“Oh Captain, my Captain… ” Well, not really…(source)
Matej Lahovnik, former minister of economy, former vice-president of Liberal-democratic party, currently serving as MP, left the party (being the first of several prominent members of LDS to have done so) and gave form to persistent rumours that a new social-liberal party is being formed on the political left.
But what we thought it would become a new political party, turned out to be a past-time activity. Lahovnik, Pavle Gantar, Davorin Terčon and Alojz Posedel (all MPs) have formed “društvo Zares” (Society Serious). They hope the society will eventually transformed into a party, but apparently it will not happen immediately.
So. First we got Drnovšek’s Movement. Then we got Zoran Janković and his “non-political” List. And now we have a society. See a pattern here? It is hip to be a-political politician.
An obvious contradiction in terms, of course. A non-political politician is a (politically) dead politician.
Know anything about Aktivna Slovenija?
They’re struggling, as far as I know. They made a valiant attempt in parliamentary elections in 2004 but failed, taking Dominik Černjak’s SMS with them (AS was formed by people in SMS who weren’t happy with Černjak)
Their platform is sort of a youth-oriented-liberal-populism which at times cannot be taken seriously – in my opinion, at least. They do have their bright moments, but they come at rare intervals.
Not directly related, but with so many parties already in SLO and with such a limited resource pool, how feasible is it to try to even start another party?
Not to mention all the name changes–the same party may have had three or four different names since its founding–and of course all the opportunistic defections of members from one party to another depending on which one is in power. E.g. Rupel’s political career–from enthusiastic communist to Demos to LDS to Jansa’s party. It’s pretty confusing and hard to keep parties and their leading members and what they stand for straight, until you realize that there ARE no principles, these parties and politicians don’t stand for anything except sheer political opportunism and personal gain. Simple!
@pirano: At this moment I’d say that there is room for another party on the political left. Namely: Social democrats (Pahor) have shifted way towards centre, LDS is in turmoil and their current leadership (Kacin) is trying to move the party to almost extreme edges of political left, so I’d say there is room for a party I like to call “Party of Undecided Leftwingers”.
I don’t however think that this Lahovnik’s experiment is going ot work. A party must have an extensice network of local organizations, and (on the left side) noone has a better network than Social democrats (a remnant of the old days when there was a communist cell in every organisation)
So the point is: A good platform and an excellent network. And money, of course. That’s why Aktivna Slovenija can’t make it and Zoran Janković did make it. Money.
@Jean: There will always be defectors. Janša supporters will always think of Ciril Pucko who broke the parliamentary stalemate in 1996 by defecting from Christian democrats to LDS and made possible for Drnovšek to remain prime minister.
Name changes often reflect major shifts in platform. The most obvious example of that are Social Democrats who changed their names four times, in accordance with major doctrinal shifts they experienced during the transition. Almost the same goes for Janša’s Slovene Democratic Party which a couple of years ago dropped the fourth “S”, which stood for “social”. And lo-behold! they won the elections 🙂