The Conservative SLS, Slovenia’s Oldest Party, Faces Last Chance in the Election (Feature)

By , 14 May 2018, 09:28 AM Politics
The Conservative SLS, Slovenia’s Oldest Party, Faces Last Chance in the Election (Feature) www.sls.si

Share this:

STA, 14 May 2018 - Once the country's major conservative party, the Slovenian People's Party (Slovenska ljudska stranka, SLS) will try to make its way back to parliament in the 3 June general election in what will likely be one of its final attempts to get saved from political oblivion. 

All our election coverage can be found here, while our profiles of the major parties are here.

Slovenia's oldest party, the SLS was squeezed out of parliament in the 2014 snap election after having been part of six coalition governments since independence, including one under its guide.

The party did well at the local polls later that year, winning the largest number of mayoral seats, while its leader at the time, Franc Bogovič, was elected to the European Parliament earlier the same year.

However, the party has seen a number of prominent departures and a further decline in ratings since, and its poor showing in the 2017 presidential election suggests it will face a tough job at the polls for general and local elections later this year and the Euro vote in 2019.

A moderate conservative party with a predominately rural electoral base, the SLS was established in May 1988 as the Slovenian Farmers' Association (SKZ) before adopting its present name in 1992.

The party was a leading member of the DEMOS coalition of newly-emerged opposition parties which won the first post-war multi-party elections in Slovenia in 1990 and formed a government that led Slovenia to independence.

Starting off as the second most powerful party in the right bloc after the Christian Democrats (SKD), the SLS peaked in 1996 by winning 19 seats in the 90-strong legislature, whereupon it started losing ground.

Part of the reason was its ill-fated merger with the SKD in 2000, which brought down the Liberal Democrats-led government half a year before the regular election and ushered in a caretaker cabinet before unravelling in an acrimonious split only months later.

Another factor in the party's demise was that Janez Janša's Democrats (SDS) rose to dominance in the right bloc, while the SLS wore itself out playing the role of a junior partner in various coalition governments.

Things went further awry after party leader Bogovič secured a seat in the European Parliament on a joint slate with New Slovenia (NSi), the party that split off from the short-lived union between the SLS and SKD, in the Euro vote in May 2014.

In a misguided attempt to keep his MEP seat while heading the party's ticket in the general election, Bogovič stood in a Ljubljana borough, where he won far fewer votes than he would in his base in Krško. The party ended up 0.05% below the 4% threshold to enter parliament.

Infighting has also taken its toll. In 2012, the party expelled former Maribor Mayor Franc Kangler after mass protests which eventually forced him out of office.

Kangler has since formed a rival party, teaming up with the anti-abortion party of another former SLS member, Aleš Primc, to contest the upcoming election.

Marjan Podobnik, who served as SLS leader in its heyday between 1992 and 2000, was kicked out in 2016, while Bojan Šrot, another former party leader who is currently serving his fifth term as Celje mayor, quit of his own accord.

The party has been trying to re-establish its identity under its current leader Marko Zidanšek, also by stepping up anti-migrant rhetoric in the wake of the 2015 refugee crisis, while rejecting more radical views held by parties further to the right.

Advocating traditional Christian democratic values, the party will campaign for rural development, benefits for farmers, decentralisation and regionalisation in coalition with the regional Alliance for Primorska (ZZP).

A former champion of national interest, the party has redefined its position on privatisation and now supports the sale of the NLB bank and the telecoms incumbent Telekom Slovenije.

The party also advocates income tax cuts and a leaner public sector, and would like to reverse a ban preventing MPs to serve as mayors.

Looking up to his Austrian party counterpart Sebastian Kurz, Zidanšek says that he is against removing the fence from the border with Croatia as long as Hungary has not done the same.

Photo galleries and videos

This websie uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.