By: Gašper Blažič
“Without a doubt, I believe that this transitional left and the current government basically have only a few months of functioning left. I hope that by the next elections they will not cause too much damage. But now, in my view, which essentially aligns with some of my earlier insights and experience, the electorate has more or less already made up its mind,” said sociologist and lawyer Dr Peter Jambrek, one of the architects of the Slovenian constitution and statehood, who also served for several years as a constitutional judge, in a recent episode of the show Beremo.
If I shorten Jambrek’s words, the fate of the current ruling elite could be summed up in just two words: they are finished. And it seems they themselves feel it too, as the confidence of those in power is currently badly shaken, they get upset over practically every trifle, even at the slightest sharper remark that holds a mirror up to them. At the same time, we can sense a sort of “short-term populism”: for instance, Prime Minister Robert Golob, during his visit to southeastern Slovenia, openly hinted that he is now willing to cut taxes and that Slovenia will, imagine this, introduce mandatory Christmas bonuses. Not to mention his showy antics all the way to Brezje.
And yet, for Golob the words uttered in 1918 by then-leading Slovenian politician Anton Korošec to Emperor Charles I apply: “Your Majesty, it is too late.” The emperor had offered the possibility of creating a South Slavic federal unit within the monarchy, but the latter was already completely exhausted from the First World War, which was in its final phase, while victory was smiling upon the Kingdom of Serbia and its allies. Had he done this a year earlier, when Korošec’s May Declaration still envisaged the possibility of forming such a unit within the Habsburg framework, it might have been achievable. But he missed the favourable moment and conceded when it was already clear the monarchy’s days were numbered and nothing could be saved. A wasted opportunity, since otherwise much suffering could have been avoided – for him and his family as well as for Slovenians, who in the new state – an expanded Serbia – experienced a harsh new reality.
Speaking of populism, one cannot forget the event in Bucharest on 21 December 1989. On that day, dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu gave his last speech, in which he promised, among other things, a raise in the minimum wage to calm the angry crowd. At first, he was loudly cheered, but in fact people had been forced to attend under threat of losing their jobs and the meagre means of survival they had. By the time the Romanian tyrant offered higher wages, it was too late. All he had left was to unleash the army and police against the protesters. Brutally.
Many may have recalled Ceauşescu’s Romania in recent days while watching the fall of the communist government in Nepal, which became a republic five years after the horrific massacre of the royal family in 2001. Since then, the country sank into the swamp of renewed Maoism, even though the communist party ruled through elections. But that period, too, came to an end. One of the government’s key suicidal moves was blocking social media and imposing harsh censorship, which drove especially young Nepalese – the so-called Generation Z – onto the streets.
And surely, this wave could not be stopped even by the cruel murder of young American conservative leader Charlie Kirk, whom our mainstream media labelled a “far-right extremist,” thereby quietly justifying the brutality of the act.
Slovenia’s ruling nomenclature has a problem. They are running out of time, and out of resources to “polish” their governance before the public. They also face trouble now that the only two opposition parties in parliament have started drawing closer together, after NSi realised that its initial flirting with the government hadn’t paid off. It learned the hard way the truth of the saying: the devil promises much, gives little, but takes everything. After the vulgar and intolerant outbursts of the young Slovenian “Hamas sympathiser,” it is becoming clear that the rulers are ready to go after lives – not only of the sick and the unborn, but of others as well. And yet the modern-day Elena Ceauşescu may be an “ambassador for children with cancer” a hundred times over.
In short: it is over. This autocratic camarilla will surely fall, even if the deep state tries to organise parallel “new faces” parties. After a few lessons, the people may finally realise that the time for experiments is past and that the country needs a serious renewal. Not only economic and legal, but above all moral.
