By: Janja Strah
On Wednesday, April 6th, 2022, Nova24TV journalist Luka Svetina published a photo of the president of the LMŠ party, who boasts that he may not have enough money for burek, but he has enough for a kebab. Svetina jokingly remarked that this was the reason why Šarec did not have time to take part in the pre-election confrontation on Planet TV, hosted by Valentina Plaskan and Svetina.
This disturbed Andrej Grandovec on Twitter, one of the opponents of the current government, who started insulting Svetina and then called on the Nova24TV journalist to ask, “his boss in the Government of the Republic of Slovenia when he will appear.”
Svetina thanked his interlocutor for the cue. The Nova24TV journalist said that on Tuesday, April 5th, he and Plaskan invited both Prime Minister Janez Janša and the president of the Gibanje Svoboda party, Robert Golob, to two one-on-one confrontations on Planet TV. According to Svetina, the Prime Minister agreed to both confrontations, while Golob rejected both.
The practice of party leaders not participating in confrontations in the media, which for one reason or another they perceive as hostile, dates back at least to 2018. Although such actions are not tied exclusively to the left, they are certainly more typical. The reason why there is less of it on the right is because the media space in Slovenia is still largely dominated by the left, which means that right-wing politicians do not have much choice. If they want to reach the widest possible circle of voters than they have to go to the proverbial wolf’s lair.
For example, Golob easily performs in pre-election confrontations on N1, TV Slovenia, and POP TV. However, he has a negative attitude towards confrontations on Planet TV in cooperation with Nova24TV. Years ago, Šarec behaved similarly. During his presidential campaign, he easily participated in confrontations on Nova24TV, but later, when he entered parliamentary waters, he had to demonstrate his ideological integrity to the left-wing electorate.