Slovenia elections tilt another european country to the right

pulse

June 4, 2018 1:43 AM

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — Voters in Slovenia gave a victory to a populist party led by a firebrand former prime minister in parliamentary elections Sunday that tilted another European country to the right.

The Slovenian Democratic Party, led by the two-time former Prime Minister Janez Jansa, received nearly 25 percent of the vote, according to the country’s National Election Commission.

“Those who cast their ballots for us have elected a party that will put Slovenia first,” Jansa told supporters at the party’s headquarters in Ljubljana after the result was announced.

With Sunday’s vote, Slovenia, a European Union member since 2004 and a user of the euro since 2007, could line up politically with Hungary, which re-elected the right-wing populist Victor Orban as prime minister in April, and Austria, where a far-right party has emerged as a strong political force. Jansa has closely allied himself with Orban.

But Jansa could struggle to form a government as most party leaders have rejected the possibility of joining a coalition with him, raising the possibility of an extended period of uncertainty and a new election if coalition talks are deadlocked.

In keeping with his campaign theme, he said Sunday that migration was the biggest challenge facing Slovenia and Europe.

Since the nation’s independence from communist Yugoslavia in 1991, politics in Slovenia has had a conservative tinge, but center and leftist parties have largely dominated governing coalitions. The shift to populist parties has taken place since the migration crisis of 2015 and 2016, though the shift has not been as strong as in neighboring Italy.

The centrist party of Marjan Sarec, a former actor and the mayor of Kamnik, a small town north of the capital, Ljubljana, came in second with 13 percent of the vote. If Jansa fails to cobble together a government, Sarec would get a chance. If he too failed, the president could call new elections.

The Modern Center Party, led by the outgoing prime minister, Miro Cerar, finished fourth with 9.5 percent — a crushing defeat considering Slovenia’s economy grew by 5 percent on his government’s watch in 2017.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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