Slovenia's political survivor Janez Jansa is back
The new coalition government of Slovenia's veteran leader Janez Jansa is already advancing divisive policies that some warn could deepen polarization. Janez Jansa is the
The new coalition government of Slovenia's veteran leader Janez Jansa is already advancing divisive policies that some warn could deepen polarization. Janez Jansa is the great survivor of Slovenian politics. He served as defense minister in Slovenia's first independent government in 1991 and is now back in the prime minister's office for the fourth time. Appointed on May 22, he is already stirring up controversy, both historical — over the treatment of Nazi collaborators summarily executed at the end of World War II — and current, with tax cuts trade unions say will further enrich the already wealthy to the detriment of public services. His right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) consistently commands around a quarter of the vote in parliamentary elections. Moreover, unlike parties on the center-left, it has been a permanent fixture on Slovenia's political scene for more than three decades. Staying power and experience That combination of staying power, organization and experience has been the key to Jansa forming a new governing coalition, even though the SDS finished second to the center-left Freedom Movement in March's parliamentary election. Prime Minister Robert Golob was found wanting when it came to making the deals that would have kept him in government. Although the Freedom Movement of former PM Robert Golob (right) won the parliamentary election in March, it was veteran leader Janez Jansa (left) who succeeded in forming a government Image: Andrej Tarfila/SOPA Images/ZUMA/picture alliance "He was absolutely in a position to build a coalition of the center-left and a little bit of the right, but he lacked the skills and abilities to do it," said Ali Zerdin, editor of the weekend supplement of Slovenia's best-selling newspaper, Delo. "On the other side, we have the veteran of Slovenian politics, Janez Jansa.
He knows all the tricks to build a coalition necessary to run Slovenia," Zerdin told DW. Far-right support sets alarm bells ringing The composition of the new government, which was approved by the Slovenian parliament on Thursday (June 4), has raised plenty of eyebrows. The conservative New Slovenia was always likely to join a Jansa-led coalition. But the center-right Democrats had previously broken away from the SDS and had attempted to portray themselves as a distinct middle-of-the-road proposition. Meanwhile, the support of the far-right populist Resnica party has set off alarm bells in some quarters. Its leader, Zoran Stevanovic, had signed a commitment not to join a government with Jansa at the helm, but he did accept SDS support to become parliamentary speaker and returned the favor by directing his MPs to vote for Jansa as prime minister. What impact will Resnica have? It's not clear what sort of influence Resnica might have over policy, though there is the implicit threat that it would withdraw its support if it did not support the new government's direction. The party's own policies are decidedly fringe: anti-vaccination, in favor of a referendum on NATO membership, and skeptical when it comes to the European Union. Adding those views to Jansa's long-standing alliance with long-time former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban prompts the question as to whether Slovenia might be about to replace Hungary as the leading member of the EU's awkward squad. But the new foreign minister, Tone Kajzer, insists the reality is very different. "The European Union is the basic concentric circle of the Slovenian political, economic and overall environment," Kajzer told DW on Thursday. "There is no question that Slovenia would be a troublemaker or something like that.
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