It was a month and a day ago that Robert Golob and his Gibanje Svoboda (Movement for Freedom) party won the parliamentary elections in Slovenia – by a huge margin. The career move, which had just shaped its own list with a liberal-green image a few weeks earlier, managed to unite votes from the center-left camp on Election Day in late April. The central message of the election campaign was: Janez Jansa has to go. In return, individual small parties even accepted their own demise – although calculus was apparently behind it, as is now evident. But more on that later.
Since late April, people have been waiting just when Golob would formally replace Jansa as prime minister. Finally on Wednesday the time came. After several hours of heated debates, he was elected with 54 out of 90 deputy votes in parliament. He immediately took the oath of office.
Its government team still has to pass the parliamentary hearings provided for in the Slovenian Constitution in the coming days and can only be officially formed gradually.
Where does Golob want to direct the country? “For a better future, because that’s what our voters expect. And from her too,” he said, looking in the direction of deputies from Jansa’s SDS party, who now form the core of the opposition.
While the goal is predetermined, the path is much less. Because far more than a complaint about the conditions of the political caste – to which the former energy sector manager now also belongs – and the promise to work “four years and, if necessary, twice four years” for the country, over Golob’s speech to Parliament is not available.
The coalition of Golob’s party, the Social Democrats and the Left Party have already communicated a focus on content that is easier to market. Slovenia will have a ministry for a future based on solidarity. Left-wing chief Luka Mesec should focus on housing, economic democracy and intergenerational solidarity in this department. Internal critics on the left call it occupational therapy. Because with the future department, there is no more space to take care of the other left agendas, which are much more comprehensive, for example, in matters of disarmament.
Two other names on Golob’s list of ministers are also worth mentioning: Alenka Bratusek and Marjan Sarec. She was prime minister for a year in 2013 and will now be minister of infrastructure, he was prime minister for two years from 2018 and is now taking over the defense portfolio. In the April elections, the parties named after them went completely bankrupt and failed to get into parliament – but apparently that was enough for their own political survival. And the parties? They should be merged with Golobs Gobanje Svoboda in June. The neo-prime minister’s calculus behind it: In the upcoming local elections, local structures are needed to even dare to run against Jansa’s SDS – one of the few constants in domestic politics. You get them through fusion.
The fact that with this step the formation of camps in Slovenia is becoming even clearer was also shown in the parliamentary speeches. “Golob refused to speak to us from the beginning, where I come from, by the sea, this is called fascism,” complained Jelka Godec, leader of the parliamentary group SDS.
On the first day of Golob’s term, it also became clear that there would hardly be any changes worth mentioning on the issues of Slovenian domestic politics that are important from the Austrian point of view – the minority issue and the insistence on nuclear energy. Although there is a climate protection ministry that should promote an energy transition, it is not clear in which direction it should go and what room for maneuver it will have in view of rising energy prices. A referendum on the question of expanding the Krsko nuclear power plant has been announced, but there will hardly be votes to refuse nuclear power.
Also on the minority issue – Hungarians and Italians are recognized as minorities in Slovenia, the group of Lower Styrians and Gottscheers are called Slovenes who only speak a different language – no movement is expected.