By: Sara Kovač / Nova24tv
In these days we mark 33 years since the Social Democratic Union of Slovenia, one of the predecessors of the Slovenian Democratic Party, was founded at Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana.
In the first months of 1989, the first opposition alliances began to form in Slovenia, which were completely foreign to the Yugoslav totalitarian system, as it did not allow any independent political movement in accordance with its orientation. More than a month after the founding of the Slovenian Democratic Union, the founding congress of the Social Democratic Union of Slovenia took place on February 16th, 1989, in Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana. Its first president was France Tomšič, who in December 1987 led a strike of workers in Litostroj. At the third election-programme conference of the SDZS in November 1989, Tomšič was replaced by Dr Jože Pučnik, and at the party’s third congress in May 1993, Janez Janša became its president.
The Social Democratic Union of Slovenia, the current Slovenian Democratic Party, was born out of the hope of the Slovenian Spring. It grew out of the suffering and courage of Dr Jože Pučnik and France Tomšič, as well as many Slovenian patriots and democrats, who have maintained a healthy democratic thought and at the same time faith in the possibility of a democratic and independent Slovenia through the lead years, at home, abroad, and around the world. The first president of SDZS France Tomšič presented the main programme points at the founding assembly on this day in 1989 in the packed Gallus Hall of Cankarjev dom, based on the programme statement from January 1989, in which they demanded a sovereign Slovenian state, democratic electoral system and parliamentary democracy, freedom and rights of the individual, freedom of political association, freedom of speech and press, re-establishment of labour, market economy, modern agricultural development, Slovenia’s independence in shaping economic system and economic policy, trade union autonomy, European Community membership, open borders, subordination of the army to democratically elected authorities. At the end of his speech, Tomšič also said: “Our first and most important task will be to work out a proposal for a new Slovenian constitution together with other democratic socio-political organisations. In it, special emphasis must be placed on the Declaration of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms… Above all, the new constitution must ensure the sovereignty of Slovenia, which will never again give the possibility of imprisoning Slovenian citizens at the request of a quasi-command post in Belgrade or elsewhere, whether it is hidden under the name KOS or military courts.”
At the founding assembly of the SDZS, Dr Jože Pučnik also spoke. He emphasised in his address that the change of power in a democracy does not happen through concession, but through democratic elections. Therefore, in Pučnik’s opinion, everything necessary for the conduct of democratic elections had to be done: to remove obstacles in political organisation, to radically change the electoral order, and so on. Jože Pučnik concluded his address by saying that the SDZS, together with other democratic forces, will strive for such changes so that totalitarianism will never happen again.
In the 1980s, a decade of tectonic shifts on the world political map, Slovenia faced two political and cultural worlds: one based on a dysfunctional communism, being trapped in an unpromising Yugoslav framework, violence by the repressive apparatus, violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms. On the other hand, the world of freedom, democracy and independence was born and strengthened. Civil society was revived and mass debates on human rights and freedoms and political pluralism took place.
In 1989, civil society was already well developed, and after many decades of totalitarian repression of free association, the first independent political organisations began to emerge, including the Social Democratic Union of Slovenia and the Slovene Democratic Union, the predecessors of the Slovene Democratic Party. SDS today is not only legal, i.e., a formal successor to the former SDZ and SDZS, but also actually draws life juice from both roots, from both traditions, giving it a special breadth. Without it, it is difficult to imagine the beginning of democratisation at the end of the 1980s and the Slovenian independence process. In all 33 years of its existence, the SDS worked first to create the Slovene state, later to preserve it because it was endangered, and then all the decades to make the Slovene state what we voted for in the historical plebiscite in 1990. The SDS never betrayed its original principles, never trampled on its own programme and the principles of parliamentary democracy, and never refused to cooperate. We created the conditions for alleviating the edges of the Slovene schism and putting the welfare of the homeland before our own interests. We have always fought for truth, equality, and equal opportunities for all, and strongly opposed the divisions into first and second class. We have grown into the pillar power of the Slovene nation and the political force of Slovene independence.