“Everyone is only looking at the current moment and preserving their positions. In fact, the coalition is working in a completely selfish way,” political analyst and political communication expert, Dr Sebastjan Jeretič, pointed out in relation to the current coalition, which is made up of the Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda), the Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati – SD) and the Left (Levica) parties.
The surprise that Prime Minister Robert Golob experienced last week at the vote on the proposal to call a consultative referendum on the increase in defence spending – which received adequate support to be implemented – was followed by his reckless announcement of a referendum on Slovenia’s membership in the Nort-Atlantic Treaty Organisation – NATO, even though it is well known that the security situation in the world is far more complex at the moment than it was decades ago. Not to mention that Slovenia is also engaging in an international disgrace with such decisions. The recklessness of the Prime Minister’s action has already been pointed out by the profession. “The decisions and announcements regarding the NATO referendum were made very hastily, I would say recklessly. It is a political adventure that is not good for Slovenia,” Dr Miro Cerar, a constitutional lawyer and Dean of the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana, criticised what Golob did in an interview with the public television.
On Thursday, the leader of the Left party’s parliamentary group, Matej Tašner Vatovec, said regarding the coalition meeting that no consensus had yet been reached on the two defence referendums. “The Left party cannot agree to the withdrawal of the referendum on defence spending,” he said, according to the Slovenian Press Agency (STA), adding that the fate of the referendums would be clear at Friday’s parliamentary summit. The Social Democrats did not want to make a statement, but the Freedom Movement MP Sara Žibrat said only that the Freedom Movement party remained of the opinion that the will of the people must be clear if referendums were to take place, and that the questions must also be clear.
We decided to ask political analyst Dr Sebastjan Jeretič about the current developments. First of all, we wanted to know his opinion on the referendum complications and what he expects from Friday’s all-party parliamentary summit. According to Jeretič, the Prime Minister has gotten caught up in quite a situation. “Such things have quite serious international consequences, which will be felt first by the Slovenian economy in the short term, but in the long term, the reputation of the country suffers really badly because of such nonsense, which he indulged in somewhat in an affect after being slapped in the face, so to speak, by his coalition partners. In any case, the situation is very, very damaging,” he believes.
He does not expect the players in this coalition to have the maturity to understand the weight of the moment. He does not believe that they are aware of the criticality of this situation, and because there is no reason in the actions of this coalition, they only know how to continue to let their emotions win the day and, like little children, out of stubbornness, they will each bury themselves in their own position and continue to cause damage. “I hope that the voice of reason may come from some other circles around the coalition and actually force these childish actors to come to their senses and stop causing harm to the country,” he was clear.
The coalition is, in fact, acting in a completely selfish way
We wanted to know why the coalition is defending Interior Minister Poklukar when it is obvious that he is not in control of the situation. “Because there is not even a speck of statesmanship in the functioning of this current policy. There is also not even a speck of long-term political vision,” he pointed out, adding that everyone is only looking at the current moment and the preservation of their positions. “In fact, the coalition is acting in a completely selfish way. Everyone is looking out only for their own positions, and making sure that they cannot be jeopardised – by jeopardising it for someone else,” he explained, adding that this will not, of course, result in any bad minister having to leave this government, at least until the Prime Minister decides to do something like that.
The whole government should resign
Since the Minister of Solidarity-Based Future is also causing a lot of dissatisfaction these days with the introduction of the long-term care tax, and the Chamber of Craft and Small Business of Slovenia (Obrtno-podjetniška zbornica – OPZ) has even called on him to resign because of dissatisfaction with his work, we wanted to know if Jeretič would agree with his departure. “I think the whole government should resign because of incompetence. But I think that, for the reasons I gave earlier, that’s just not going to happen.”
Ž. N.
