Slovenia is loud with calls for the resignation of Culture Minister Aste Bag, if not of the whole progressive government, after a record number of voters rejected a recent proposal that would have granted a thousands of euros-worth bonus pension to a select group of woke ‘artists’ for their questionable contribution to Slovene national culture.
The referendum was initiated by the conservative opposition party SDS, which argued that reforming the Yugoslav-era scheme of special pensions for “persons of merit” according to the plans of the government would have been just another power grab, leaving the selection process fully to the mercy of the personal taste of whoever controls the culture ministry.
And, as a member of the eco-socialist Left party, Minister Bag’s personal taste was really what fueled the culture war campaign around the referendum.
The SDS particularly highlighted one would-be recipient, performance artist Maja Smrekar, whose most well-known ‘art’ project involved breastfeeding or sleeping in the nude with wolfdogs, or having them lick animal fat off of her naked body.
The opposition SDS rightfully questioned whether this type of “degenerate” art deserves to be elevated for contributing to Slovenia’s national heritage, and a good portion of Slovenians seem to agree.
On Sunday, 92.5% of voters rejected the new law—the highest the country ever recorded—with a 26% overall turnout, six points higher than the required threshold for the outcome to be binding.
“Today, Slovenia has taken a big step towards taking the stolen country back to the Slovenes,” former PM and SDS leader Janez Janša stated on Sunday evening. He called the results the “victory of reason,” as people rejected “a shameful law that granted unjustified privileges to only a handful on the basis of political decisions.”
The ruling coalition—made up by PM Robert Golob’s social-liberal Freedom Movement (GS), the Social Democrats, and the Left—called on their supporters to boycott the referendum in the hope that it would not reach a quorum; while fueling the narrative that instead of the taxpayers, the loser should be made responsible for footing the vote’s €6.7 million bill.
Now, with the tables turned, SDS was quick to point out that the ruling parties should pay according to their own logic. “Freedom and the Left have put us in this senseless referendum with their law, now let them pay 7 million, which they have wasted for nothing,” the party said.
Moreover, Janša said that a governing party calling its voters to boycott a completely legitimate referendum should be unacceptable in a democracy, and that their miscalculation should have consequences. As the ex-PM explained:
Any government would resign on its own after such a double slap. I doubt, however, that they would consider it. It’s in the hands of Slovenians to respond to such a failure in the next elections, which is less than a year away.
The next parliamentary elections in the country are scheduled for April 2026, and the opposition is confident that it can reclaim power after a four-year hiatus. Shortly after winning in 2022, the Freedom Movement’s popularity plummeted, and SDS has been leading the polls by a large margin for almost two years now—currently at 33%, compared to Freedom’s 20%.
SDS’s popularity is striking, given that the party was stripped of nearly all its friendly media in the past years. As soon as the leftist government was elected, PM Golob began cracking down on conservative media throughout the country by weaponizing new hate speech and censorship laws, as well as intimidating journalists with unjustified police raids.
It began with the “unconstitutional” takeover of Slovenia’s public broadcaster, which has since been turned fully against the SDS. When the Slovene constitutional court was about to intervene, its president was paid a visit by Vera Jourová, the former EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency (ironically), after which the court turned around and allowed the power grab to continue.
Despite multiple condemnations by the EU Ombudsman, the EU Commission is still withholding the documents related to the meeting, leaving the public in the dark about whether Brussels was explicitly behind the anti-democratic shift—which may come to an end by this time next year.
