Robert Golob speaks to members and supporters of the freedom movement via video camera due to a corona infection.
(Photo: dpa)
Ljubljana Energy manager Robert Golob’s new liberal party has won the parliamentary elections in Slovenia – and more clearly than expected. The right-wing prime minister, Janez Jansa, will lose his post after just a little over two years. Golob’s Freedom Movement (GS) went from 98 percent of the votes cast to 34 percent and 40 of the 90 parliamentary seats on Sunday, according to the State Electoral Commission. Jansa’s SDS party got 24 percent of the voters behind it and won 28 seats.
Only three other parties, the conservative New Slovenia (NSi, 7 percent, 8 seats), the Social Democrats (SD, 7 percent, 8 seats) and the Left Party Levica (4 percent, 5 seats) also cleared the four percent hurdle, which is decisive for entry into Parliament. One seat in parliament is reserved for representatives of the Italian and Hungarian minorities.
With this distribution of mandates, Golob can form a majority with the Social Democrats. Jansa, on the other hand, together with the NSi, his traditional coalition partner, currently does not have a majority on his side. Voter turnout was 68 percent, higher than at any other election in Slovenia in 22 years.
Golob spent the election day in domestic isolation in his hometown of Nova Gorica due to a corona infection. In the evening, the 55-year-old addressed his supporters, who were celebrating the election victory in a club in the capital Ljubljana, via video link. “People really trust that we are the only ones capable of fulfilling the hope for change,” Golob said. First there is dancing, but on Monday a new day begins and with it the hard work.
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Janez Jansa acknowledges defeat
Jansa accepted the electoral defeat and declared that he wanted to appear with his party as the “state-supporting opposition”. The 63-year-old veteran of Slovenian politics is accused of suppressing media freedom and damaging the independent judiciary.
He was Prime Minister from 2004 to 2008 and from 2012 to 2013. He used government resources for the SDS election campaign. He repeatedly rudely attacks political opponents and journalists via the short message service Twitter. The police, controlled by his people, often hit peaceful demonstrators with legally questionable, sensitive fines.
Jansa, defense minister during the short Slovenian war of independence in the summer of 1991, is a close ally of right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Hungarian businessmen who depend on Orban have been financing SDS television stations, newspapers and online portals for years. Under Jansa, EU country Slovenia moved closer to the “illiberal” axis formed by the EU-sceptical governments in Budapest and Warsaw.
Jansa became prime minister again in early 2020 when the centre-left coalition formed in 2018 collapsed. MPs from two small parties defected to Jansa, so he was able to unite a wafer-thin majority with a right-wing coalition.
His challenger Golob studied electrical engineering and entered the electricity trade with his own start-up. Since 2006 and until recently, he was the general director of the state-owned electricity trading company Gen-I. At the end of last year, Jansa arranged for his contract not to be extended. Golob then took over a small Green Party and transformed it into the now victorious freedom movement.
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