Anti-immigrant populism wins votes in Slovenia, but not power
JANEZ JANSA sits sullenly in Slovenia’s National Assembly, scrolling through social-media posts on his phone and occasionally sending a sarcastic tweet. The parliament is debating the nomination of Marjan Sarec as the country’s next prime minister. Strangely, Mr Jansa, leader of the largest opposition party, does not speak once during the debate. Stranger still is that Mr Jansa’s Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) is in opposition at all: it won a quarter of the votes in June’s parliamentary election, twice as many as its nearest rival.
Mr Jansa, who has twice served as prime minister, is the only person to have sat in every Slovenian parliament since the country’s independence in 1991. During past stints in power, he governed as a pro-market liberal. This time round he chose to rebrand himself as a populist, anti-immigrant outsider. Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orban, came to his rallies. Businessmen close to Mr Orban are also said to have financed pro-Jansa media...