By: Sara Kovač
We have received a draft of the no confidence vote proposal in our editorial office, which will be submitted to the National Assembly by the parliamentary groups united in KUL, i.e. the parliamentary groups of the SD, LMŠ, SAB and Levica parties. The written text is somewhere at the level of a primary school student or some marginal beauty contest, while reading it is impossible to get rid of the feeling that they will suddenly mention Karl Erjavec’s fight for love, peace and prosperity of all nations in the world. After today’s meeting with KUL parties, Karl Erjavec announced that on January 15th they will file a constructive vote of no confidence, which they had planned to file last year.
At the beginning of the draft of no confidence vote proposal, it is written that the undersigned MPs submit a no confidence vote proposal to the Government of the Republic of Slovenia, and propose that the National Assembly elects Karl Viktor Erjavec as Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia. With the election of Erjavec as Prime Minister, a vote of no confidence would be voted in the current government on the basis of the first paragraph of Article 116 of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, and the current Prime Minister Janez Janša would be dismissed. If we were to summarise the whole document quickly, we would easily claim that they are blaming the government for what they have cooked up themselves. Among other things, they blame the government for the epidemic, even though it was the opposition and media that caused such a situation, by opposing the measures. In addition, there are not serious analyses of violations of constitutional principles, and the foreign policy position has strengthened by a few light years compared to the previous ones.
The continuation of the document also states the reasons why Janez Janša should be dismissed as Prime Minister. According to the authors of the record, Janša does not enjoy the trust of the citizens of the Republic of Slovenia because the government under his leadership could not effectively deal with the covid-19 epidemic and brought Slovenia to the top of the tragic world scale of deaths per million inhabitants. The second mentioned reason is that since taking the power in March 2020, he has systematically violated the basic principles of the constitutional system, such as the separation of powers, respect for independent institutions, and freedom of media. It is additionally written that Janša has fundamentally endangered Slovenia’s foreign policy position in the EU, the North Atlantic Alliance, and the international community with reckless moves.
In the draft of the no confidence vote proposal, they also wrote that its proponents proceed from the intention to ensure more effective, consistent and professionally supported fight with the epidemic, the inviolability of the principle of separation of powers as well as the unambiguity and invariability of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, effective fight against poverty, inequality, social exclusion and ensuring proper age, strengthening the independence of institutions that are key to the transparent functioning of the state and public media, NGOs and civil society, stable and regular jobs with higher added value, predictable business environment with financial incentives, the return of the current profession to key state institutions and tackling corruption in the supreme power, investing in the quality and accessibility of public health, education and long-term care systems, and moving away from leaving the implementation to the free market, stable increased investment in science and culture and stopping pointless investments in armaments, systematic solutions for Slovenia’s full compatibility with EU green arrangements and a digital transformation, etc., reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in line with the objective of the Paris Climate Agreement, etc.
“And we would restore hope and trust that the government must not only know how to help citizens to survive, but also provide conditions for us to live better together, we, the undersigned propose that the National Assembly passes a vote of no confidence in the current government by electing Karl Erjavec as new Prime Minister,” they added at the end of their list.
The draft of no confidence vote proposal also serves to answer the question of why Erjavec is a suitable candidate for prime minister. In addition to his CV (in which, for example, they kept silent that he was not elected as an MP in the last parliamentary elections, as well as the fact that he still receives compensation after leaving office), they highlighted the fact that Karl Erjavec as the newly elected president of DeSUS party immediately politically defined the controversial activities of the government led by Janez Janša and adopted key values and programme starting points that united four opposition parties in the Coalition of the Constitutional Arch (KUL) that joined four opposition parties in the KUL on the initiative of Jože P. Damijan. With his support and joining the DeSUS initiative, the deepened political and programmatic cooperation of the opposition and its united appearance could continue and reach out to the parties of the ruling coalition, which is an essential requirement for the success of constructive vote of no confidence. “With his political, professional, and international experiences, Karl Viktor Erjavec is a person who has all the necessary knowledge and skills to lead the government in this difficult period awaiting Slovenia,” they claimed in the document.
According to the table, the following MPs are expected to sign the draft of the no-confidence vote proposal: Brane Golubović, Lidija Divjak Mirnik, Tina Heferle, Jerca Korče, Aljaž Kovačič, Jože Lenart, Rudi Medved, Jani Moderndorfer, Edvard Paulič, Robert Pavšič, Igor Peček, Nik Prebil, Marjan Šarec, Andreja Zabret, Matjaž Han, Predrag Baković, Samo Bevk, Meira Hot, Soniboj Knežak, Marko Koprivc, Bojana Muršič, Matjaž Nemec, Jani Prednik, Franc Terček, Dejan Židan, Gregor Židan, Matej Vatovec Tašner, Željko Cigler, Boštjan Koražija, Miha Kordiš, Luka Mesec, Primož Siter, Nataša Sukič, Violeta Tomič, Maša Kociper, Marko Bandelli, Franc Kramar, Andrej Rajh, Vojko Starović, Franc Jurša, Ivan Hršak, Jurij Lep and Branko Simonovič. Whether the aforementioned have already contributed their signatures is not yet known at this time.
All together is written very generally and there is probably no political party, coalition or opposition politician who would disagree with what was written. However, it is a matter of political interpretation of how an individual party or group then understands what is written. “Who does not strictly stand for the rule of law? When we come to a very concrete case from abstraction, let’s say to the afternoon gainful activity of a high-ranking state official without the legally necessary written consent of the CPC, these high principle, which they wholeheartedly supported just a second ago, often smoothly fail,” commented a political scientist Miro Haček.