By: Nova24tv.si
At the press conference, Janez Janša announced that the party will legally challenge the results of early voting at the illegal polling stations. The relevant law is explicit and does not allow the merging of electoral districts into a single location. There are 26 illegal polling stations, with an estimated 14 of them located in the Stožice complex.
“Voting at illegal polling stations during next week’s early elections is unlawful. These votes will not be cast in accordance with the law, and the results of early voting at illegal polling stations must not be counted in the overall result of this election. We will use all legal means to ensure that this is the case,” said the SDS president.
At the press conference in Ljubljana, where he and NSi president Jernej Vrtovec presented their view of the election campaign and current political developments, Janša emphasised that the law clearly states that early voting must be organised at a polling station within each individual electoral district.
SDS has therefore already submitted an objection to the National Electoral Commission regarding the designation of special polling stations for early voting. They warn that merging several electoral districts into a single location and designating polling stations outside the boundaries of individual districts constitutes a deviation from legal provisions, STA reports.
On Thursday, the National Electoral Commission announced that they do not consider the SDS letter a formal objection under the law on parliamentary elections. At the same time, they maintain that merging polling stations is not contrary to the law.
“Ljubljana poses a particular problem for several reasons. First, the Ljubljana electoral districts are not only the city, they also include the surrounding areas. Imagine someone from Velike Lašče or Ig having to go to Stožice for early voting. Their voting right is treated differently from that of someone living in Ljubljana behind Bežigrad. The second problem is the security of the cast vote. During early voting, despite numerous recent requests, ballots are not counted daily. No record is made of the early voting results; everything is counted only on Sunday,” Janša said, adding that the security of the ballots themselves is also problematic, as they will be guarded in Stožice by the security service of Zoran Janković. According to him, under such circumstances it is not difficult to replace ballot boxes.
Janša also pointed to what he called the cynical excuses of the National Electoral Commission, which claims there is a lack of space. “In Ljubljana, within the area of these fourteen electoral districts, there are hundreds of state offices and meeting rooms, including on ground floors, so they are accessible to people with disabilities,” he said.
SDS therefore announces further legal steps to verify the legality of the organisation of early voting and to ensure equal exercise of voting rights for all voters.
Together with Vrtovec, he went on to say that the recently published recordings revealed that the state has been hijacked. The state must be “taken back,” Vrtovec urged. They highlighted the claims in the recordings regarding control over the state‑owned company Gen‑I, which, according to Janša, withheld the payment of profits to the state budget in the amount of at least 64 million euros, money with which, he said, “someone created not a golden parachute, but a golden bank, in case they are not re‑elected.”
Janša expressed confidence that “change will come on March 22,” but stressed that it must be strong enough to form the foundation of the next government with an absolute majority and with MPs from SDS, NSi, Fokus, and SLS.
