You’re so fine you blow my mind
Slovenian One Election Wonders
Slovenian PM Miro Cerar after announcing his resignation (AFP)
I often get reminded, mostly unintentionally, about musical artists that became famous for that very famous song and that afterwards they disappear. In the music industry, it is blatantly called a one-hit wonder. Whether you remember the notorious dance of Macarena, Las Ketchup girls (even our old History teacher knew them) or any other artist that comes to your mind. However, at the end of the day, we rely on established artists that joy us with their new material, but also tend to disappoint us with some new stuff that is not that good anymore. For diplomatic matters, I won’t name anyone.
In the world of our beloved politics, we are typically used to established parties dominating the political scene throughout Europe. However, with the election of Emmanuel Macron in France, populist gains in Italy, and the recent voting fragmentations in the Netherlands and Germany, we are now following debates on the future of EU politics and trying to figure out whether these new movements, protest parties or new parties per se are here to stay. However, if one EU country pioneered this protest voting and searching for new solutions, that is Slovenia.
Slovenia was even in the 1980s known as the most rebellious ex-Yugoslav republic, fostering many artistic, cultural and activist movements that came to question the current political system which was slowly falling apart and ended up in blood. This spirit was continued throughout the 1990s, when Slovenian citizens initially supported the anti-communist democratic opposition, but then continued on to vote for the anti-nationalist Liberal Democrats of Slovenia (LDS), a party that came out from the youth organization of the Slovenian communists, which often refused the obedience and carried a distinctive dissident tone.
However, by 2008, the Slovenian citizens mostly had enough of the Liberal Democrats and decided to support a splinter party called Zares. The Zares party came in third and was the kingmaker that brought the center-left coalition into power. The Liberal Democrats were also part of that coalition, but barely managed to pass the low Slovenian threshold of 4 percent. After the strong showing at the 2008 elections, everything went bad for Zares. The economic crisis, mishandling of the country and various scandals, led the party to quickly lose support. In the 2011 elections, this fresh breath of liberalism was declared clinically dead. Nowadays, I didn’t even bother to check if they still have their party website online.
The 2011 Slovenian parliamentary elections brought hectic changes to their political landscape, as the previously mentioned Liberal Democrats of Slovenia (LDS) managed to get kicked out of the parliament, after a slow and painful decline. Zares ended up with less than 1 percent, while the election winner was the party founded only months before the elections, Positive Slovenia (PS), led by popular (and populist) Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković. His platform gathered former Liberal Democrat voters, as well as gaining significantly on the left, taking votes from the Social Democrats.
Nevertheless, the kingmaker was the Macron before Macron, former Public Administration Minister Gregor Virant, running his list on a pro-reform, centrist course, which came in fourth. To cut the story short, both Positive Slovenia and Gregor Virant’s Civic List ended up as extra parliamentary parties after the 2014 elections. Quite interesting, right?
Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Jankovic (RTV Slovenija)
The 2014 Slovenian parliamentary elections brought the Slovene citizens another Messiah, university professor Miro Cerar and his newly-formed SMC party, which managed to achieve a convincing victory and form a coalition government. However, the government has since been under heavy attack, both from the opposition and within the inner circles, especially with the overly ambitions of certain members of the government. With Slovenian internal problems, and the current pressure of the Slovenian Supreme Court ruling out a referendum on a key railway project, Miro Cerar decided to resign ahead of the new elections, despite the economy doing better than it was when he was taking over the office.
Now, we are heading for third snap elections in Slovenia’s history, which should take place in May. The opinion poll favorites to grab the victory is the Marjan Šarec List. Marjan Šarec became locally known as being a journalist and a comedian, while becoming a Mayor of the small Slovenian town Kamnik. However, he gained true political prominence in Slovenia by ending up 2nd in the recent Slovenian presidential elections, forcing the popular President Borut Pahor into the 2nd round, which Šarec narrowly lost. He represents the same pool of voters that the Liberal Democrats once had but can also attract many young voters dissatisfied with the establishment. Not a bad formula to succeed. With all this in mind, the upcoming Parliamentary elections in Slovenia will be very interesting to follow, with yet another fresh movement/party competing for victory.
How to explain this Slovenian phenomenon? Slovenian Christian democrat MEP Lojze Peterle commented in a recent interview that former Liberal Democrat voters are endlessly searching for their solution and are now turning to Šarec, while the right stays more disciplined with their eternal leader Janez Janša. My leftist friend from the Slovenian academia says that the citizens just want to try out something new, but in the end, it is the same old thing, the system that needs to be changed. Whether these perspectives are true or false, it remains to be seen. One can suppose that usually the truth lies somewhere in the middle. At least in Slovenian politics.