Forty-two votes are more than enough for the country to not only stay in place but to even regress, for many years now. Forty-two votes are also enough for a marathon performance piece of the Slovenian left in parliament. Forty-two votes have, for a very long time, been enough, more than enough. This is the great disease of Slovenia, the big corona, for which there is still no vaccine.
The filing of Erjavec’s vote of no confidence that has 42 signatories, is a kind of indicator of all the disease peculiarities of the never-ending Slovenian transition, and in particular, its left.
In fact, the extreme effort with which Erjavec managed to get the 42 votes, is a pale shadow of the all-encompassing economic, media, cultural, and so on, overpowering of the Slovenian left. How is it possible that with such a rich formal and informal backing, the left still failed in getting a sufficient number of votes? How is it possible that the Slovenian left can no longer do what it once could? You have everything, what else do you want! This is probably what the godfathers from the background are saying to all those who are still working on the vote of no confidence in the first battle lines.
SMC – only a temporary turn, a dead-end street in the evolution of the Slovenian left, or actually something more? Nobody knows.
Formally, mathematically speaking, the situation is what it is, because of a smaller part of the left, who – probably mainly for purely pragmatic and selfish reasons, and with just a small extent of liberal reasons – decided to gather around the party now called the Modern Centre Party – SMC. In any case, this party is just the beginning, an approximation of something that could be called liberal, but is actually a kind of branch of the left-wing conglomerate, washed up on the shore by the Slovenian transition. Is this only a temporary turn, a dead-end street in the evolution of the Slovenian left, or actually something more? Nobody knows.
Namely, in Slovenia, we do not actually have a conscious, planned, European liberal-inspired intention of setting up a party that would revive the Slovenian pre-war liberalism, which was, admittedly – compared to other Central European countries – small, and then it also joined the Anti-Imperialist or the Liberation Front. We still do not have a party that would equally fervently defend the entrepreneurial initiative and reject the communist economic experiments and violent revolution. The thought of Ljubo Sirc is only being kept alive by the Catholics. This has become a Slovenian speciality.
Erjavec as the alternative to Janša, since the others are too comfortable to get to work
A lot has already been written about the speciality personified by Karl Erjavec. This is where the loser of the previous elections appears, who perhaps still resonates only within the DeSUS party, and whom we would have already forgotten, had it not been for his daughter’s wedding. After he completes the task of taking over the leadership of the party, he naturally thinks that he should be awarded for a job well done. He revives his long-held dream of becoming Prime Minister after already being almost everything else.
So, the alternative to Janša is not the leader of the largest opposition party – which would not make much sense anyway, even in Slovenia, as he was the one who actually resigned – and not the leader of the SD party, who is supposed to be the left-wing opinion leader, nor the leader of the mighty youths of the Levica party. Interestingly, none of the three even recognize themselves as the alternatives to Janez Janša.
Is it a lack of self-confidence, even in the comfortable media environment, just waiting to nicely receive anyone that would take this place? Comfortability, then, or perhaps even the belief that there is no need to offer real alternatives, that there is no need to work hard in a job that is not even paid all that well, which is what the Prime Minister and the other members of the government are currently doing. In our country, the left is already an alternative in itself – simply by being. And it is also the only real alternative.
The proposed Prime Minister simply as a tool to overthrow the current government, in order to restore the normal state of being with a new left-wing government
They see the role of the Prime Minister primarily as a tool for demolition; this tool can be J. P. Damijan one day, and Karl Erjavec the next, it does not really matter. In this sense, I even agree with Karl Erjavec: why would he be satisfied with only bringing down the former president of the DeSUS party, Aleksandra Pivec, and consequently the Janša’s government; why would he not also be the Prime Minister then, if none of the elected leaders of the other parties dare or want to be the Prime Minister, or if they do not even particularly care about the role in question? After all, no one on the left has ever made a particular effort to be the Prime Minister in the past. Yes, they tried to win, they tried and worked towards becoming the MPs, they tried for their positions, for the possibility of distributing the annuities, but they never tried for concrete responsibility, because it brings very little added value.
Our left does, therefore, not perceive itself as an alternative, in terms of actual people taking on actual state roles; who loudly and clearly announce what they stand for and what they would do differently – not even where they could perhaps actually do something better than Janša and his people. For the Slovenian left, it is merely inadmissible, inconceivable, that there should be people in these roles, who are not left-wing, no matter who they are. It is simply necessary to continue the illusion, the sick belief that only the left can lead the country.
Only the left, wherever it is leading the country. The vote of no confidence is not even trying to state where it would take Slovenia. As long as it is away from Janša, away from those it considers to be permanently and inherently not only incapable but also unworthy of performing the tasks of running the country.
The government being left-wing as part of the dogma that the public is not appalled by
In an environment like this, even 42 signatures are enough: enough in the sense of believing that the only right way is to the left; It is, so to speak, practically a religious dogma – for there, in the realm of the religious, you do not need the logic of the majority, but the logic of Truth. The demonization of the right, even the centre-right, is a natural part of this.
And Slovenian journalism constantly affirms this migration of the religious into politics. They do not ask Erjavec or the other members of the Constitutional Arch Coalition (Koalicija ustavnega loka – referred to as KUL) what would actually change, what is the alternative to the current government. (It was MP Simonovič who noticed that there was something wrong with Erjavec’s logic, and not the penetrating, lucid pens of the Slovenian journalists.) Our journalists and commentators are not disgusted by the unconstitutional pressuring of the DeSUS and SMC MPs, nor by the shameless public debating of how much will a vote from the MP cost the Erjavec government; none of this is obscene, none of it is too low for the high leftist standards of politics. The Commission for the Prevention of Corruption is staying quiet when there is public speculation that the issue of an MP’s illegal construction could be resolved favourably, nor does it initiate an investigation at the first sign of a possible breach of integrity.
Forty-two votes are practically enough
Nobody asks the members of the KUL coalition why Erjavec and not Jože P. Damijan, all of a sudden. None of these questions are being asked by the Slovenian journalists (or any other independent institutions, institutions of the modern inquisitions of political correctness); however, these journalists follow the collection and counting of the MP votes with the devotion and patience of a mother chicken towards its chicks; they are waiting to see when there will be enough votes: if not today, then perhaps tomorrow. The independent Slovenian journalists have no doubts about the meaning of the counting of votes; on the contrary, they are helping Slovenia hold its breath by monitoring these extreme and selfless efforts of the members of the KUL coalition in trying to defeat the forces of darkness.
And there is more: the Slovenian journalists, in their unprofessional support for what is just a rather infamous act of one of the political options, are trying to convince the Slovenian public that 42 votes are practically enough and that the four missing votes are just insignificant, small obstacles that the partial, sectarian interests of certain individuals (as it was called not long ago) are trying to stand in the way of something that is inevitable and, in short, necessary.
Forty-two votes are a disease, but there is no vaccine yet
If Janša dared to do something similar, If his youth and the NGOs were somehow linked with the anonymous pasting of posters exposing disobedient MPs, the European Commissioners Vera Jourova and Didier Reynders would have already spoken up, concerned about the rule of law; Dunja Mijatović would have already written a letter from Strassbourg, because of her concern for the exposed, helpless Slovenian journalists; the Council of Europe platform would have already published its n-th publication against the gloomy Janša government, and the Association of the European journalists would write about the beautiful land below Triglav in dramatic tones. Just like what has already happened – with the abundant lobbying of the left-wing MEPs and the persecuted independent and professional journalists from Slovenia, and just like what is continuing to happen every time the Janša government tries to change any small thing.
But even all of this is not enough for more than 42 votes. However, it is enough for the country to not only stay in place but even to regress, for many years now. Forty-two votes are also enough to keep us in constant suspense again next week when we will wonder what will happen, while we should be dealing with something else. What was it again? Forty-two votes are also enough for another marathon performance piece of the Slovenian left in parliament. Forty-two votes have, for a very long time, been enough, more than enough. This is the great disease of Slovenia, the big corona, for which there is still no vaccine.