The covers and editorials from leading weeklies of the Left and Right for the work-week ending Friday, 5 June 2020. All our stories about coronavirus and Slovenia are here
Mladina: Šarec's comeback
STA, 5 June 2020 – The left-wing weekly Mladina takes a look on Friday at the latest Slovenian Public Opinion survey, which is to be released next week, but which the weekly says shows former Prime Minister Marjan Šarec's LMŠ has climbed back to the top of party rankings, overtaking the ruling Democrats (SDS). It wonders what potential consequences this shift could bring.
"Slovenian Public Opinion, one of the oldest opinion polls in Slovenia, brings extremely interesting results, which were already signalled in polls by Ninamedia and Mediana - that Janez Janša and his government of the SDS, SMC, NSi and DeSUS has failed to convince voters, losing their support since assuming power on 13 March."
Editor-in-chief Grega Repovž says the reasons for this are well known: Janša has abused Covid-19 for a political and ideological pogrom and for giving medical equipment deals to friends' companies. "Slovenians, including those who have otherwise no ideological reservations towards him, will never forgive him especially the latter."
However, the survey, which is released once a year by Ljubljana's Faculty of Social Sciences, is even more interesting from the aspect of Šarec, showing that two months after the change of government, the parties of Janša and Šarec are equally popular.
Mladina says "Šarec has managed to return to the first party league ... incredibly fast, while it seemed highly unlikely even in mid-April that he could at all make such a comeback". The LMŠ has managed to get back to the No. 1 spot even if people blamed him for the emergence of Janša's government coalition due to his resignation.
"What is more, he is returning to the top despite a very brutal campaign launched by the entire government coalition, the Hungarian-owned media and the media subjected to the SDS (Siol.net) which tried to portray him as the one who took wrong decisions and was responsible for the lack of medical equipment at the outbreak of the epidemic."
The survey has also shown the LMŠ, the Social Democrats (SD) and the Left would win an outright majority if an election was held now, Mladina says under the headline Šarec's Comeback. Noting the survey was carried out before Tanja Fajon took over as SD leader, Repovž believes her leadership could even further strengthen the trio.
Mladina says that voters seem to have very quickly forgiven Šarec for pushing them into distress by resigning as prime minister at the end of January, which however does not mean an early election is anywhere near.
This is also why it is too early to speculate whether it would be better if some other party than his, for instance, the Left or SD, should take the leading position. It however means that Janša's coalition partners will change their behaviour, with some MPs perhaps considering defecting to opposition parties.
Demokracija: Anti-govt protests
STA, 4 June 2020 - The right-wing magazine Demokracija takes stock of Friday's bicycle protests in the latest editorial, finding that while everyone has a right to protest, police will have to demand the organisers acquire the permission to hold protests in order to protect those who do not protest.
Under the headline Dinner with Cyclists, editor-in-chief Jože Biščak writes that one of those spotted at the protests was Rajko Kenda, the former medical director of the UKC Ljubljana Paediatric Clinic, whom he sees as "caricature and pathetic cry of fighters for democracy".
"The man who ruined paediatrics and child surgery and who (...) knows about everything should have been pedalling an exercise bike at Dob [prison]."
Still, Biščak says that anyone has a right to protest against anything as protest is one of the forms of the freedom of speech.
"The problem is in understanding human freedoms. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has done much damage. There is much that has been thrown in there, including the right to prosperity. As a result the concepts of rights and freedoms have become totally mixed up."
The editor notes that as a result human rights are now also a right to housing, artistic expression, positive rights that pertain to an individual, while collective rights do not exist.
"Cyclists come to the protest as individuals. As a group, regardless of their numbers, they do not have any special freedoms (or rights).
"The first problem is the permission for the protest. They do not have one. They come and protest. This is wrong understanding of the rule of law. The permission for a protest rally is not designed for the authorities to check the content but so they know who provides the security and where and when the rally will be held (...)
"Consider what happened if ten of us gathered and we protested by driving in the middle of Slovenska Street. We would be captured like rabbits because we were only ten. That would mean the law of the stronger (...) It is unequal treatment before the law."
Noting that the protests held in support of Janez Janša in front of the Ljubljana court house in 2014 were held with the authorities' permission and in accordance with traffic regulations, Biščak says that while police now wisely let Friday cyclists their way, sooner or alter they will have to demand the organisers get the permission.
"Do not let them worry, they will get one, there is no dictatorship in Slovenia that would prevent anyone from protesting or expressing their views. However, in that way responsibility will be personalised and locations determined, which they will have to respect. So they do not disrupt life in the capital and those 99% of Ljubljana people who are not at the protest."
All our posts in this series are here
