Il premier sloveno Robert Golob © Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock
According to the election promises, it looked like he was going to turn the country inside out. However, in a year of government, Prime Minister Robert Golob and his ministers have done very little, indeed some say they have done nothing at all
One year ago, Slovenia celebrated the victory of Robert Golob and the newly established Freedom Movement. Yet another new face in national politics had achieved an astonishing result: never before had anyone managed to win so many seats in parliament. The purpose was to turn the country upside down and above all to definitively end the Janša era. Precisely for this reason the new executive was formed in a very short time. The Social Democrats of Tanja Fajon and the (radical) Left of Luka Mesec are also part of the centre-left coalition. Both parties had come out with broken bones from the electoral round, crushed by the success of Golob and his men. In the end, a comfortable majority emerged, which if necessary can also count on the votes of the two deputies from the Italian and Hungarian minority, always ready to rush to the rescue of the winners. Only two other political formations in parliament: the Christian Democrats of New Slovenia and the Democrats of Janez Janša. Five parties in all. There have never been so few who have managed to pass the 4% threshold.
As a tradition, before each political round, the “antijanšists” fish out a new face to rely on to defeat the center-right. Not a character and a team with proven experience, but simply a more or less credible banner on which to convey the votes of that majority of the country that really doesn’t want to know about leaving Slovenia in the hands of Janez Janša. Also this time the center-left has shown that it wants to be faithful to its tradition and this time too the usual group of amateurs in jeopardy has arrived in command. It thus happens that the ministerial seats and also the seats in parliament are occupied by men and women with little experience in the management of public affairs, with an approximate knowledge of the work of the ministries and of the mechanisms that regulate parliamentary life.
The fierce opposition immediately took advantage of the situation, the first move was to deposit a series of laws in the House to block the new coalition. Thus, the clash of the first months took place through referendums and appeals to the Constitutional Court. The obvious result has been to bog the country in a perpetual electoral campaign and to put the government more in the position of having to take care of itself than in that of governing.
Suddenly the country’s endemic problems emerged. First of all that of the crisis in the health sector. There haven’t been enough general practitioners for a long time. We ran for cover trying to open new clinics with lavish benefits for doctors willing to take on the extra work. The opportunity was not missed to announce a radical reform of the health sector. No one is yet clear what the executive intends to do, also because the representatives of the ministry and the group of experts called upon to consult by the prime minister have even started arguing among themselves about what to do. For some, there would be nothing on the horizon other than the intention of leaving more and more free hands in the health sector to private individuals and rampant doctors, willing to divide their time between services in hospitals and those in clinics.
However, the government and its colorful ministers in this period immediately began announcing other amazing reforms. They range from salaries in the public sector, to reforms of the school system to the tax system. Here too, no one is clear what they intend to do and here too Golob and his men have often launched contradictory signals and have even denied themselves publicly.
One year after the elections, the country has to deal with the protests in the square of the farmers and also with those of the pensioners. The latter summoned, gathered by a controversial former Democrat deputy with a past in prison, also seem to be the answer to the street demonstrations organized by organic men on the center-left at the time of center-right governments. As usual, the climate of Slovenian politics is that of a permanent “civil war”.
At the moment, however, many of the men placed by the centre-right in the institutions still remain in place. The most significant political node is the one linked to the leaders of the RTV of Slovenia. The centre-left would have liked to cancel them because they were considered a direct emanation of the centre-right. To do this, he passed a special law. An abrogation referendum was even promoted by the opposition on the legislation. The vast majority of citizens agreed with the government parties, but the law is now still a dead letter due to an appeal to the Constitutional Court. For many, this story is the synthesis of this year’s government and the efficiency of the centre-left executive.
The laconic comment of many is that Golob, like all the new faces who have passed through Slovenian politics, only served to take the bar out of Janša’s hands. For many, the prime minister and his men would have done very little, some say they would have done nothing at all. Meanwhile, his Freedom Movement is collapsing in the polls and Robert Golob’s star is said to be fading as happened to other new faces. Slovenian politics always follows the same paths: centre-right governments have always been the best guarantee for the centre-left’s return to power and centre-left governments have always demonstrated the incredible ability to revive Janez Janša from its ashes.
Have you thought about a subscription to OBC Transeuropa? You will support our work and receive preview articles and more content. Subscribe to OBCT!