The President of the National Assembly, Igor Zorčič, voted against the agenda of the regular session he is chairing. And thus prevented the consideration of a number of important solutions for the people, as well as the constitutional accusation filed by the opposition – this is what Prime Minister Janez Janša wrote today and assessed the situation as absurd, appropriate for fools. Political scientist Dr. Miro Haček announced that we will probably see two extraordinary sessions now, i.e. an extraordinary session of the coalition with substantive work, which should have been discussed at the regular May session of the parliament, as well as an extraordinary session of the opposition with the constitutional accusation of the Prime Minister. For a while, however, we will probably not see a vote on the President of the National Assembly, here the coalition must wait for the return of all MPs, because now it really is up to each vote.
Namely, at the beginning of the May session today, the MPs did not approve the proposed agenda of the regular session of the National Assembly. With 84 MPs present, 42 MPs voted in favour of the agenda and 42 against, thus the President of the National Assembly, Igor Zorčič, closed the session before it even began. Prime Minister Janez Janša and SDS MP Danijel Krivec called the vote absurd. “To vote against their point is incomprehensible to me. They are obviously afraid of voting on the President of the National Assembly,” Krivec commented, among other things. MPs from DeSUS, SNS, and the coalition voted in favour of the proposed agenda, with the exception of two absent SDS MPS and one absent SMC MP, while MPs from other opposition parliamentary groups, with the exception of one absent SD MP, voted against. MPs of national communities were also absent.
University professor of political science Dr Miro Haček assessed that there was a situation of slightly excessive indiscipline on the part of the ruling coalition, where three absent MPs and both absent minorities caused the weakened coalition not to be able to outvote the opposition, where only one MP was missing. “This is a completely legitimate manoeuvre of the opposition, which once again showed its destructive nature. This time it went a little further and voted against the consideration of the proposal, which was actually submitted by the opposition, i.e. proposal of a constitutional accusation,” Haček explained and went on to clarify that the motivation here is multifaceted. On the one hand, of course, the motivation is to create pressure on the ruling coalition and create the impression that it does not have enough votes to approve the parliamentary agenda, but on the other hand it is probably also to be aware that there are some major mistakes in the constitutional accusation, for example of the incorrectly stated articles of the Constitution, which were allegedly violated by the Prime Minister Janez Janša.
“Now we will probably see two extraordinary sessions, i.e. an extraordinary session of the coalition with substantive work, which should have been discussed at the regular May session of parliament, as well as an extraordinary session of the opposition with the constitutional accusation of the Prime Minister. For a while, however, we will probably not see a vote on the President of the National Assembly, here the coalition must wait for the return of all MPs, because now it really is up to each vote,” announced political analyst Haček.
KUL members demanded the convening of an extraordinary session; LMŠ says they are not clinging to their chairs
Later today, the MPs of LMŠ, SD, Levica, and SAB have already demanded the convening of an extraordinary session, at which they will discuss the proposal of the constitutional accusation of the Prime Minister. According to LMŠ president Marjan Šarec, today’s vote on the agenda showed that this government no longer has a majority. “This government, this government coalition together with the lost sons of the Slovenian parliament is doing everything to stay in power, but not as is normal in normal democracies, to go to the elections, for the people to judge who they will give their vote and who should lead the country,” he said. Today, the LMŠ party took care of some events, namely they brought 14 chairs in front of the Parliament, which are supposed to symbolise 14 LMŠ parliamentary seats. “After 30 years, we find ourselves in a situation where those who made Slovenia independent, those for whom people stood in the squares and streets at the time, shorten democracy, when they do not respect the law and give up everything that democracy has brought us. That is why we are here in the Republic Square to show people that we too feel it is time for a revolt. It cannot go on like this anymore. This government no longer has legitimacy; this coalition is together only because of the seats. We do not cling to them. For us, only election is legitimate, for people to decide who should lead our country,” they wrote on Twitter.
A political drama that shows above all a very poor understanding of parliamentary democracy
Political scientist Dr Haček said that he would call LMŠ’s performance with chairs a political drama, which shows a very poor understanding of the parliamentary democracy of the LMŠ party and its president, which is also reflected in opinion polls. In the polls in recent weeks, the SD party has been gaining ground, mainly at the expense of the LMŠ, which not only has a poor understanding of parliamentary democracy, but has also forgotten about its own (once supposedly liberal) programme, as it is shifting markedly to the left, which is one of the biggest political and strategic mistakes of any Slovenian parliamentary party in the last decade. “However, LMŠ is in a hurry for the elections – on the one hand because it is rapidly losing support, and on the other hand because of the upcoming new parties with new faces – Jure Leben, potentially Tomaž Vesel, where it is quite clear that they will erase LMŠ from the Slovenian political space,” concluded Haček.
Sara Bertoncelj
