By: Sara Bertoncelj / Nova24tv
Marta Kos withdraws from the candidacy for president of the republic. The Svoboda Gibanje party sent her explanation, in which she stated that she was resigning due to changed circumstances for personal reasons. But in the party, it is possible to hear several reasons for her resignation from the candidacy – one of them is that public opinion polls showed her a bad result. Whatever the reasons, one thing is clear. It is Robert Golob’s first major political defeat.
“Due to the changed circumstances, for personal reasons, I am withdrawing from the election race for the President of the Republic of Slovenia,” announced Kos, for whom only 11.4 percent of the respondents would vote according to the latest Mediana poll, which is anything but the good result that would be expected in Gibanje Svoboda party. In the party, as a reason for withdrawing from the candidacy, it is also possible to hear a large fragmentation of votes on the left centre, which could at least in the first round of elections bring the largest number of votes to Anže Logar from the ranks of the SDS, reported N1. According to the information of this portal, Kos also received criticism from within the party that she did not start the campaign well and that she went on a long vacation right after announcing her candidacy for president of the republic. The president of the party, Robert Golob, was said to be less and less enthusiastic about her candidacy, they also wrote.
“Resigning from the candidacy is out of the question, because all the reasons that led me to the decision for it are still there: whether it is the enthusiasm of the progressive Gibanje Svoboda party or the support from all over Slovenia,” Kos commented for Delo newspaper in June, when they asked her about the possibility of resigning – but now she has obviously changed her mind. The former president Milan Kučan reacted rather harshly to Kos’ candidacy, who otherwise supported the candidacy of Nataša Pirc Musar. He described Kos’ candidacy as systemically unacceptable, because with her victory, three key positions in the country would be occupied by three leading members of the same party. “This is questionable from the point of view of the principle of separation of powers,” assessed Kučan, and Kos then commented that she felt the abuse of the president’s legitimate concern was a deliberate attempt to eliminate her from the race before it had even begun.
Political card shuffling
The resignation of the presidential candidate also changes the dynamics of the presidential elections. The voters of the hard left, who gathered around Kos, will now most likely migrate to Nataša Pirc Musar, whom Gibanje Svoboda party will almost certainly support, as it has already cooperated with her in the past as the legal representative of the intolerant Faila Pašić.
