What did we learn from the first round of the presidential election?

By: Mitja Iršič

The first round of the presidential election is behind us. Logar celebrates, Brglez returns to Brussels, Kordiš to a beef soup, Prebilič to Kočevje, Senčar to the computer to browse for anti-vax articles on Wikipedia, and Nataša Pirc Musar home to Aleš, where they will not talk about his business. I will summarise some of the lessons we can take away from today’s result:

• Milan Kučan showed Golob that there is only one real president of the Central Committee of the Union of Communists in this part of the Balkans, and his name is not Robert, and he does not have long hair. It was the first real clash between the old and new successors of the revolution, and for now it looks as if the old still have the sceptre firmly in their hands, especially given that Nataša Pirc Musar was not exactly a simple project, how to sell her to the people as one of the “new faces”. Due to her loyalty to the Sun King Golob, the media treated her as if she was not the anointed of left-wing politics and therefore correctly attacked her.

• The SD already had another “defeat party”, everyone is happy that the “centre-left won”, which only shows that none of the proud successors of the Union of Communists believe that they are an independent party anymore – the general conclusion is that on the left, there are no autonomous parties, but factions of a single party, and even then, only on a conditional basis. In fact, it is a single Party capable of sacrificing individual parts for the good of the socialist collective.

• A chapter for himself, Robert Golob, who is clearly in a strong hidden rage at the realisation that Slovenia is being led from the background by an even greyer but less cunning gentleman than him, began to share statements that foreigners unfamiliar with the Slovenian situation would very quickly interpret them as neo-fascist – “we will not allow the SDS candidate to enter the presidential palace”, “we all know who will win in the second round”. The gentleman has once again proven that democracy is not close to him and that he would thrive quite well in some other country further east and north of us – where political opponents are also perceived as enemies of the state.

• 6 percent for Sabina Senčar proves how astonishingly ingrained covid-idiotism is in Slovenia – it is not for nothing that we are a country that is at the top of childhood vaccination sceptics, as it then naturally spills over into covid scepticism and modern covid anti-vaxxers. Her political patron Zoran Stevanović said in front of the gathered crowd that it is not true that corona has eased, but that it has been easing from the beginning, for which he received a great applause – in other words, there are a whole bunch of people among us who think that the coronavirus is some weird global conspiracy. Scary, right?

• Anže Logar ran a campaign that would have won him not 34 but 70 percent of the vote in a normal country. The fact that he got “only” 34 percent is a feature of the Slovenian electorate; he was the only candidate on whom they were not able to hang a single scandal, he was eloquent, friendly, and unifying (the diametric opposite of the arrogance of Brglez and Pirc Musar, who both gave silent hints during the campaign that for them there was only left-wing Slovenia, while the right we will have to put up with them, because too many of our compatriots, who would have voted for the People’s Party in 1938, are today exiled or resting in mining shafts scattered throughout Slovenia).

• Less than 3 percent of people support “democratic socialism for the 21^st century”. This is partly due to the general antipathy expressed by Miha Kordiš, and partly to the fact that the Levica party is a hobby project of the Slovenian media, as the journalists of the majority media are ideologically close to them, but when they have to concentrate on someone else due to the individual component of the presidential election, “democratic socialism for the 21^st century” finds its rightful place in the constellation of political ideas – at the bottom. This is encouraging news. The task of the right in the parliamentary elections, which we hope will be held as soon as possible, is simple: people must open their eyes to the fact that all parties of the so-called centre-left are “democratic socialism for the 21^st century”.

• In connection with the previous point: Miha Kordiš is one of the main trump cards of the Slovenian right. Not because he is any more radical than the “centre-left” government, but because he dares to say out loud what the government only says between the lines – we are going to socialism, and the rich can become our loyal patrons, or we will expropriate and destroy them.

• Nataša Pirc Musar’s leap ahead of Milan Brglez is a slight surprise only for those who believed that Robert Golob’s support alone was enough for the candidate, who is as good as Karl Erjavec when it comes to pronouncing the letter R, to swing near the top presidential race. Milan Brglez was by far the least prepared candidate of the six; it was seen that he had no real defence for the fact that he unconstitutionally took away the parliamentary mandate from Janez Janša, it was seen how strangely he tries to be civil. The more he tried, the more we waited for him to turn into a truck or a rocket like a transformer – we have not seen such a robotic performance in the presidential elections for a long time, and the difference to Pirc Musar clearly indicates this.

• Vladimir Prebilič is seen by some as a great winner, but given that he was much more sovereign than Pirc Musar and Brglez (above all, he got into much less trouble than the latter two), he is in fact a loser, as he otherwise ticked all the boxes that the left-wing candidate must have (partisanship as part of the fight for Slovenian independence, egalitarianism as a virtue, cheap moralising about the eradication of poverty, scepticism about aid to Ukraine…). Despite the fact that he is a full-blooded and full-fledged member of the left political pole, his 10 percent is a clear indication that for anything more you need abundant support from the majority media, which he did not have.

• It is clear what the tactics of the media will be in the second round. Aleš Musar will be able to breathe freely again – no one on Pop TV, RTV or Odlazek’s media will draw his proprietary octopuses or talk about connections with PID tycoon Darko Horvat. Also, no one will ask why Nataša Pirc Musar pays herself a low salary and gets the rest from dividends. Also, no one will pull on her sleeve, why she is so inconsistent that she once says that she does not meddle in her husband’s affairs, and other times that her husband was not already involved in any business they are asking about (how does she know if she does not meddle in it?). On the other hand, a journalist on Pop TV, when she interviewed Anže Logar after the victory, showed what awaits him. Janša, Janša, Janša, and again Janša. And also, the anarchy “specials” from 2021 (“gassing” of the people, closing in municipalities, STA, RTV Slovenia…). In reality, he will have to defend himself for every Necenzurirano/Dnevnik/Večer/Delo/Pop TV/RTV half-truth or untruth about the previous government that has been placed in the last two years – they will show protests, water cannon, strike at RTV…

• Everyone, including the prime minister, is undemocratically convinced that Pirc Musar is already de facto winner, but it will not be that easy: Logar is a degree more civil than her. He also has no baggage at all. Let’s remember – at one point, before Brglez intervened in the match, Musar and Logar were almost even. Logar ran away from her when the pre-election debates started. The majority of Slovenians do not like Nataša Pirc Musar’s rhetoric and style, which was also confirmed to me by sworn leftists who said that in the event of such a second round, they would probably not go to the elections at all. It is true that, under normal circumstances, due to the deformation of the Slovenian electorate, Nataša Pirc Musar should have won even if we would learn tomorrow that she was on the list of terrorists on September 11^th, 2001, but al-Qaeda did not let her on the plane because of her prescription. But Logar introduced a bunch of variables into the game that make the match unpredictable. In fact, for the first time since Barbara Brezigar, the right has a real chance to win in the second round. And Nataša Pirc Musar is no Janez Drnovšek. But for something like this, Logar will have to excel and completely outclass Musar in the debates, if he wants to eliminate the natural Slovenian deficit of “missing” right-wing voters (expelled, killed, or indoctrinated from 1945 onwards). It will be tense – probably more than Golob, Kučan, and Pirc Musar think.