2018 Slovenian parliamentary election

On 14 March 2018, Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia delivered a judgement regarding the railway referendum, held in 2017 on the construction of a second railway connection from Koper to Divača. In the judgement, the court annulled the results and ordered a new vote. The railway link was the biggest project of the Cerar cabinet.[3]

Later that day, Prime Minister Cerar announced that he would resign from the post at a press conference following a cabinet meeting. Cerar explained that he had resigned due to bad relations within the coalition between the Social Democrats (SD) and the Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia (DeSUS) following a decision of the Supreme Court earlier that day, which he stated would slow down the infrastructural development of Slovenia due to strikes and demands of public sector trade unions. The following day, he sent his letter of resignation to the Speaker of the National Assembly.[4] Cerar was the second consecutive Prime Minister after Alenka Bratušek to resign. The two previous Prime Ministers, Janez Janša (2012–2013) and Borut Pahor (2008–2012), were removed from the office by vote of no confidence, meaning that Janša's first term in office (2004–2008) remains the most recently completed full term in office.

After the resignation of a prime minister, a new candidate can be nominated by the president. However, President Borut Pahor announced after a meeting with Cerar that he would not nominate anyone for the post. Members of the National Assembly also announced that they will not nominate a candidate, and called for early elections.[5][6]

According to the Constitution, regularly scheduled elections should have been held no sooner than two months and no later than 15 days before the expiry of four years from the first session of current National Assembly.[7] Elections were therefore expected to be held between 1 June and 15 July 2018. Following the resignation of Cerar, elections were held on 3 June 2018.[6]

On 20 March 2018, the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) announced that after consultations with President Pahor they were calling for elections to be held on 10 June 2018 and that they would nominate a candidate for Prime Minister to postpone the elections if needed. The Modern Centre Party (SMC) also called for elections to be held at a later date due to the ongoing procedure to adopt a constitutional law protecting the country's biggest bank, NLB, from Croatian actions in violation of international agreement between the countries as well as the upcoming process before the European Court of Justice on arbitration between Slovenia and Croatia.[8] On the same day, independent MP Janko Veber announced that he would try and nominate himself for the position of interim Prime Minister, though none of the political parties expressed its support.[9]

At the time of Cerar's resignation, four investigative commissions were ongoing in the National Assembly. Two of them are investigating banks (one on why an injection of €3.2 billion of equity capital was needed during the premiership of Alenka Bratušek and the other on the possible funding of terrorism through Slovenian banks), one is looking at corruption during the construction of the Šoštanj Thermal Power Plant (TEŠ6); and the other investigating corruption in healthcare system. All four commissions are expected to issue final reports in April and May, which must be approved by a vote in the National Assembly. Some current politicians are expected to be charged with responsibility for the scandals, including Janez Janša (SDS) and Borut Pahor (SD). It was suggested in the media that Social Democrats may be in favour of early elections so that the commissions could not finish their work.[10][8]

On 14 April 2018, after no candidate for the Prime Minister was nominated, President Pahor dissolved the National Assembly and decided elections will be held on 3 June 2018.[1]

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The Italian minority representative in the National Assembly, Roberto Battelli, who has held the post for seven consecutive terms and was the only one to hold this position so far, announced on 16 March 2018 that he would not run again in the following elections. He was one of only two representatives (the other being Janez Janša) to be elected in every election since Slovenia gained its independence in 1992 from Yugoslavia.[11]

During the signing of a treaty with Russian company Gazprom to supply Slovenia with natural gas on April 13, 2018, the Russian Ambassador to Slovenia Doku Zavgayev publicly offered support to DeSUS. This was seen as a diplomatic scandal in Slovenia and an act that violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR) according to Speaker of National Assembly Milan Brglez (SMC). However, Foreign Minister and DeSUS president Karl Erjavec, a supporter of good relations with Russia, did not see the act as a violation of diplomatic protocol, saying that Ambassador only supported their program and that he hoped other ambassadors would also support it. The Slovenian media speculated that the act could have been pre-arranged between Zavgayev and Erjavec. Former Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel also criticized the Russian Ambassador, saying he violated Article 41 and Article 42 of VCDR, which explicitly forbids interference in the internal affairs of a host state. Chairman of the National Assembly Foreign Politics Committee Jožef Horvat (NSi) said that he had never seen anything like it. President Borut Pahor made no statement about the matter. This was the second time a foreign ambassador had interfered in Slovenian internal affairs after American Ambassador Joseph A. Mussomeli had offered his help in forming a government coalition after the 2011 elections, for which he was criticized by then-President Danilo Türk. Ambassador Mussomeli was later called for consultations by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to explain his statements. Then Ambassador of Slovenia to the United States Roman Kirn (now LMŠ) also met with representatives of State Department.[12][13][14][15][16][17]

On 19 April 2018, two Modern Centre Party (SMC) MPs, Branko Zorman and Bojan Krajnc, left the party after National Assembly did not pass Zorman's bill that would liberalize gambling market in Slovenia (which is according to Zorman under control of Social Democrats), saying that party supports corruption (Prime Minister Cerar personally intervened in the SMC Deputy Group and asked MPs to vote against the bill). On that day Simona Kustec Lipicer MP, leader of the SMC in the National Assembly announced that she would not run again in the 2018 elections. However, the party denied Zorman's accusations, saying that Zorman is not pleased with him not being one of the candidates in the 2018 elections and that Krajnc was not satisfied with the electoral district he would have run in.[18]

On 23 April 2018, Milan Balažic (NSD) accused President Borut Pahor of acts which brought Slovenia under the subordination of another country as he had signed the Arbitration Agreement between Croatia and Slovenia when Prime Minister. This is the second charge for President Pahor since 10 April 2018, when the National Assembly charged him in the Final Report of "TEŠ6 Investigative Commission". Solidarnost subsequently started a petition calling for Pahor's resignation. In response, Pahor said that he had already paid for these actions when he lost the 2011 elections.[19][20][21]

On 24 April 2018, Slovenian media reported that Matej Tonin (NSi) possess documents that prove that foreign minister Karl Erjavec (DeSUS) has worked for Croatia during Arbitration between the countries. Tonin revealed the documents and informed MPs at the closed session of the National Assembly Tonin also stated that he cannot release them yet because they are still a state secret. DeSUS accused him of lying.[22]

After submitting their candidature lists, some media questioned which MPs supported the lists of candidates of the Party of Alenka Bratušek and the party Good Country. Party of Alenka Bratušek has only 2 MPs (Alenka Bratušek and Mirjam Bon Klanjšček) and Good Country only has 1 MP (Bojan Dobovšek) to submit a list of candidates signatures of 3 MPs are needed. State Election Commission refused to announce the names of the MPs that supported the lists of candidates. Media also stressed that not announcing names of the MPs is against Good Country's efforts for transparency in politics. According to the media, one of the MPs that supported Good Country's list is Franc Laj, former MP for Modern Centre Party (SMC), now forming Deputy Group of Independent MPs in the National Assembly, together with Bratušek, Bon Klanjšček and Dobovšek. Names of other two MPs stay unknown, though some media speculate that Branko Zorman and Bojan Kranjc, also former SMC MPs, who left the party just before the beginning of the campaign, could have supported the candidature lists. MPs of Social Democrats and Modern Centre Party (Dobovšek was elected as SMC MP in 2014, but left the party soon after the elections) are also speculated to offer their signatures. Media later reported that SMC MP Vlasta Počkaj supported candidature lists of Party of Alenka Bratušek and Marija Antonija Kovačič, DeSUS MP, supported candidature list of Dobovšek's Good Country.[23][24][25] The official election campaign began on 4 May 2018. The main topics of the campaign were relations with Croatia (arbitration, NLB), the public healthcare system, banks and corruption, hate speech, level of minimum wage and pensions, level of poverty and foreign policy and positioning of Slovenia in the international community, especially relations with the United States.[26]

On 5 May 2018, Slovenian media reported that list of candidates that United Right submitted in the 6th constituency (Novo Mesto) had been rejected because it was not formed according to the law, which stipulates that at least 35% of candidates much be of the opposite sex. United Right submitted a list with 7 male and 2 female candidates, but both female candidates would run in two electoral districts each. The party also contested the decision of the Electoral Commission of the 6th constituency in the Supreme Court, which rejected their appeal on 8 May. The incident is seen as great damage to the party since the head of the party, Aleš Primc, would run in this constituency. The Electoral Commission of the 5th constituency rejected the list of United left and Unity for a similar reason. According to the head of Unity Janko Veber, the Supreme Court rejected their appeal and he added that they would contest its decision in the Constitutional Court. However, according to the law a decision by the Supreme Court is final, said Director of the State Election Commission Dušan Vučko. Unity proposed delaying the election until the verdict of the Constitutional court after the Supreme Court rejected United Right's appeal as well and they proposed the same. On 14 May, the Constitutional Court rejected United Left's appeal. On 7 May, United Right's list of candidates in the 1st constituency was rejected as well for the same reason as the one in the 6th constituency since Metka Zevnik, another key candidate would run in this constituency, the party lost its possibilities to reach the threshold of 4%, Slovenian media reported. This problem opened a broad discussion on gender quotas in politics in Slovenia. The State Election Commission reported on 8 May that the list of Party of Slovenian People in the 2nd constituency had been partially rejected due to a candidate on the list that died in 2017 and was then removed. It also reported that the Social Democrats and the party Andrej Čuš and the Greens of Slovenia (AČZS) had put the same candidate on their lists. The candidate was removed from the list of Andrej Čuš and the Greens of Slovenia because the list of Social Democrats had been submitted first. Due to the removal of the candidate from the list of AČZS, the list in the 3rd constituency was rejected by the State Election Commission (DVK) on 9 May for not reaching the gender quota. Media stressed that two of the four members of the DVK who voted to reject the list were appointed by Social Democrats and SDP (which is the former party of Andrej Čuš). The Supreme Court annulled the decision made by DVK on 12 May.[27][28][29][30][31][32][33]

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of Janez Janša, came to stump with Janša in mid-May at a rally in Celje, declaring: "If Europe surrenders to mass population movement and immigration, our own Continent will be lost [...] The aim is to settle among us people who do not belong to our culture, and who will want to live here according to their own religions and customs".[34] The Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) would also run on an anti-immigration platform.[35] One of the SDS's posters depicts migrants and refugees behind a stop sign. In a pre-election debate, a party lawmaker said that "no migrants means a secure Slovenia".[36] Hence, a frequent topic of election debates was hate speech, especially due to Janez Janša and other members of SDS, who are frequently involved in discussions which include hate speech, especially on Twitter. Lucija Ušaj and Žan Mahnič MP, both SDS and candidates in the elections, were exposed because of their activity on Twitter, where they frequently publish statements that can arguably be recognized as hate speech against homosexuals, migrants, Muslims, or political opponents.[37]

The 90 members of the National Assembly are elected by two methods. 88 are elected by open list proportional representation in eight 11-seat constituencies and seats are allocated to the parties at the constituency level using the Droop quota. The elected Deputies are identified by ranking all of a party's candidates in a constituency by the percentage of votes they received in their district. The seats that remain unallocated are allocated to the parties at the national level using the d'Hondt method with an electoral threshold of 4%.[38] Although the country is divided into 88 electoral districts, deputies are not elected from all 88 districts. More than one deputy is elected in some districts, which results in some districts not having an elected deputy (for instance, 21 of 88 electoral districts did not have an elected deputy in the 2014 elections).[39] Parties must have at least 35% of their lists from each gender, except in cases where there are only three candidates. For these lists, there must be at least one candidate of each gender.[40][41]

Two additional deputies are elected by the Italian and Hungarian minorities. Voters rank all of the candidates on the ballot paper using numbers (1 being highest priority). A candidate is awarded the most points (equal to the number of candidates on the ballot paper) when a voter ranks them first. The candidate with most points wins.[42][38]

The table lists all the parties that so far expressed their intention to participate in the elections. SMC, SDS, DeSUS, SD, Levica, NSi, SAB, AČZS, DD and Unity are currently represented in the National Assembly. Not all of the following political parties will be able to take part in the elections due to the criteria set by the law (candidate lists supported with signatures of 3 MPs or 100 signatures in each constituency), especially the smaller ones; and some may form coalitions, such as Third Bloc and United Right.

Parties had to form their lists of candidates for each constituency by 3 May 2018.