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Southeast Europe
June 1, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 13
PM Miro Cerar heads for crushing defeat in Slovenian general election
bne IntelliNews
Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar’s Modern Centre Party (SMC) is polling at around 8% ahead of the June 3 parliamentary elections, making a handover of power to the opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) almost inevitable.
Despite the expected changes in the country’s political life, it is not expected that economic prosperity will be set back following the elections, despite the achievements of Cerar’s outgoing gov- ernment during the last four years.
The latest polls indicate that the largest opposi- tion party in Slovenia, the SDS is far more popular than any other party running in the June 3 elec- tions, with support from 23% of voters. The SDS is followed by the newly formed List of Marjan Sarec (LMS) which has the support of 14% of voters, according to pollofpolls.eu. The LMS’s popularity shows that many Slovenians want to see a new face on their political scene, in contrast to the weaker support expressed for all members of the ruling coalition.
Cerar’s SMC and its junior coalition partners, the Slovenian Social Democrats (SD) and Demo- cratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia (DeSUS), currently lead the Slovenian government. The SD led by outgoing Minister of Agriculture, For- estry and Food Dejan Zidan had been fighting for second place with LMS, but recently has been pushed in to third as 10% of polled voters said they support it. Minister of Foreign Affairs Karl Erjavec and his DeSUS currently can count on about 7% support, which is unsurprising since they are popular as a ‘forever coalition partner’. The main surprise is that Cerar’s SMC is backed
Prime Minister Miro Cerar's Modern Centre Party is polling at around 8% ahead of the June 3 general election.
by just 8% of voters, despite the economic ad- vances of recent years.
Cerar took the post in 2014, when the Slovenian economy resumed growth after it contracted for two consecutive years. It went on to grow by 2.9% in 2015 and 3.1% y/y in 2016 and accelerate to 5% in 2017. Further growth is expected in the com- ing years, though by a somewhat slower pace of about 4%. This was confirmed by the news that GDP increased 4.6% y/y in Q1 2018. However, ac- cording to Sebastjan Jeretic, Slovenian political analyst and founder of communication consulting company Neurovirtu, the economic prosperity of Slovenia will continue regardless of the composi- tion or political principles of the new government.
“A change of government will be even better for the economy because it will, first of all, further reduce bureaucracy. The problem of this govern- ment which is leaving now is not the economy
at all, its problems are in other segments — the health system, judiciary, corruption and above
all the total apathy of people. According to some prognoses, turnout can be only between 45% and 48% which is a complete disaster,” Jeretic told bne IntelliNews.
The failures of the last government in these areas have led voters to overlook Jansa’s chequered past and switch to the SDS. He was involved in one of the country’s largest scandals, the so- called Patria case, and charged with receiving bribes in connection with a deal with Finnish defence company Patria, though the charges were eventually dropped after the time limit for unfin- ished cases expired.