By: Dr Matevž Tomšič
The recent initiative to annul this year’s parliamentary elections, submitted by left‑wing activists, is an obvious act of desperation, a desperate attempt to prevent the formation of the fourth Janša government. At first glance it is clear that its justification is so absurd, and the arguments so far‑fetched, that even the current Constitutional Court, which leans noticeably to the left, should not accept it. It is impossible to find even a remotely credible legal expert who would support it. Even those closer to the political left consider it unfounded and therefore doomed to fail.
The matter is untenable already from a purely procedural standpoint. First, the Slovenian legal framework does not even envisage the possibility of the Constitutional Court annulling elections. In this respect, the situation is quite different from Romania, where the 2024 presidential elections were annulled (a case the petitioners refer to), because there the institution actually has such authority. Constitutional complaints normally concern specific normative acts of state bodies, not the outcome of a political process such as elections. Furthermore, the prescribed appeals procedure was not followed. The complainants should have first turned to the National Electoral Commission and later to the parliament when it was confirming mandates. But they missed that opportunity. For this reason, it is very likely that the Constitutional Court will reject the initiative on purely formal grounds.
But even if we set aside the formal aspect and focus on the substance of the initiative, we can see that the petitioners’ arguments (if they can even be called that) are completely fabricated. The basic accusation of an “attempt to influence the elections” is already a colossal absurdity. Is influencing the outcome of elections not the very purpose of every election campaign? Everyone has the right to contribute through their actions to an electoral result that suits them as much as possible. According to this absurd logic, all political promotion would have to be banned.
And then there is the main argument, that Israeli intelligence agents, in coordination with the SDS party, influenced the election results. Let us set aside the fact that there is no solid evidence for such a claim. Even if it were true, there would be nothing illegal about it. Trying to uncover compromising information about political opponents and making it public is by no means unusual. And there are companies (such as the Israeli Black Cube) that specialise in exposing “dirty secrets”. Such conduct is not only legal; it cannot even be called immoral. Publishing recordings that reveal the existence of a sprawling kleptocratic‑corrupt network with strong political backing is undoubtedly in the interest of the Slovenian public. And finally, it cannot be said that these revelations contributed to a worse result for the left bloc. On the contrary, public opinion polls had predicted significantly lower support for the bloc’s largest party than what actually materialised in the elections. If anything, the affair may even have helped them.
It is truly astonishing that such an intellectual mishmash can be signed by so many people who are considered intellectuals and who have long academic careers behind them. It is true that they are all part of the left‑wing network, and it is understandable that they are disappointed with how events unfolded after the elections. Many of them have (or have had in the past) tangible benefits from being close to the structures of power. But apparently, we are dealing with a level of ideological fervour that simply clouds reason. This is exactly what Daniel Flynn writes about in his book with the very telling title Intellectual Morons: that ideology can lead otherwise intelligent people to start believing in foolish ideas. Not only believing in them, but spreading them as well. The more blindly they submit to some, preferably very radical, ideology, the greater the foolishness they commit.