Jacobin Magazine: In Search of an Alternative in Slovenia

SDS is not a new party; party leader Janez Janša led governments in the past. The international media outcry was not so much about Janša being a nationalist, anti-immigrant, or a representative of harsh neoliberal reforms, but about his open political alliance with Orbán’s Hungary. Rather than becoming a new Switzerland, Slovenia is looking more like authoritarian Hungary. [...]

In the small and richer republics, the political representatives of the Slovenian and Croatian League of Communists used to complain during the 1980s that their efforts for a “fairer” (which meant more neoliberal) distribution of wealth were thwarted by Belgrade and central institutions that privileged the periphery. Rather than addressing the class question, rising unemployment, and the implementation of the IMF’s structural adjustment programs, the Yugoslav political class translated social issues increasingly into nationalistic terms. In this respect, the Yugoslav crisis of 1980s speaks directly to the crisis of the European Union today. [...]

Behind the ideological affiliation lies a naked agenda of economic interests: the Slovenian “silk road,” which consists of building additional railway infrastructure between the coastal port of Koper and the interior. This would extend the traffic of port cargo. Thanks to an agreement with Orbán, this would also become Hungary’s corridor to the Adriatic Sea. Orbán’s government would not only receive profits from tolls on the infrastructure and a return on credit, but also become the owner of this strategic infrastructure.

The electoral results show that only 52 percent of all eligible voters actually voted. From those that voted, a predominant amount favored the authoritarian SDS, with 25 percent (twenty-five seats in the parliament), and the second new center party — the one-man show Marjan Sarec, came in second with 12.5 percent (thirteen seats). All other seven parties gained between 4 percent to 9.9 percent of the vote, speaking to the fragmented nature of the political crisis and the collapse of ideological hegemony.

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Jacobin Magazine: Against Janša, Against Brussels

Miro Cerar’s party presided over, nominally speaking, an extremely successful economic era, with economic growth among the highest in the EU. High economic growth, however, came at the cost of growing precarization among young people and unending austerity. Discontent festered below the positive headlines, and union activity increased in both the private and public sectors, as well as in previously nonunionized areas. Then in March of this year, at the very moment when negotiations between the state and the public sector unions had reached a deadlock, Cerar stepped down, bringing an abrupt end to his three-and-a-half-year tenure. [...]

And what, then, of the Right? The base of SDS is quite different from, say, those who attend Hungarian Guard marches. Still, this election marked the first time an SDS leader openly supported far-right organizations (for example, the Slovenian branch of Generation Identitaire / Generacija identitete, a racist movement originating in France). Another new development is the public and financial support from Hungary’s ruling far-right party, Fidesz, and the media companies around the prime minister, Viktor Orban. Orban and SDS leader Janez Janša started their friendship in January 2016, when Orban was visiting Slovenia on official business. After meeting with then-Prime Minister Cerar, he proceeded to a closed-door conference with Janša. Hungarian investments into SDS media outlets followed. Today, three Hungarian media companies connected to Orban own 45 percent of SDS’s media-company shares. Hungarian media also owns 52 percent of Nova Obzorja, which publishes a SDS newspaper, and Nova24tv.si (SDS TV) and New Horizon share the same address. Hungarians have so far invested over 2.2 million euros into SDS media, some of it in the months leading up to the elections. If there was any question of their tightening relationship, Orban also took part in the SDS Congress in May, where he declared his full support for Janša’s party. [...]

During the election campaign, Janša’s party emitted right-wing rhetoric on a whole host of topics, including the migrant crisis, women’s and LGBT rights, and the credibility of mass media. At the same time, the election results do not amount to the so-called Orbanization of Slovenia. SDS won 220,000 votes on June 3, 70,000 less than in 2011, when it came in second. For a party with an especially stable voter base (86.6 percent were return voters), this was a mediocre finish. The success of SDS is always in direct correlation to the amount of broken promises and lack of alternatives coming from the centrist and left-of-center parties. Slovenian society is culturally rather left wing, and can be mobilized against the Right — but it has to consider left parties worthy of support.

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Politico: Slovenian survivor targets victory à la Orbán

Janša, 59, is campaigning not just as an ally of Orbán but also as a political survivor. Almost 30 years ago to the day, Janša and three others were arrested for spreading military secrets, when Slovenia was part of communist Yugoslavia. The arrests catalyzed the so-called Slovene Spring protest movement, a key episode in the disintegration of Yugoslavia. [...]

Leading in opinion polls, Janša has run a campaign based on his anti-communist past and promising a future free of migrants, with a dose of rhetoric suggesting powerful nefarious forces are ranged against him — much as Orbán often does. Like Orbán’s Fidesz, the SDS is part of the European People’s Party center-right grouping in the European Parliament. [...]

Orbán came to stump with Janša in mid-May at a rally in the eastern town of Celje, declaring, “If Europe surrenders to mass population movement and immigration, our own Continent will be lost … The aim is to settle among us people who do not belong to our culture, and who will want to live here according to their own religions and customs.”

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