While the mainstream media react to practically every word spoken by the leader of the opposition, Janez Janša, and twist it to fit their narrative, it is quite different in the case of the current Prime Minister, Robert Golob. They are not even distracted by the untrue allegation, so the X platform has to play the role of “watchdog” instead of them.
“The abolition of supplementary health insurance is one of the most deciding and successful measures of this government, to which we committed ourselves when we signed the coalition agreement,” are the words of Prime Minister Robert Golob, spoken during the parliamentary question time, the last time before the parliamentary recess. More specifically, the words were spoken when the leader of the New Slovenia party (Nova Slovenija – NSi) parliamentary group, Janez Cigler Kralj, warned the Prime Minister of the risks to public finances caused by the purchase of what was supposed to be the new court building on Litijska street and 13,000 computers, and the transformation – or rather, scam – of the transformation of the supplementary health insurance into a compulsory contribution.
The X platform reacts
Although Golob and the coalition insist that supplementary health insurance has been abolished, the fact is that this is not the case, as it continues to be paid and is even compulsory, which was not the case before. On top of that, it is worth remembering that, as a result of the fraudulent conversion of supplementary health insurance, the budget reserve will be used to pay out as much as 33.5 million euros to the insurance companies that have been compromised. The X platform reacted in this specific case, with a clarification to users of the popular social network, writing: “The publication is misleading, as the Government of the Republic of Slovenia has not abolished supplementary health insurance, it has merely made it a compulsory health contribution, which is identical in amount and content.”
The fact that the false statement did not go unnoticed by X users is evidenced by the eloquent comments that appeared under the above-mentioned government announcement. Among the comments were the following: “What cancellation? You are lying again. Optional insurance has become compulsory, and 200,000 people are still without a doctor, surgeons are quitting, women are without a gynaecologist, healthcare is collapsing, and you are “saving” healthcare through communist nationalisation?”; “What abolition? You have transformed voluntary healthcare contributions into compulsory healthcare contributions.”; “Is that so? You abolished supplementary insurance, and a good year after that, you made it more expensive again, by the same 3 euros. Now we are paying 33 million euros to private insurance companies for the “shortfall”… So, we are paying twice for the same thing, and the citizens are worse off again. Why are you trying to make a fool out of us?”; “Yes, this is your most successful measure. What was voluntary has become mandatory tax. You are the worst.”; “If it has been abolished, why do I have to keep paying it?”
Lies are part of his political career
Since after two years, many people have come to the conclusion that Golob has made quite a few untrue statements, we asked political analyst Dr Matevž Tomšič why he does this and why such statements are often overlooked by the media, while in the case of Janša, the media latch on to his every word and twist it into something negative. “Nothing new. This has been his modus operandi practically throughout his entire political career,” Tomšič pointed out, adding that “the list of these lies is so long, in fact, that you could practically devote a book to it”.
Apparently, this is part of his way of operating. Tomšič said that Golob somehow thinks that “he can afford to do this because he is so exceptional, and that everything is relative, everything is a matter of his judgement, and this fits in well with the phenomenon of post-truth, where everything is a matter of interpretation and can change, as it were, from one moment to the next.”
The professional media could have taken Golob down long ago
According to Tomšič, this behaviour is something that has often been attributed to Donald Trump. But he finds it interesting that the Slovenian media or commentators, opinion leaders, who have often accused Trump of this, do not accuse Golob of this. “One more answer to why he is doing this is because he can afford it. He has the media on his side, they don’t expose these statements of his, and if they do, they relativise them somehow. The media support he has allows him to do this,” he stressed, recalling that when something good happened with Janša, even if a story was true, the media often twisted it to make it seem as if it was not true. “If the media had roughly the same criteria for both of them, they would have taken Golob down long ago,” he concluded.
A. H.
