The last discussion round of the top candidates on Slovenian television on Thursday evening got completely out of hand and looked like a reflection of this polarized election campaign.

Prime Minister Janez Janša has been at odds with his most likely opponent, Robert Golob, over each other's supposedly opaque accounts and assets, rather than the right policies for the country.

Challenger Golob was connected to a screen because a corona infection had forced him into self-isolation during the hot phase of the election campaign.

Stephen Lowenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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The other opposition candidates, who hardly got a word in, left the studio one after the other, some stumbling loudly.

Not without leaving critical remarks that the moderation of the program confirmed all concerns about the hijacking of public television by Janša's followers.

This Sunday, the approximately 1.7 million voters in the EU country are called upon to decide on the composition of the parliament in Laibach (Ljubljana).

Polls predict a neck-and-neck race between Janša's conservative Democratic Party (SDS) and Golob's green-liberal freedom movement, each with around 25 percent.

The polls should be treated with caution, also because Golob only came onto the scene with his own party at the beginning of this year.

There are therefore no comparable values ​​from the past.

Hungary is involved in the Slovenian media market

Eight to ten other parties are fighting to clear the four percent hurdle and get into the 90-member House of Representatives.

The previous left-wing opposition parties SD and Levica have just as good prospects as the Christian Democratic NSI, which has so far supported Janša.

However, the latter could still suffer from an affair with the agriculture minister she provided, who had to resign shortly before the election because of an expensive hotel bill that he had not initially paid himself.

The Pensioners' Party, which has often tipped the scales, is in danger of falling.

Among other things, an anti-corona measures party is new.

It is already a tradition that people who were previously little known as politicians with newly founded parties of their own appear on the scene shortly before the elections and then have considerable success, as is now becoming apparent for Golob.

These career changers have made it to the Prime Minister several times, most recently the former television comedian Marjan Šarec.

Their star then burned up just as regularly.

Šarec was initially able to lead a multi-party minority government in 2018 because the SDS emerged as the strongest force in the election, but Janša initially failed to secure a majority.

Šarec then miscalculated in a coalition dispute, so Janša has governed since 2020.

He embodies the continuity in the Slovenian party system since independence in 1991. He leads the SDS, which is fully committed to him, and can count on a solid core of regular voters.

On the left he is hated to the same degree.

There he is said to have authoritarian tendencies, he wants to make the state his own and his party like Viktor Orbán in neighboring Hungary.

In fact, Janša is close to Orbán, not only in terms of content.

Entrepreneurs close to the Hungarian prime minister have also entered the Slovenian media market, and their stations and papers are supporting Janša's policies.

Nickname "Marshal Twito"

On the other hand, Janša, with his quarter of the electorate, is far from Orbán's two-thirds parliamentary majority.

Even if he wanted to, he could not change the franchise, let alone the constitution, by hand.

It cannot be denied that his party influenced appointments to government offices, the judiciary and the public media.

He tried to force the STA news agency to make structural adjustments by cutting funds, which was only half successful.

The fact that the American organization "Freedom House" has now published a ranking in which Slovenia has been significantly downgraded on a freedom index has met with approval from Janša's sworn opponents and incomprehension in the government camp.

In fact, Janša is prone to harsh, fast, and frequent attacks via social media, earning him the nickname "Marshal Twito" among opponents.

On the day of the most recent American presidential election, for example, he allowed himself to be carried away into declaring a victory for Donald Trump.

The good relationship with Orbán has been marred as a result of the Ukraine war: while the Hungarian is reluctant to support the EU sanctions against Russia and would rather criticize the government in Kyiv than Vladimir Putin, Janša was one of the daring group of heads of government who paid a solidarity visit to traveled to the Ukrainian capital when it still seemed concretely dangerous.

Finally he tried moderation.

Nonetheless, his critics will again do everything they can to keep him out of the government; there is talk of an anti-Janša bloc.

He now relies on the newcomer Golob, who was previously a successful manager at an energy company.