It’s not so much about himself, but about something much bigger: A “referendum on democracy” is pending, said Robert Golob shortly before the Slovenian parliamentary elections on Sunday. According to this reading, democracy has now won hands down, much more than the polls had promised, and now Robert Golob, 55, is the new face of democracy, so to speak.
One hardly offends him by saying that the fact that his name is not Janez Janša played a decisive role in his election victory. The challenger to this right-wing populist prime minister in Slovenia was not well known before he decided in November to campaign as the lead candidate for a new green party. Previously, he, an electrical engineer, ran the state-owned energy company Gen-I for five years before his mandate was not renewed – a decision that many felt was politically motivated. He then decided to compete against the man allegedly behind this career end; Just Jansa. To make it clear what the election is about, Golob renamed the small eco-party the “Freedom Movement”.
For freedom had come under increasing pressure under the incumbent; Janša put pressure on independent media and individual journalists, while at the same time private media entrepreneurs associated with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán spread across the country. Critics also accused him of endangering the independence of the judiciary. According to critics, Janša wanted to use his illiberal course to distract from the recurring allegations of corruption against him. Resentment in the country grew, but it was unclear whether it would be possible to unite the more left-wing and liberal currents in the country to depose Janša. Polls recently predicted a neck-and-neck race between his party and Golob’s freedom movement. The fact that Golob then took the lead by more than 13 percentage points shows how great the longing for change was in the country – or, as Golob had promised during the election campaign: a simple return to “normality”.
On Sunday he was happy about his victory and about Macron’s
Golob’s hairstyle made it clear that he should be understood as the ultimate alternative to Janša: half-long gray curls versus a half-bald head. Programmatically he often moved in the semi-concrete; Golob once said that he wanted to make a policy for the country that was “a bit left, a bit right”. He pledged himself to an open society, to solidarity with a Muslim activist who was the target of the government, he promised modern social policies, more digitization, resolute climate protection and greater independence for the country in terms of energy supply. This is without a doubt the sector in which he is most likely to have expertise. Before heading Gen-I, he was once State Secretary for Energy in the Ministry of Environment, and when Slovenia was negotiating accession to the EU before 2004, he was a member of the negotiating delegation responsible for energy policy.
Where he positions himself in European politics, Golob made it clear, among other things, when he welcomed the re-election of Emmanuel Macron on Sunday with the words that he was pleased that “the liberals didn’t just win in Slovenia today, but also in France”. As head of government, he wants to remain true to the tried-and-tested principles of his management career: the electricity company he has led for years has “the highest return on investment” to offer, as well as “the lowest prices, the highest wages and zero debt” – just imagine , he said during the election campaign, “what kind of country could we live in if all this applied to Slovenia”.