Slovenia’s three-time prime minister Janez Jansa was defeated in the national elections after the Freedom Movement (GS) won more votes than his Slovenian Democratic party. He was defeated Robert Golob who is a newcomer to Slovenian politics and had established his party in January.
With around two million people voting in the elections, GS won with a comfortable vote share of 34.5 per cent while Jansa’s SDS could manage only 23.6% of the total votes. Jansa was accused of undermining democratic institutions and the press in the past and that proved to be the decider.
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When it comes to the seat share, the environmentalist Freedom Movement party got 40 seats compared to SDS’s 28 seats in the Slovenian parliament which has a total of 90 seats.
The turnout in the vote, in which some 1.7 million people were eligible to cast their ballots in the small Alpine country that is a member of the European Union and the NATO military alliance, was 68%, the election commission said according to a Reuters report.
Jansa had already served as prime minister between 2004 and 2008, and 2012-2013 but he was forced out of power withing one year of his second term after being accused in a corruption scandal.
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Golob, who renamed the Green party into the Freedom Movement in January earlier this year, was a former power plant manager and the 55-year-old was able to tap into the dissent forming against Jansa which was clear from the massive turnout during the anti-government rallies around Slovenia.
“Our objective has been reached: a victory that will enable us to take the country back to freedom,”
“People want changes and have expressed their confidence in us as the only ones who can bring those changes,” he said earlier via a livestream from his home according to AFP.
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