LJUBLJANA, April 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Political newcomer liberal Robert Golob defeated Slovenia’s three-time Prime Minister conservative Janez Jansa in elections on Sunday in a country split by bitter political divisions over the rule of law.
Golob’s Freedom Movement (GS), which he launched only in January, has built on anger with Jansa’s regime in the former Yugoslav state.
The opposition accuses Jansa of having tried to undermine democratic institutions and press freedoms since he returned to power in 2020.
With almost all the votes counted in the country of around two million people, Freedom Movement (GS) stood at 34.5 per cent of the vote compared to 23.6 per cent for Jansa’s Slovenian Democratic Party.
“Our objective has been reached: a victory that will enable us to take the country back to freedom,” Golob told jubilant supporters late Sunday.
“People want changes and have expressed their confidence in us as the only ones who can bring those changes,” he said earlier via a livestream from his home where he was in isolation after contracting COVID-19.
The 55-year-old former power company manager has promised to restore “normality”, having billed the elections as a “referendum on democracy”.
Turnout stood at some 70 per cent of the 1.7 million electorate – significantly higher than the 52 per cent in the last parliamentary elections in 2018.
Jansa, 63, an admirer of US ex-president Donald Trump, had campaigned on promises of stability.
“Ahead of the new government there are many challenges, but during our mandate we have set a solid ground for a peaceful navigation,” he said late Sunday.
“It is easy to pay billboards, to have the backing of all media and the so-called civil society,” he said. “But then hard work and challenges come, and there nothing of that can help you.”
The rise of Golob began when he took over a small Green party without parliamentary seats in January, renaming it Freedom Movement.
He tapped into the protests that had developed since Jansa took power, as tens of thousands of people regularly attended anti-government rallies.
Jansa’s image has been hurt by rows with Brussels over his moves to suspend funding to the national news agency, and to drag out the appointment of prosecutors to the bloc’s new anti-graft body.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine did not take centre stage in Slovenia’s election campaign, although Jansa was among the first foreign leaders to travel to Kyiv, on March 15.
Jansa already served as prime minister between 2004 and 2008, and 2012-2013.
Only a year into his second term as premier however, he was forced out by a corruption scandal. — NNN-AGENCIES
