Janša: There Is Only One Way. It Is Called “A Coalition With The Voters”

At the 13^th Congress of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS), a clear message was delivered: Slovenia needs a turnaround – not towards ideological experiments, but towards concrete solutions that improve people’s lives.

At a time when Slovenia is experiencing the biggest economic downturn in the European Union, despite high employment, and is moving away from the opportunities of the future due to inefficient absorption of EU funds, the responsibility of political leaders is greater than ever. SDS President Janez Janša‘s speech therefore drew a clear distinction between two approaches: between politics that put ideological goals and divisiveness at the forefront, and politics based on knowledge, work, patriotism and finding solutions for everyday people.

We are publishing Janša’s speech in its entirety below:

“In the first quarter of this year, Slovenia – despite high employment – recorded the biggest drop in gross domestic product, or economic growth, in the European Union. The fall was three times greater than in Germany, our most important partner.

We have seen the biggest drop, despite the fact that we have record levels of European funding available for the investments we negotiated five years ago. But we are absolutely last or among the last in the EU in terms of absorption or investment.

The tax burden on labour costs in Slovenia has increased by 1.8 percentage points compared to a year ago. A new tax on long-term care services, which are not even available yet, is coming – and it will double these percentages. As a result, our wages and pensions will be significantly lower than we can manage, and the amounts on the bills in the shops and on utility bills will be higher than they should be.

They are even announcing a new tax on all of you who have worked hard and given up a lot to invest in your own flats and houses. And an increase in the mandatory Radio-Television Slovenia contribution. And the list goes on and on and on about things that are going the wrong way.

But today is not a day for listing the problems; it is a day for analysing the causes and finding solutions. We are gathered here at the congress of a party that is the only one in the country with the knowledge, experience and personnel to take Slovenia on a new path. From our strength comes a responsibility from which the SDS party has never fled.

Why are we where we are, and why have we managed to slip back to the bottom of the comparative charts in such a short space of time?

What are the systemic causes of the current situation? Let us list the most important ones:

1. We formally abolished the communist and Yugoslavian dictatorship during the process of democratisation and independence, but those who had been carrying them out in Slovenia were still there. That means that the same or similar political forces have been completely dominating Slovenia for more than 70 of the last 80 years. An independent Slovenia, which was not their preferred option, was then, when it came into being against their will, simply gradually stolen.
2. In less than ten years out of the 80 years in which the communist or transitional left was not in power, the democratic spring forces, united in the DEMOS coalition (Democratic Opposition of Slovenia – Demokratična opozicija Slovenije) and led by Dr Jože Pučnik, led the Slovenian nation towards democratisation and independence, drafted the new Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, and then, under the leadership of the SDS party, created the conditions for the adoption of the euro, twice led the Council of the European Union during very difficult times, and rescued the country in times of an economic crisis and a pandemic. While the transitional left was stumbling over its totalitarian history, we were making democratic and independent history.
3. While we also saw a series of rational and successful policies and approaches in the economic and foreign policy spheres under the left and mixed governments led by Dr Janez Drnovšek, after his departure, the left only turned back to the past. Thus, for the last 20 years, the left-wing political option has offered no answers to the real problems of the people. It has instead diverted attention by demonising and excluding those of us who did have answers.
4. Instead of cooperation, the transitional left worked on exclusion and on sowing hatred, which eventually even turned into death threats. While we offered cooperation and always included at least one left-wing party in the coalition, the hard left screamed death to Janšaism. The death threats against political competition were officially defined as permissible by the public prosecutor’s office at the time of the violent protests. Slovenia thus symbolically returned to 1945. It is no coincidence that in recent weeks, 1945, the year in which the greatest number of Slovenians in our history were killed and exiled, has been the year most celebrated by the left-wing political opposition. That is why the Museum of Slovenian Independence was abolished immediately after the current government took over. And in doing so, they deeply humiliated the Slovenian independence generation, hundreds of thousands of them.
5. Left-wing politics has tried to cover up its repeated incompetence by producing so-called new faces. But each new face was a new defeat for Slovenia’s prosperity. During the reign of the new faces, even some European Union countries, which were still far behind us in 2008, have overtaken us.
6. The depth of the moral and cultural decay of the left was illustrated in the last referendum on privileged pensions for a select few individuals. Albert Einstein said: When a culture loses its soul, it is only a matter of time before it collapses. With this referendum, Slovenians have stood up against this decay. Thank you for the lion’s share of the effort you have made to open people’s eyes.
7. And finally, speaking of the causes of the current situation: three and a half decades of fighting for a democratic Slovenia have taught us that Slovenia’s transitional left is a combination of incompetence and insatiability that never ends on its own. That is why it must be stopped.

And this opportunity is inexorably coming. The next elections will, in any case, happen within a year at the latest. Probably much sooner, because the people in power are only concerned with how to extend the legs of their own lies.

Ladies and Gentlemen, at the 200 pre-congress conferences, we discussed the congress’s flagship resolution, which commits us to taking back the country that has been stolen from us, Slovenians. “Easier said than done,” and “How are we going to do it?” were some of the comments on the draft resolution. How will we achieve this? There is only one way to do it. It is called: “A coalition with the voters.” The Slovenian Democratic Party will build only this coalition until the elections. We will discuss political alliances with other parties after we win the elections, because we need a constitutional majority of reason. As always, we will not rule anyone out in advance. But we are setting two fundamental conditions for future coalition partners: strict respect for the Slovenian Constitution and for the commitments made in the European Parliament resolution on condemnation of all totalitarian regimes. At the same time, we would like to tell the Slovenian public and voters that the SDS party will never again form coalitions without a clear and solid programme majority, or without the possibility of shaping and implementing key development policies. If that won’t be possible, we will simply wait. The SDS party is a solid, strong and resilient party, built to last the lifetime of the Slovenian state. It is a project of centuries and, therefore, durable. The SDS has so far sacrificed itself twice and, together with its partners, selflessly saved Slovenia in times of economic crisis and the pandemic. As a sign of gratitude, we have been persecuted, condemned, imprisoned, and dolls with our faces have been burned and hung; we have had our mandates stolen, people called for our deaths, and for our electorate to be purged. So, we do not want any of this ever again.

We already defined the parameters for a coalition with the electorate at our 11^th Congress in Maribor and crowned it with a landslide victory in the elections a year later. We then built Slovenia on this basis and saved it in the face of a deadly pandemic.

In all these eight years, and especially in the last three sad years, time has sharpened the key political differences between them and us, it has sharpened the key development dilemmas, and within that, two different approaches to running the country.

1. The left forces us to move forward only at the speed of the slowest in the class.

We advocate the speed that an individual or a company is capable of achieving. We help those who fall below the poverty line, whether through work or accident, with a social safety net, not by stopping the faster ones because of their slowness.

2. The left wants as many people to be dependent on the state as possible. We want as many independent, sovereign personalities as possible.
3. The left wants everyone to have a minimum wage. We are fighting for everyone’s wages to be higher. We stand for meritocracy and being paid for your work. There is no progress without competition.
4. The left wants to tax all those who have saved and invested in their own homes and houses. We oppose this and create the conditions in which as many individuals as possible can build their own roof and their own home.
5. The left is advocating a utopian, anti-scientific green policy that is destroying our industry and the country’s energy independence. We advocate sensible environmental protection policies that enable both prosperity and healthy natural habitats and increase the country’s energy independence.
6. The left claims that exporters are the Achilles’ heel of the Slovenian economy. We say that the Achilles’ heel of Slovenian development is the left.
7. The left is taxing entrepreneurs extra, the Prime Minister is sending them to Croatia, and some of the members of the current coalition would even like to drive them into the sea with bayonets. We are advocating for more favourable conditions for domestic entrepreneurs and foreign investment, which is the only way to end up with more money for wages, development, and common needs.
8. The left reinforces the centralisation of the state and financially impoverishes municipalities. We advocate decentralisation and the financial autonomy of municipalities, which, together with the Slovenian economy, are a key factor of stability in the country.
9. The left has significantly increased the number of ministries and other units of public administration and bureaucracy. We advocate a lean state, reasonable taxes, quality public administration services and remuneration according to work and performance.
10. The most common excuse from the left for not doing something is that conditions are not right yet. That they need more time. More and more time. Two mandates.

We say that the conditions need to be created. Where they see problems and look for excuses, we see opportunities. There is always time for knowledge, work and beauty. For ambition. For a cause.

11. The left talks about unleashing creativity and talent. In reality, it has not achieved this anywhere, because it kills everything by ensuring we all earn approximately the same. We advocate meritocracy and pay by work and success, which is the only way to unleash creativity and talent.
12. The left demands change because of ideology, we advocate change that improves people’s situation.
13. The Left is constantly pushing the rights of minorities to the forefront. Only minorities and nothing but minorities. Minorities are artificially being pushed into confrontation with the majority.

For us, all rights, and the rights of all, are important. For the minority and the majority. Without harmful confrontation.

14. The left builds on envy, we build on ambition. Instead of resentment and envy, we offer ambition. Desire. Aspiration. Opportunity. A reason to get up in the morning with a goal and motivation. The belief that with good work and effort, we can succeed. We create so that our descendants will be better off than we were. We create things we are proud of. Things that future generations will be proud of. We are building Slovenia.
15. Since the publication of the Communist Manifesto, the left has sought to dismantle the family, the nation, private property and religion.

We defend the family as the fundamental unit of society and the homeland as our common home. We cherish our homeland. We cherish our culture and traditions. We are grateful to our ancestors for what they created. We are respectful of their struggles, their faith and their statutes. We are merciful when judging their actions, as we expect the same attitude from our descendants.

17. They say that without the so-called National Liberation Front (NOB), there would have been no independent Slovenia. We say that there would certainly and demonstrably have been no independent Slovenia and no Slovenian state without independence. But ultimately, we can disagree even on this without drastic consequences if we agree with the proposition that there will be no more Slovenia if there are no more Slovenians. And if we all work together to ensure that this does not happen.

But unfortunately, the transitional left is imposing a solution to the demographic problem of Slovenia and Europe in the form of mass migration and immigration. At the same time, it is sending Slovenian entrepreneurs abroad. One of the first moves of the Golob government was to abolish the Office for Demography in Maribor and to declare that illegal migration should be considered equal to legal migration. Under the guise of fake solidarity, with our money, left-wing politics is thus changing the image of Slovenia, and thus the structure of the electorate, which is the ultimate goal of this anti-national policy.

We see the solution in a rise in prosperity, greater joie de vivre and an increase in the birth rate. We put the Slovenian family at the forefront as the fundamental unit of society. The family is an investment project for the future – for the nation and the state, from both a national and an economic point of view, and not just part of social policy.

We therefore do not agree with the government’s behaviour, which spends twice as much taxpayers’ money on an illegal migrant as the minimum wage of a Slovenian worker. Such a policy attracts foreigners from the most distant cultures to Slovenia, while at the same time, by impoverishing the economy and the population, it drives young Slovenians abroad to find work there.

The left’s advantage in this political struggle is that they are everywhere, speaking with the same slogans. Equality. Social justice. Envy. Resentment. It’s someone else’s fault you’re not better off. The same misguided answers to different questions. And the constant repetition of the same platitudes everywhere. At the same time, they force us to engage in artificial dilemmas where we have always known the answers. How many genders are there? We have known this at every birth, ever since we have existed. But they force us to waste time with this nonsense. In doing so, they demean science and deny the fundamental gains of the Enlightenment.

The negative personnel policy of the transitional left, in which powerful backgrounds are pushed to the fore by puppets in the form of new faces, has created a personnel desert at the left political pole. They have finally scraped the bottom. At the same time, they spend so much time dealing with the SDS party. Not just with me or with our ministers and members of the leadership. As soon as someone from our party becomes more exposed, they go after him or her with everything they have. The most recent example is our young MP Andrej Hoivik, who defended Slovenian culture in the last referendum campaign with excellent, well-reasoned and dignified arguments, only to be smeared by left-wing extremists as Breivik and threatened in all sorts of ways.

The Slovenian democrats are a sovereign party. We are the political representatives of a sovereign part of the Slovenian nation, which, in difficult circumstances, has become immune to lies and deceit. This part is resilient and vital, able to think with its own head and to seek the truth for itself in the daily clouds of lies and manipulations. That is why the future is in its hands. The wind will carry away the chaff, the clouds will disperse, but the grains will remain. Truth has deep roots, lies are shallow and need constant watering with stolen money and propaganda.

The SDS has so far won five local elections, four European elections, two parliamentary elections on its own and once, together with Demos, the first multi-party elections. Can you think of any other party in the Slovenian Parliament that has won more than once? There isn’t. Nor is there any party that has won more parliamentary elections alone than SDS.

In fact, in the last 20 years, we have won every election that was even remotely fair, without any major abuse of state institutions and the media to settle scores with the SDS party.

Unlike the transitional left, the SDS party does not have a problem with a personnel drought. In just five months of this year, we have had more than 950 new members join us, including a record number of young people. There are several hundred individuals in SDS who are capable of leading the party better than any other party in the country. And equally, we have hundreds of members who are capable of running the ministries and the Slovenian government much better than those who are in Golob’s government today, arguing with common sense, science and the Eurostat. We have capable people who have successfully led government departments in the most difficult of times. We have people who have led the various Council configurations of the European Union in times of crisis in European integration. We have a number of successful mayors of Slovenian municipalities. Compare, for example, the rankings and results of their municipalities. With the municipality of Kočevje, for example. We have over 600 hard-working town and municipal councillors. We have hundreds of successful entrepreneurs in our Business and Entrepreneurship Forum who have grown up with their own brains and hard work. In the Cultural Forum, founded 30 years ago, there are a number of excellent artists and cultural workers who, all over Slovenia, are keeping the original Slovenian culture upright and building our identity. Our Forum for Agriculture and Rural Areas built a broad coalition and won the elections for the Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry of Slovenia (KGZ) convincingly. And the list goes on. And last but not least, we confirmed our growing strength convincingly in last year’s European Parliament elections, where our doubled representation is delivering concrete results.

In the coming weeks and months, we will turn this strength to building a coalition with the voters. Our Expert Council has completed the government programme for the next mandate in two years of intensive work. It will be presented in more detail when the parliamentary elections are called. The core of this programme is the well-being of the Slovenian people. SDS will fight for every individual for whom centralist governance, privileges of the first class, various bureaucratic obstacles, unequal treatment, bureaucratic chicanery, long court procedures, ignorance of the organs of the welfare state and the like, deny them an equal starting point for success and happiness.

We will fight for anyone who feels second-class in their own country because of the situation described above. For every child who should, but is unable to attend a suitable school because of family circumstances, for every student who is unjustly left without a sufficient grant, for every worker whose labour is overtaxed, for every entrepreneur who is unjustly bullied by the tax administration, for every farmer, for every farmer who cares about healthy food and the orderliness and population of our countryside and mountains, for every family who, through no fault of their own, is pushed towards the margins of the social welfare system, and for every public sector employee who does the work of others for the same pay, taking advantage of the rigid labour laws in the public services.

The SDS party will fight for the rights of every worker and every pensioner who today receives a salary or pension that is twice as low as the cost of one illegal migrant who has sought asylum in Slovenia. The SDS party will not rest until Slovenia becomes a place of justice and a home where every Slovenian and citizen feels safe and accepted.

We will fight to bring those who work well and manage well to the forefront of society’s attention. Those who create new quality jobs and are innovative. We will build a relaxed Slovenia based not on rules but on common sense and healthy competition and responsibility.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is hard to call the last few years anything other than a time of humiliation for Slovenia. Slovenia deserves more, much more. It can do much more. Because it has been proud and brave in the most difficult times. Especially here in Ormož, when you defended the borders of the independent Slovenian state against the aggressor with the red star on his cap.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Slovenia is still brave, and that is why it can do more. This is proven every day by our businesspeople, scientists, artists, athletes, cultural workers and, above all, by the millions of hard-working hands of our people, who create their own prosperity. That is why Slovenia deserves better governance. It deserves a coalition of reason for a constitutional majority.

That is why we will continue to build a coalition with the electorate today, tomorrow and until the last ballot is counted and verified in the forthcoming elections. There are many of us, and there will be more. We will never give up, and we will never give in. Because the fight for the cause, for Pučnik’s cause, for the homeland, for Slovenia, which is the homeland of all, does not end with one generation. It goes from generation to generation. It is permanent, just as Slovenia is permanent. We are not defending the past; we are building the future. The left is defending its own fabricated history; however, we are not dealing with that. We are making history. They have had their time, and they have done a lot of damage. But now, our day is coming. Dawn is coming. Yellow sun and blue sky. There is no night that the morning cannot overcome.

God bless you, and God bless Slovenia. Freedom for Slovenia!”