced by the National Assembly and the date of implementation must be determined. With this, at least temporarily, a complete left-wing pogrom against the management of RTV Slovenia was stopped.
But a new front is already opening. The chairwoman of the parliamentary investigative commission (investigative commission on determining the political responsibility of public office holders due to alleged illegal financing of political parties and party-political propaganda in the media), Mojca Šetinc Pašek, Gibanje Svoboda MP, a loyal member of the Kučan clan, is already abusing this commission to deal with the media, which are not owned by the transitional left or the so-called deep state. They would like to silence us by putting pressure on our potential advertisers. The story we witnessed during Šarec’s government is repeating itself. Neo-Bolsheviks simply follow the leader of the Bolshevik revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov – Lenin, who could not stand dissenters. He ruthlessly had them liquidated, as it was called in the party jargon. And our neo-Bolsheviks think similarly. In the post-Leninist sense, they want to destroy all the media that are not under their control, or that do not want to give in to them. So, we have Putinists in power who think authoritarian and undemocratic, which is why we have to resolutely resist them with all means! With this, we will defend Slovenian democracy, written with both a small and a capital letter.
