Robert Golob, during the primary election convention in Ljubljana, March 19, 2022. JURE MAKOVEC / AFP
Robert Golob, a liberal newcomer to politics, won Slovenia’s general election on Sunday April 24, well ahead of controversial Prime Minister Janez Jansa.
After counting 99% of the votes, Mr. Golob’s movement, Freedom (GS), is credited with 34.5% of the votes, versus 23.6% for the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) of Janez Jansa, 63 years old.
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Mr Golob, a 55-year-old ex-solar energy entrepreneur, was tied head-to-head this week, even by a slight margin, but no estimate had predicted such a gap between the two candidates.
“People want change and have trusted us,” said the winner from his home, where he had isolated himself because of an infection with SARS-CoV-2. At his headquarters in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, the speech was greeted with applause and cheers.
“It’s a little surprise,” GS Vice President Urska Klakocar Zupancic reacted to the press and celebrated a victory for “democracy”. In the opposing camp, Interior Minister Ales Hojs said he would rather wait for “the official count of the results”.
Government measures challenged
Voters flocked to the polls throughout the day to elect their MPs in this country of 2 million people during this single-round election amid a civil society revolt against government measures that have been challenged by months of demonstrations.
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“These are the most important elections since the independence” of this nation from the former Yugoslavia in 1991, asserted Jansa Jenull, one of the leaders of the protest movement.
According to the electoral commission, turnout at 4 p.m. was 49.3 percent, almost 15 points more than in the same year 2018 (34.4 percent). Pre-elections must be added to these ballots.
The government “has repeatedly carried out attacks on the rule of law and democratic institutions,” noted the American NGO Freedom House in its annual report published this week, citing “attacks” on the judiciary and the media.
The alleged admirer of former US President Donald Trump and ally of the Hungarian ultra-conservative Viktor Orban, Janez Jansa, withdrew public funds for months, which the state news agency STA deemed too critical. In the face of warnings from the European Commission, he lashed out at “overpaid bureaucrats” and multiplied gun passes with Brussels while ignoring the revolt of the streets.
Return to “normal”
Questioned by Agence France-Presse, Uros Esih, a political commentator for the major daily Delo, sees this election as “a struggle between liberal and illiberal forces”.
According to analyst Valdo Miheljak, the small Alpine state, “formerly perceived as a role model in Eastern Europe”, has become “one of the biggest troublemakers with restricted freedoms”.
For his part, Mr. Golob promised to return to “normality”. In addition to the 26 seats he believes are secure, he can count on support from several centre-left parties to secure a majority in the 90-seat parliament.
Slovenian Prime Minister and President of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), Janez Jansa, and his wife Urska, in Arnace, April 24, 2022. JURE MAKOVEC / AFP
If the results are confirmed, it would be a bitter defeat for Janez Jansa. By Sunday morning’s vote on the yellow and blue tie in the colors of Ukraine, he had expressed his desire to “continue on the path taken since March 2020”, the date of his return to government after two terms in the past.
While the recent election campaign in neighboring Hungary was dominated by the war in Ukraine, it has not affected debates in Slovenia, where all parties agree to support Kyiv.
Mr Jansa, a staunch anti-Russian, traveled there with his Polish and Czech colleagues in mid-March, the first visit by foreign leaders to the besieged Ukrainian capital.