According to early polls, the ruling party of national conservative Janez Janša loses a majority in Slovenian elections. Robert Golob’s Liberation Movement Can Win Clear Victory
The newly founded liberation movement (Gibanje svoboda) won a landslide victory in Slovenian parliamentary elections. This is demonstrated by a post-election poll that was published by the TV channel RTV Slovenija on the Sunday night after the elections ended. Thus, the movement of former top manager Robert Golob reached almost 36% of the votes. Prime Minister Janez Janša’s conservative Democratic Party (SDS) finished in second place with less than 23 percent.
Immediately after the end of the election, the vice-president of the SDS, Aleš Hojs, admitted the defeat of the hitherto largest parliamentary party. “We have to congratulate the relative winner of the election,” Hojs said. “Apparently people have put their faith in a new face again,” he said, referring to the former head of Slovenia’s biggest energy supply company, Gen-I, Robert Golob, who only entered Slovenian politics in January. . His deputy Marta Kos was initially “surprised” by the result, which was not expected to be so clear.
Nothing came from the face to face race
Indeed, the most recent polls released ahead of election day showed a fierce contest between the freedom movement and the SDS. According to the post-election survey, only three other parties made it to parliament, namely the Christian Democratic Party “New Slovenia” (NSi), which previously co-ruled, with 6.6 percent, the Social Democrats with 6, 6 percent and the left with 4.4 percent.
As several other parties fell short of the 4% barrier, the freedom movement won 42 of the 90 seats in the new parliament. One coalition partner would suffice for an absolute majority. There has not been a bipartisan coalition in Slovenia since the mid-1990s. According to the post-election survey, the SDS has 26 seats, the NSi eight, the SD seven and the left five. To date, nine parties are represented in the Slovenian parliament. For example, the second strongest parliamentary party to date, the list of former prime minister Marjan Šarec (LMŠ), was expelled from parliament, as was the party of former liberal prime minister Alenka Bratušek (SAB) – so there will be be nothing with a mandate for former neo-neos deputy Angelika Mlinar, who ran on Bratušek’s list. The Konkretno party, which was the second strongest government party led by Deputy Prime Minister Zdravko Pocivalšek, also failed to keep her in parliament.
incident on election day
An incident on election day was caused by a group of crown deniers led by former army officer Ladislav Troha, who stormed the headquarters of the state electoral commission. According to media reports, the group, which calls itself “Conscious Residents of Slovenia”, said it wanted to monitor the work of the electoral commission on behalf of civil society. As she did not want to leave the building, the police were called. Troha is said to be infected with the corona virus, the media reported. The same group broke into the public television building last fall and had to be removed from the police news studio.
Four years ago, Janša’s SDS clearly became the strongest force, but was initially held out of power by a left-liberal coalition. He only made a comeback in early 2020. Since then he has polarized the media and the judiciary, which is why his opponents stylized the election as the fatal decision for Slovenian democracy and mobilized it massively. In fact, participation this year was significantly higher than in 2018.
(APA/dpa/Red.)