According to the website of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia, there was no mistake in the entry of the educational qualifications of Golob’s candidate for the Minister of Agriculture. The State Election Commission (DVK) has informed the public that the proposal of the candidate Mateja Čalušić, who ran on the list of the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda), states that she has a university degree. “We propose to the Prime Minister to withdraw the proposal for the nomination of the ministerial candidate, Ms Mateja Čalušić, and thus save the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia and himself some precious time and credibility,” the leader of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS), Janez Janša, called on the Prime Minister in his response. The Freedom Movement now says that Čalušić never misrepresented herself as having higher qualifications than she really has but that “it was an administrative error for which the party takes full responsibility.”
Until Thursday, when the candidate for the position of Minister of Agriculture was presented on the National Assembly’s website, you could read on the website of the National Assembly that she has a bachelor’s degree from the Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana, while her published diploma in the Cobiss system shows that she only has a diploma from a first-level higher education vocational study programme, and therefore her education is lower than what had been claimed. As some journalists started to reveal that this information was not true, the content of the presentation on the National Assembly’s website was changed the day after the nomination for Minister-designate was tabled. It was simply changed to “Diploma from the Biotechnical Faculty at the University of Ljubljana.”
“Education is not a prerequisite for the position I hold, and it did not influence my candidacy for the position of a Member of Parliament in 2022. After all, my publicly published diploma thesis makes it clear which studies I have completed. I am therefore extremely sorry that this unwanted administrative error has occurred,” MP Mateja Čalušić told the Slovenian Press Agency in response to the misstatement of her educational qualifications.
The draft candidate list indicated a university-level education
In response to journalists’ questions regarding the stated educational qualifications of the candidate Mateja Čalušić for the April 2022 elections to the National Assembly, the State Election Commission wrote that “the draft candidate list of the Freedom Movement party for the aforementioned candidate in the section “degree and title of education” stated “VII. degree, bachelor’s degree, Engineer of Agronomy’, and in the ‘professional or scientific title’ box, they marked ‘Engineer of Agronomy with a Bachelor’s Degree’.”
They further explained that they file lists of candidates for the elections to the National Assembly with the constituency electoral commissions. “In accordance with Article 51 of the National Assembly Election Act, the proposal for a list of candidates must contain, inter alia, the personal data of the candidates, namely: first name, surname, date of birth, unique master citizen number, level of education, title of education, professional or scientific title and the work carried out, as well as the candidate’s place of residence.” As explained, the State Election Commission does not verify candidates’ statements on the professional or scientific titles they have obtained when examining the legality of their candidatures. There is no legal basis for this.
“The State Election Commission of a constituency does not verify the candidates’ claims of having obtained a professional or scientific degree when examining the legality of the candidatures, as there is no legal basis for this. This is because a degree is not a prerequisite for standing as a candidate for election to the National Assembly. The only conditions are citizenship of the Republic of Slovenia and being of age,” they explained, adding that the State Election Commission “publishes the list of approved lists of candidates and the list of candidates to be voted on in each electoral district no later than 15 days before the day of the vote.”
No one has ever reported that there was an error in the listing of a professional title
In relation to the publication of the list of certified lists of candidates, the constituency 2000 – Postojna claims that they have never received any notification of a possible misstatement of Čalušić’s professional title. They also enclosed the proposal of the candidate list of the Freedom Movement party, which was submitted to the electoral commission of the 2000 Postojna constituency at the last national elections, the written consent of the candidate Čalušić to accept the candidacy and the publication of the list of the confirmed lists of candidates in the 2000 Postojna constituency.
Čalušić has been asked to resign
“This is how it goes: for the State Election Commission, the parliamentary candidacy form is submitted by the party, which obtains all the personal data (including education) from the candidate, and the public relations service asks the MPs to provide information on their education and career for publication on the web. Don’t blame the National Assembly’s services for this!” explained former MP Monika Gregorčič in her response to the saga, where we could hear how the National Assembly administration was to blame for the mistake.
“We propose to the Prime Minister to withdraw the proposal for the nomination of the ministerial candidate, Ms Mateja Čalušić, and thus save the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia and himself some precious time and credibility,” the SDS party leader Janez Janša urged Prime Minister Golob. SDS MP Žan Mahnič did the same. “Whether Mateja Čalušić herself wrote what her level of education is on the form or someone else wrote it, in any case, she signed the form, and with her signature, confirmed everything written on the form as true. So, she knowingly lied about her education.”
The Freedom Movement party accepts responsibility for the clerical error
In its response to the current developments, the Freedom Movement party pointed out that “when preparing and submitting the candidate lists for the national elections in March 2022, an administrative error was made when listing the education of the candidate Mateja Čalušić, for which the party takes full responsibility.” They added that they had already corrected the error where they could have done so and that they regret it and apologise for it.
The candidate lists were used to prepare CVs of individual MPs that are published on the website of the National Assembly, so the error was repeated here, they pointed out, adding that “when this error was pointed out to them, they immediately corrected it.” They reject accusations that Čalušić has ever misrepresented herself as having a different educational qualification than she does. “Apart from the mentioned error, there is also no electoral material in the State Election Commission’s public announcement with which she ‘recruited voters’ with the wrong educational qualifications,” they claimed. “In addition, in all the documents provided by Čalušić to the party, including the declaration of accession, her education is correctly stated, and the same goes for her presentation on the website of the Freedom Movement,” they stressed.
Regardless of who made the mistake, it is nevertheless interesting that Čalušić did not notice that in the publication of the list of approved lists of candidates in the 2000 Postojna constituency, the wrong educational qualification was attributed to her.
