The artificially generated support that citizens showed for Robert Golob and his government in the pre-election and short post-election period has started to erode drastically. The rising prices that the government of Robert Golob is failing to address, his blatant authoritarian leadership of his own team and the country, the disgraceful moments on the international stage and the increase in the number of ministries, as well as the planned brutal “beheading” of the national media outlet RTV Slovenia, have clearly rocked Golob’s boat.
The latest public opinion poll shows a drastic drop in support for the government of Robert Golob, and an even more apparent drop in terms of support for Golob himself, as a politician. The share of those that are dissatisfied with the government has risen by 70 percent in a single month, and the Prime Minister himself has also seen a sharp drop in popularity. When announcing the results of the poll, journalist Mirko Majer jokingly wrote, “What a miracle a few days at sea can bring,” referring to the Prime Minister’s holiday on the Croatian coast, which came at a time when most citizens are facing severe hardship due to the rising prices.
The famous American President Lincoln once said: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” This quote is actually an ideal description of the current situation, in which the media bubble, created by the media outlets dependent on the transitional left, is beginning to dissolve. In the run-up to the elections, we saw remarkable support for the current government from mainstream media, which managed to fool a good part of the electorate, but because of the drastic, dire situation at home and in the world, the media is no longer able to fool everyone as effectively – however hard some of them are still trying.
A series of misguided measures, an affair and a fiasco The drop in support for the Golob government is not surprising. The beginning of its term was marked, most of all, by extensive changes in personnel. In the short time since the elections, Golob has managed to replace almost 100 people, and he has begun to draw up a list of undesirable people in the public administration sector, which is reminiscent of the darkest times in Slovenian and world history. He then began working on the announced measures to tackle the rising prices, where his inept actions caused fuel shortages at petrol stations and almost triggered protests by the transport drivers. In addition, he quite deliberately passed the burden of the rising prices onto the shoulders of the consumers. He then turned to high food prices, announcing the introduction of the pointless recording of prices of food products. Roman Žveglič, President of the Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry in Slovenia, told our media outlet that the measure in question makes no sense at all.
These misguided measures were then followed by an affair, as Robert Golob took his own son to Brussels for a high-level meeting of statesmen at the expense of the state. In response to the media reporting, Golob’s cabinet said that the Prime Minister would pay all of the costs for his son’s trip himself, but so far, no proof has been provided. And then, at the meeting of the NATO leaders, we saw another debacle when, in Golob’s first interview with the British BBC, he made a fool of himself with his comments. Namely, he claimed that most of the citizens of the Western Balkans, especially the Slavs, are taking Russia’s side in the war with Ukraine – which is simply not true.
Marta Kos’s heavy defeat in the presidential elections In addition to declining support for the government and the Prime Minister, the poll also predicts a heavy defeat for Marta Kos, the Vice-President of Golob’s party, the Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda), who will have to face Anže Logar, Nina Krajnik and Nataša Pirc Musar at the elections, if she decides to persist in her candidacy. Marta Kos has been filling the pages of the media in recent days because of her dispute with Milan Kučan, the last head of the Communist Party and first President of the Republic of Slovenia, who withheld his support for her on the grounds of “systemic unsuitability,” since, if she were elected, all three presidential posts (Prime Minister, Speaker of the National Assembly, President of the Republic) would belong to one party. Marta Kos, in turn, insulted Kučan by describing him as undemocratic and called herself a person with a remarkable capacity for self-restraint.
Andrej Žitnik
