The covers and editorials from leading weeklies of the Left and Right for the work-week ending Friday, 12 February 2021. All our stories about coronavirus and Slovenia are here
Mladina: No-confidence vote last chance for opposition
STA, 12 February 2021 - Monday's vote of no confidence in the government of Janez Janša is the last chance to unseat the government, the left-wing weekly Mladina argues in Friday's editorial, noting that the motion is likely to fail but would determine who is on the right side of history.
The paper says this is the only chance for the opposition to risk failure - but it will be the moral winner in the eyes of the public regardless of the outcome.
"Every MP who votes in favour will automatically be on the right side of history. Yes, Monday will bring a tally of those in favour of democracy, and those in favour of Slovenia's Organisation," the leftist weekly says in The Illusion that the Next Attempt Is Possible.
According to Mladina, it will be a bitter moment when deputies of the coalition SMC and opposition DeSUS vote in favour of the government. "It will be bitter for them: the moment the vote is over, they will have taken upon themselves historical responsibility for Janša's past and, even more importantly, future actions."
"The very next day Janša will leverage this 'trust' to strengthen his grip on power and assault society even more brutally. And the votes for all these actions, a blank check, will have come from MPs of two parties which he has manipulated all along."
The opposition, however, cannot lose on Monday because the vote is simple: it is about what kind of country the people want to live in.
"If the motion is unsuccessful, the opposition will have a single goal: getting ready for the election. Just like Janša. DeSUS and SMC, however, will immediately remain without the trump cards that they are currently using in their game with Janša. The very next day, he will not even give the two parties a second thought."
Reporter: Janša wrong to silence experts
STA, 9 February 2021 - The right-wing magazine Reporter writes about the harsh but apparently ineffective coronavirus restrictions in Slovenia in the latest editorial headlined Five Minutes of Truth, saying the truth was delivered last week by the country's chief epidemiologist, Mario Fafangel.
The weekly notes that Croatia has almost defeated the epidemic without the harsh coronavirus restrictions and fines seen in Slovenia, where it took three months before coronavirus began to decline.
Fafangel said epidemiologists had proposed several times the reopening of primary schools up to year 5, they also proposed lifting the ban on movement outside municipality and region of residence. He also opined there was no need for a curfew.
"His comments must have upset Prime Minister Janez Janša, who has emphasised that Dr Fafangel is the acting head of the Centre for Communicable Diseases at the National Institute of Public Health (is this a threat that he won't be much longer?) and added that there are other experts in the advisory group and that opinions differ.
"Which experts have different opinions he did not say, and they have not themselves because the government or its communication office banned them from giving statements to the media," writes the weekly.
"It is unbelievable indeed, the prime minister disregards the experts' opinion and is silencing them, citizens are under a curfew and shut in their municipalities, while the parents who are protesting with their children against school closures, are getting police knocking on their door to be handed EUR 800 fine notices."
The paper remembers protesters who in 2014 rallied in front of the Ljubljana court house in protest against Janša's imprisonment in the Patria case. "The rallies were equally unlawful but none of the protesters received a fine. Today, under his power, people are punished for protesting against (unlawful) school closures."
All our posts in this series are here
