Results show that the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) is the winner of the elections to the European Parliament with four elected candidates, followed by the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda) with two, and Vesna – the Green Party (Vesna – zelena stranka), the New Slovenia party (Nova Slovenija – NSi), and the Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati – SD) with one elected Member of the European Parliament each.
The Slovenian Democratic Party has now won the European Parliament elections for the fourth time in a row. This time, the SDS party team has also been strengthened by two additional MEPs. So far, the SDS party was represented in the European Parliament by MEPs Romana Tomc and Dr Milan Zver, who have regained the trust of the voters, and in addition to them, the surprise of these elections are the young Zala Tomašič and MP Branko Grims.
The Freedom Movement party’s MEPs will be Irena Joveva and Marjan Šarec. As expected, the Mayor of Kočevje, Vladimir Prebilič, and the leader of the NSi party, Matej Tonin, also won their place in the European Parliament. Meanwhile, the Social Democrats have narrowly beaten the Slovenian People’s Party (Slovenska ljudska stranka – SLS).
Janša: Historic defeat of the left
Janez Janša thanked the voters for recognising, in this flood of various referendum questions, what this was actually all about. The SDS party’s victory, Janša believes, is a message from the electorate to the current coalition to think things over, similar to the French President Emmanuel Macron, who called early elections, and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo, who has resigned. Both come from the same political camp as the Freedom Movement party, “so we trust that they will carefully look over the actions of their older colleagues in the European Union.”
The results of the European elections also point to a clear defeat for the coalition. “If the results hold, the coalition will win only three seats out of the nine. The transitional left has never seen such a defeat. I hope that this message will be accepted,” Janša stressed on Sunday evening, accusing the coalition of imposing issues during the campaign that are not important for Slovenian citizens and the future of the European Union, of drastically violating the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly, and of manipulating and abusing the repressive authorities.
Janša pointed out that the current coalition has so far delivered very little of what it had promised before the elections, and that apart from ideological issues, almost everything had remained at the state of a mere promise or of accepted starting points for solutions. Slovenia therefore needs to reconsider its choices, he stressed.
Janša said that the SDS party had put together a strong candidate list for the European elections. All candidates, he said, have also signed a commitment to return to Slovenia if the SDS party were to form a government in the future. “Which, given this result, is a great possibility,” he explained, adding, “Thank you, Slovenia, for being able to separate the wheat from the chaff.”
In Janša’s opinion, Europe is not turning to the right, but instead reaching a state of balance. According to the results of the elections, the European People’s Party (EPP), part of which is also the SDS party, has won the majority of the votes. “This party will form a coalition a little to the left and a little to the right of itself,” he said, stressing that the European Union needs a sensible green policy and a serious confrontation with the security issue.
The SDS party has also announced that it will lodge a complaint with the State Election Commission, as some polling stations in the early voting were, in their view, illegally organised because they were not in the territory of the constituency. Janša said that while they do not expect the State Election Commission to take drastic action, they do expect the electoral law to be respected in the next elections.
The SDS party will comment on the referendum results later today.
C. Š.
