Lojze Peterle: Janša sometimes unnecessarily “really”

I spoke with an eminent left-wing politician and he told me: “I don’t know what will happen to us if Janša has a stroke.” This is a paradox that they create all the time. With such a policy, with a firm rejection of Janša, they are actually helping him. These elections were a special exercise that has not yet been fully explained because of the Israeli dimension. In the end, again, we don’t know what was true, just like we don’t know what happened with Patria, because they statute-barred the case instead of going to trial. We can also look at Janša in a different way.

If Janša, with his political style, is an accelerator or an inhibitor of democratization processes in Slovenia? Janša sometimes unnecessarily “really”, as we say in Dolenjska. And then a little blood flows. He is a soldier. He likes the fight, the front. He feels good at the front, as he did in 1991. The so-called anti-Janschism with Golob’s famous phrase “Clean the house of the Jansists” does not sound very democratic. Without being Janš’s defender, I would like to say that he led the European Council exceptionally well twice. And if he is the prime minister for the fourth time, then that probably also shows some quality and ability.

What he offers in terms of program and strategy is undoubtedly closer to me than what the Left or Svoboda offered. I am happy about the creation of this coalition, which was formed in special circumstances. Now it will smell more like Poland for a few years. Moreover, I know many communists who were in favor of independence, but far fewer of them were in favor of democratic transformation. In our country, ideological issues are key, and I would advise the coalition to deal with them first.