Some polls heading into Sunday’s parliamentary election in Slovenia had right-wing populist Janez Jansa poised to return to power, but allegations this week that he met with representatives of a private Israeli spy firm in December are threatening to turn the race on its head.
A three-time prime minister and a fixture of Slovenian politics since it declared independence from socialist Yugoslavia in 1991, 67-year-old Jansa and his Slovenian Democratic Party, SDS, have been polling narrowly ahead or just behind the Svoboda [Freedom] party of Prime Minister Robert Golob, depending on which poll you look at.
Jansa’s last stint in office coincided with COVID-19, but the pandemic didn’t stop him from going after Slovenia’s public broadcaster and other pillars of democracy. Some analysts fear a new SDS-led government might double down on Jansa’s national conservative agenda, mimicking the likes of Andrej Babis, who returned to power in the Czech Republic in December, and Robert Fico, back in charge in Slovakia since October 2023.
“Of course, Jansa will be more radical,” said Marko Milosavljevic, professor of media regulation at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana. “Jansa was more radical every time he came back to power.”