Weekly Briefing, Vol. 2, No. 1 (SL), December 2017
Political developments in Slovenia in 2017
Briefing on the most important political developments in Slovenia in 2017
In 2017 Slovenian political sphere was marked by several important events and developments. Domestic politics was mostly marked by the fact that 2017 was the year of presidential elections and a year leading to the scheduled 2018 parliamentary elections. Within both frameworks there was a lot of new development within and between political parties. There were also events outside the domestic politics, in economy and investment that greatly influenced the dynamics on the political stage, such as the heated debate on the Magna company project in Hoče and the referendum about the law on the second railway track Divača-Koper. Generally speaking, the political dynamics could be seen on two different levels: (1) between the existing political parties and within them, and (2) outside the sphere of parliamentary parties, where other factions and groups are organizing before the 2018 elections.
1) Dynamics within and between the existing political parties
Domestic politics in 2017 was marked by structural dynamics within the leading political party, between the government parties and between the government and the opposition. There was also some profiling evident between the right-wing parties of the opposition, all that being doubtlessly additionally motivated by the upcoming 2018 parliamentary elections. For the leading political party, Modern Centre Party (SMC) the year began with a split at the top of the party structure, namely, a disagreement between its president and Prime Minister, Miro Cerar, and vice-president and President of the Parliament, Milan Brglez. The dispute began during the preparation of the Law on Foreigners, where Brglez opposed the fairly conservative immigration regulations proposed by the government. Initially Cerar called for the Brglez resignation from the position of the vice-president, but they resolved the dispute before the SMC party congress in February. The disagreement still lead many to speculation what will be the position and perspectives for this political party to try to keep some political power in the 2018 elections. The dynamics between the government and the opposition had at times also revealed some cracks within the government coalition. In September, SDS called for an interpellation in the parliament against the Minister of Health, Milojka Kolar Celarc, for not being successful in putting forward the promised reform of the national health care system. The vote of confidence took place on September 14 with 23 votes supporting the motion of no confidence and 42 against, thus the interpellation failed. It was, however, rather surprising that not only the opposition members of parliament supported the motion of no confidence, but also several members of the government parties did not give a supporting vote for the Minister Kolar Celarc and presented critical arguments against the Minister in the parliament debate. The second interpellation was an expression of a more straightforward conflict between the Minister of Justice, Goran Klemenčič, and the leader of the main opposition party (Slovenian Democratic Party, SDS), Janez Janša. Their disagreement dates back to 2012/13 when Klemenčič, at the time representing the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption of the Republic of Slovenia as its president, issued the Investigation Report on the parliamentary parties’ leader. The 2013 report revealed that Janez Janša, who was Prime Minister at the time, and Zoran Janković, leader of an opposition party, violated the law by failing to properly report the source of their assets. This report, which was later disputed by both political leaders and eventually abolished due to procedural reasons, led to the public demonstrations and the fall of Janša government. The 2017 interpellation was mostly directed at Klemenčič’s role as the president of the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, allegedly failing to take measures against dubious activities in the New Bank of Ljubljana (NLB) in 2011, related to a large transaction being made by an Iranian bank through NLB. The vote of confidence on November 17 kept Klemenčič as minister with 18 for his resignation and 47 in his support. There was also a series of shifts in the main opposition party SDS, with several prominent members leaving the party, mostly for disagreements with the policies of the party president Janša (most notably Vera Ban, MP Andrej Čuš and the former minister Dragutin Mate).
2) The newly formed political movements in the light of the 2018 elections
Currently, the opinion polls (source: Delo) show an interesting dynamic. For the last two years, the support for the leading government party, the Modern Centre Party (SMC) of Prime Minister Miro Cerar, has been very low, around 10%, which was a sharp contrast to the high result of almost 35% in the 2014 elections. In 2016 the party with the best poll result was the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) of Janez Janša, getting the support over 12% of respondents. The situation, however, has recently started to change. Especially after the second track referendum success in September this year the support for SMC started to pick up slowly, getting almost 12% in October this year. The political party that performed best in the recent polls is the Social Democrats party (SD). Its support has been around 10%, but grew to overtake SDS and was already more than 16% in October, with SDS dropping down from 18% down to 15% in a month. It is difficult to say whether this was a reaction to the presidential elections, where the winner – although allegedly independent candidate – Borut Pahor, had the support of SD, the political party he was a long-term president of.
But another phenomenon is taking place, fairly typical for the pre-election period. Around 30% of the respondents would either vote for “another political party” (nine most prominent were the option), for “none of the listed parties”, “doesn’t intend to vote” or “doesn’t know yet”. With the turnout of around 50% at the last parliamentary elections, the remainder of the undecided respondents presents a big space of opportunity for the new political parties and movements. The success of the newly established political parties on the parliamentary elections is already almost proverbial. The last two parliamentary elections were won by newly established political parties, which previously had no experience with state politics. Before 2011 elections, two political parties were established. The liberal party called Civic List (DL) of Gregor Virant was established on October 21, a little bit more than a month before the December 4 elections and a day later Zoran Janković, the mayor of Ljubljana at the time (and today) established his Positive Slovenia (PS). Both were successful in parliamentary elections, DL getting more than 8% and Positive Slovenia surprisingly more than 28,51%. The polls predicted the victory of SDS, which came in second with 2% difference. Although Janković could not successfully construct the government, which led to a right-central government of Janša (SDS+DL, DeSUS, SLS), the pattern repeated itself in the next elections. Before 2014 elections, again a new political party was formed, advocating primarily the fight against corruption and the establishment of the rule of law. It was led by a well-known law expert, Miro Cerar Jr., son of Miro Cerar Sr., a famous sportsman and Olympic gold medalist. His party, similarly established a month and a half before the 2014 elections, won with a very high result, getting 34,49% of votes. This phenomenon, dubbed in media as »The New Faces Party«, partly repeated in the 2017 presidential elections. The second most successful candidate, Marjan Šarec, came from a background of a politically unknown mayor of a small town near Ljubljana, but still came second with only few % difference after Borut Pahor.
When asked about his plans after the second-round loss, Šarec hinted at his plans for shifting from the realm of the local politics to the state level and there were substantiated speculations about his participation in the parliamentary elections 2018. Several other new political parties will also compete, all together at least six new political movements:
- Marjan Šarec List (mentioned above)
- Ultra-conservative catholic party Voice for Children and Families (GOD) was established in March by Aleš Primc, Metka Zevnik and Angelca Likovič
- former SMC member of parliament Bojan Dobovšek established Good state party (Dobra država) in November
- ultra-right presidential candidate Andrej Šiško announced his participation with his movement United Slovenia (ZS)
- former SDS member of parliament Andrej Čuš united with a few (right wing) environmental movements to form his candidate list for elections
- The split in Slovenian People’s Party (SLS) resulted in the establishment of centre-right New People’s Party (NLS), led by a former mayor of Maribor, Franc Kangler