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Janez Jansa — Slovenia's great political survivor — is back
Slovenia's political survivor Janez Jansa is back
Guy De Launey in Ljubljana06/05/2026June 5, 2026The new coalition government of Slovenia's veteran leader Janez Jansa is already advancing divisive policies that some warn could deepen polarization.
https://p.dw.com/p/5Eu3vJanez Jansa is the great survivor of Slovenian politics. He served as defense minister in Slovenia's first independent government in 1991 and is now back in the prime minister's office for the fourth time.
Appointed on May 22, he is already stirring up controversy, both historical — over the treatment of Nazi collaborators summarily executed at the end of World War II — and current, with tax cuts trade unions say will further enrich the already wealthy to the detriment of public services.
His right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) consistently commands around a quarter of the vote in parliamentary elections. Moreover, unlike parties on the center-left, it has been a permanent fixture on Slovenia's political scene for more than three decades.
Staying power and experience
That combination of staying power, organization and experience has been the key to Jansa forming a new governing coalition, even though the SDS finished second to the center-left Freedom Movement in March's parliamentary election.
Former Prime Minister Robert Golob was found wanting when it came to making the deals that would have kept him in government.
"He was absolutely in a position to build a coalition of the center-left and a little bit of the right, but he lacked the skills and abilities to do it," said Ali Zerdin, editor of the weekend supplement of Slovenia's best-selling newspaper, Delo.
"On the other side, we have the veteran of Slovenian politics, Janez Jansa. He knows all the tricks to build a coalition necessary to run Slovenia," Zerdin told DW.
Far-right support sets alarm bells ringing
The composition of the new government, which was approved by the Slovenian parliament on Thursday (June 4), has raised plenty of eyebrows.
The conservative New Slovenia was always likely to join a Jansa-led coalition. But the center-right Democrats had previously broken away from the SDS and had attempted to portray themselves as a distinct middle-of-the-road proposition.
Meanwhile, the support of the far-right populist Resnica party has set off alarm bells in some quarters.
Its leader, Zoran Stevanovic, had signed a commitment not to join a government with Jansa at the helm, but he did accept SDS support to become parliamentary speaker and returned the favor by directing his MPs to vote for Jansa as prime minister.
What impact will Resnica have?
It's not clear what sort of influence Resnica might have over policy, though there is the implicit threat that it would withdraw its support if it did not support the new government's direction.
The party's own policies are decidedly fringe: anti-vaccination, in favor of a referendum on NATO membership, and skeptical when it comes to the European Union.
Adding those views to Jansa's long-standing alliance with long-time former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban prompts the question as to whether Slovenia might be about to replace Hungary as the leading member of the EU's awkward squad. But the new foreign minister, Tone Kajzer, insists the reality is very different.
"The European Union is the basic concentric circle of the Slovenian political, economic and overall environment," Kajzer told DW on Thursday.
"There is no question that Slovenia would be a troublemaker or something like that. And the political parties which are forming the nucleus of the coalition are 150% clear on that. My first trips will be, of course, to our European partners," he said.
But even if the new government does not ruffle any feathers in Brussels, that's unlikely to be the case at home.
During the debate to confirm his government on Thursday, Jansa insisted that he wanted a "systematic and boring mandate."
But the legislation the new administration started pushing through the National Assembly even before it was officially sworn in illustrates that the politics of division are still very much part of Jansa's tactics.
An omnibus bill that includes controversial tax cuts has raised the ire of Slovenia's trade unions. They have been trying to trigger a referendum on the legislation.
Meanwhile, human rights activists are calling for a referendum on amendments to the Parliamentary Investigation Act, which they say "open the door to the establishment of a political police."
Another contentious law calls for the reburial of the people killed in post-World War II reprisals, including those who were summarily executed as Nazi collaborators.
The legislation calls for them to be transferred to the most prestigious cemetery in the capital, Ljubljana. There would also be an annual day of commemoration for these "victims of communist violence."
Ljubljana's mayor, Zoran Jankovic, insists he will try to block the plans. He says that resistance fighters who defeated Nazism and fascism should not be equated with people who were "sworn to the Nazis."
Tone Kajzer, however, believes the reburial is simply the right thing to do.
"I think it's the basic civilizational fundament," he said. "All the people killed deserve to have a grave. Those people didn't have a trial. So, it's difficult to say that they were all Nazi collaborators. This is an ideological cultural fight which certain political forces in Slovenia are wishing to use to divide people. We are going to close this chapter of our really painful and traumatic history — I don't see anything controversial in this."
Fear of polarization justified?
Jansa used his first parliamentary address to get in a pre-emptive dig at protesters, saying the future would be decided by elected bodies, "not on the street, which proclaims itself to be the voice of the people, but has never been weighed."
In fact, the previous Jansa administration (2020–2022) virtually invited protests with its attacks on civil society, public service media and immigration.
Ali Zerdin says such policies simply do not reflect the views of most Slovenians: "There's a lot of talk in Slovenia about deep polarization, a huge gap between right and left. But if you check the distribution of values in Slovenia, you will see that they are more or less centrist," he said.
The indications are, however, that the new government will follow its own path. The new administration's first action was to remove the Palestinian flag that had been flying outside the main government building since 2024.
It was as if the great survivor was announcing himself with a signature strident move: Janez Jansa is back.
Edited by: Aingeal Flanagan
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