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Slovenia has been electing MEPs since 2004, when it joined the EU. And all this time, Slovenian participation in European democracy has been characterised by low voter turnout, ranging between 28 and 29 p.c. In 2014, it was the bottom at simply 24.55%. Nevertheless, the newest elections in 2019 confirmed a slight upward pattern. The ruling Gibanje Svoboda occasion, led by prime minister Robert Golob and belonging to the Renew [Liberals] group within the European political geography, additionally needs to get extra voters to the polls by holding three referendums on the identical time: on the best to voluntary euthanasia, on the introduction of a preferential voting system and on the usage of hashish.
The calculation is that this may mobilise a big a part of the left-liberal citizens, which normally stays at residence throughout European elections. In Slovenia, there’s much less tactical voting in European elections and extra loyal, conventional voters who go to the polls to help their most popular occasion. For this reason the political proper, which has a extra disciplined citizens, tends to be barely extra profitable in European elections.
There are nonetheless many unknowns in regards to the end result of this yr’s European elections. The one factor that could be very sure and certain is the anticipated victory of the biggest opposition occasion, SDS, led by three-time Slovenian prime minister Janez Janša. SDS is a member of the European Folks’s Occasion (EPP, conservatives), however within the final mandate it took a noticeable step to the far proper.
Janša and his MEPs (Milan Zver, Romana Tomc) don’t rule out that the occasion will comply with its shut ally, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who left the EPP a while in the past. The SDS can also be the one occasion to have had its listing drawn up for months and to have performed a structured political marketing campaign throughout this era. It’s identified to take European politics far more severely than the events which have appeared on the Slovenian political scene shortly earlier than elections in recent times.
