STA, 6 April 2021 - The right-wing weekly Reporter comments on the political situation in the country, speculating, among other things, that Prime Minister Janez Janša may step down and force an early election.
After a series of defeats, an impeachment against Janša is a victory for the opposition, now presumably stronger by three votes from breakaway coalition MPs from the ranks of the Modern Centre Party (SMC).
But Janša may still take matters into his own hands and resign, even though he is not too worried about the impeachment. "He will almost certainly manage to get enough votes from MPs terrified of an early election."
Meanwhile, his losing of support in the National Assembly is a bigger problem. Discipline among MPs of the Democrats (SDS) and New Slovenia (NSi) may be good, but the remaining SMC MPs are unreliable.
Meanwhile, the opposition Pensioners' Party (DeSUS) MPs vote according to their conscience, the National Party (SNS) according to its price list, and the two minority MPs refuse to be the ones to tip the scales.
A Short History of Impeachment in Slovenia
Sooner or later, the coalition will get stuck. "It seemed that Janša was willing to tough it out until the end of Slovenia's EU presidency, but now his exceedingly obvious Euroscepticism and the willingness to fight Europeans show that leading the EU is less important to him than we had thought."
A short-term solution for the coalition could be the return of Economy Minister Zdravko Počivalšek back into parliament, which would give the coalition one more vote. But this is not something Počivalšek would look forward to, as he obviously does not do too well in environments where pragmatism does not come first.
Another official who has found himself out of his element is Jelko Kacin after he was named national vaccination coordinator. "His coordination brought chaos, resentment and devastating results in the vaccination of the most vulnerable groups."
While many elderly are still waiting for the shots, privileged individuals, such as Janša's lawyer Franci Matoz, have already been vaccinated.
Meanwhile, the public is becoming ever less willing to follow coronavirus restrictions, the paper says under the headline What If We Run Out of Toilet Paper.
