Liberal candidate beats Prime Minister Jansa in Slovenian legislative

A liberal candidate new to politics won this Sunday in the legislative elections of Slovenia ahead of the controversial Prime Minister Janez Jansa, with 99% of the votes counted.

The Movement for Freedom (GS) of the candidate liberal Robert Golob, 55, got 34.5% of the vote, well ahead of the 23.6% won by the Democratic Party of Slovenia (SDS) of Jansa63 years old.

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“Our goal has been achieved: a victory that will allow us to return freedom a our country”, Golob declared Sunday night to his enthusiastic supporters.

“People want changes and have trusted us”, added Golob, a former executive in the solar energy sector, who had to stay at home due to covid-19.

At the headquarters of their formation, in the capital, Ljubljana, the result was greeted with applause and shouts of joy. “It’s a bit of a surprise.” reacted the vice president of the GS, Urska Klakocar Zupancic, extolling a victory “for democracy”.

Sunday’s result is an important defeat for Jansaomnipresent in Slovenian political life for three decades.

“It was a vote against Jansa” declared political analyst Miha Kovac. “against that Slovenia follow the path of Hungary, against the government controlling public television, against the control of the judicial apparatus”.

But he warned that the GS has no government experience, although it could ally itself with the more experienced Social Democrats, who reached 6.7% of the vote.

The outgoing leader, an admirer of former US President Donald Trump, said his administration laid a solid foundation for the next administration.

“The new government will face many challenges, but during our tenure we laid a solid foundation for peaceful shipping,” declared Jansa Sunday night.

“It is very easy to pay billboards, have the support of the press and the so-called civil society”he claimed. “But then you will have hard work and challenges will come.”

strong turnout

Slovenians went to the polls throughout the day to elect deputies, in elections held against a backdrop of civil society discontent with the government’s action, which has led to protests in recent months.

Turnout was 70% of the 1.7 million voters, up from 52% in the 2018 parliamentary election, according to the Election Commission.

“I don’t think the situation is that bad, but I have the feeling that democracy has been under assault for two years”commented after having voted Marija, a retiree who did not want to give her last name.

The controversial Janez Jansa has been criticized both in the streets of his country and in the European Union, accused of copying the authoritarian style of first Minister Hungarian, Viktor Orban.

Jansawho returned to power in March 2020, is accused of repeated violations of the rule of law by the European Commission, a which he describes as “overpaid bureaucrats.

During these two years, his government “has perpetrated repeated attacks against the rule of law and democratic institutions”, notes the influential US NGO Freedom House in its annual report published this week, citing “attacks” against the judiciary and the media.

Jansa deprived the national news agency STA of public funds for months, considering it too critical.

Slovenia, “once regarded as a model in Eastern Europe“, has seen “the increasingly curtailed freedoms”, analyst Valdo Miheljak pointed out.

After these two years, Robert Golob promised that if elected he would make Sloveniaa country of 2.1 million inhabitants, returns “a The normality”.

In addition to the forty seats that it seems to have secured, it should be able to associate itself with one or two center-left formations to achieve a majority in Parliament, of 90 deputies.

Source: Elcomercio

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