The covers and editorials from leading weeklies of the Left and Right for the work-week ending Friday, 27 December
Mladina: Decline in reading shows intellectual regression
STA, 27 December – The left-leaning weekly Mladina says in its latest commentary that the Slovenian nation as a whole has received a slap in the face with the results of a recent reading culture survey, which actually does not speak about reading of books, but is a cruel report about intellectual regression of the nation.
The survey shows that Slovenians have continued to regress when it comes to reading habits in the last five years, with half of the nation failing to read a single full book in a year.
"No, the trends are not similar in other countries and even our trends were not such in the post-independence period," Grega Repovž, the editor-in-chief of the left-leaning weekly, says in State as a Company.
He notes that Slovenia has also fared very poorly comparatively, with five more books per capita being sold in Norway than in Slovenia.
The survey is actually a cruel report about intellectual regression of the nation, as reading of books is one of the indicators showing the state of intellect and power of thought in a country.
The situation is a result of mistakes made in state politics in a longer period of time, and the current government will have no impact. "But alarms should be blaring all over the country, from the academy of sciences and arts to the prime minister's office."
The survey clearly shows that "we are in the phase in which the nation is becoming stupid - which is something that we do not feel, something we are not aware of, but which is happening and showing only in the long run."
Reporter: Snap election unlikely
STA, 23 December - Despite the tight result in the vote on the appointment of Angelika Mlinar as cohesion minister last week, the right-leaning magazine Reporter argues in the latest editorial that the opposition does not hold the key to a snap election.
In a piece headlined Pre-Christmas Drama, editor-in-chief Silvester Šurla notes that the minority government's tally of votes in the National Assembly has been reduced to just 42, which even when adding the two minority MPs, does not make a simple majority in the 90-strong National Assembly.
Šurla also notes that after an MP defected from the National Party (SNS) to the opposition Democrats (SDS), the largest opposition party increased its tally of votes to 26, twice as many as the LMŠ party of PM Marjan Šarec.
"The question is, however, whether the SNS defector will get Janez Janša any closer to a new centre-right government in this term or at least a snap election he likes predicting so much."
Šurla remembers similar "manoeuvring" two decades ago when an SNS MP and one from the Pensioners' Party (DeSUS) defected to the centre-right bloc, which made it possible for the late Andrej Bajuk to form a centre-right government, but it only lasted half a year, after which the right bloc lost the election.
Wondering who holds the key to a snap election today, Šurla says that the right bloc does not, nor does the Left, but the key is held by the coalition party leaders, who "could leave the Šarec boat early out of their own calculation or on the advice of uncles from behind the scenes.
"Primarily the prime minister, whose LMŠ party could probably enhance its position considerably judging by opinion poll results (...). However, Šarec is not (yet) prepared to risk such a move."
Šurla agrees with economist Matej Lahovnik, who expects that Šarec will wait until after Slovenia's spell as president of the Council of the EU, that is until early 2022 just a few months ahead of a regular election, to pull a "Cerar", that is do as Miro Cerar did when he stepped down shortly before the 2018 election.
"There is no other 'hero' in sight within the coalition for the time being because the leaders of all other parties are trembling with fear about their political survival. In a snap election they could be swept away to the scrapheap of history."
As for the Left, Šurla says that even if the party is trying hard to prove its position in the opposition, the party would back the government if there was a risk of Janša returning to power. "That is, if the uncles from behind the scenes ordered them so".
All our posts in this series are here
