The biggest losers in Sunday’s elections to the National Assembly are the parties of the so-called Constitutional Arch Coalition (the left-wing parties of the current opposition): the Social Democrats and the Left party barely crossed the parliamentary threshold, while the Party of Alenka Bratušek and the List of Marjan šarec are a thing of the past.
As was expected, the Sunday elections cleared up the political space quite well, as the newest “new” party of the left, Robert Golob’s Freedom Movement (Gibanje svoboda), destroyed its natural allies in the elections – the parties of the Constitutional Arch Coalition – by winning the elections. What was once the strongest force on the left and an opposition to Janez Janša’s government has now been decimated. The Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati – SD), led by Tanja Fajon, had significantly worse results than in the previous elections, the Left party (Levica) under the leadership of Luka Mesec barely made it to parliament, while the Party of Alenka Bratušek (Stranka Alenke Bratušek) and the List of Marjan Šarec (Lista Marjana Šarca) did not make it to the National Assembly at all.
After the election disaster, Mesec offered his resignation
Coordinator of the Left party, Luka Mesec, will offer his resignation to the party council after a poor result in the parliamentary elections. In addition, the entire executive committee of the party will also offer its resignation, he announced. However, he once again welcomed the general results of the elections because “this means that the Hungarian experiment in Slovenia is now finally over.” But this is a poor consolation for him, as both the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) and the New Slovenia party (Nova Slovenija – NSi) have achieved better results than in the previous elections, while Mesec has practically sunk the party. According to him, the results of the Left party are below expectations, for which, as he pointed out, they are prepared to accept responsibility. “On behalf of the executive committee of the Left party, I am announcing that we will offer our resignation to the party council tomorrow. We will offer it, which means that we will discuss what went wrong. However, the fact is that the result is not what we expected,” Mesec said. After about 96.4 percent of the votes being counted already, the Left received only 4.19 percent of support, which means it will have five deputies in the National Assembly. At the last parliamentary elections, however, the party won nine votes but ended its term with only six MPs.
Fajon lost two MPs
This year’s result, compared to that of the previous elections, was also significantly worse for Tanja Fajon‘s Social Democrats. While they received 9.9 percent of the vote in the previous elections, meaning they had 10 MPs in parliament, this time, they only got 6.6 percent and seven deputies. Despite the obviously worse result than in the last parliamentary elections, the SD party is satisfied with the results, as they managed to replace the current government with the “natural ally,” the Freedom Movement, which, again, is a poor consolation for such a bad result.
The Party of Alenka Bratušek and the List of Marjan Šarec are a thing of the past
The good side of this year’s parliamentary election is undoubtedly the fact that the Party of Alenka BRatušek and the List of Marjan Šarec did not make it to parliament. Both are parties of new faces, which were headed by leaders who led the government and then also ended their political careers not long after. Both Alenka Bratušek as well as Marjan Šarec were personally chosen by the last head of the Communist Party of Slovenia, Milan Kučan, as the prime ministers, but they were discarded after their time was up. There is no doubt that the same thing will happen to the transitional millionaire Robert Golob when an elderly uncle from the background eventually finds a better candidate for his position on the left.
Sara Kovač
