Ally of EU rogue Orban scores pyrrhic win in Slovene ballot

Bloomberg

A populist former prime minister won Slovenia’s elections, yet rivals who united against his anti-refugee rhetoric vowed to block him from government.
Janez Jansa’s Slovenian Democratic Party, whose campaign echoed the one that lifted nationalists to power in neighboring Italy, won a quarter of the vote, the State Election Commission said. In second place was the List of Marjan Sarec, a comic-turned-mayor who vowed to prevent Jansa from a third term by joining forces with as many as six other centrist and leftist parties.
The outcome has a chance of preserving the middle-of-the-road politics that the Adriatic nation of 2 million people has mostly pursued since becoming the first ex-communist nation to adopt the euro in 2007. It also signals populists can be contained in a neighbourhood that includes European Union members Italy, Hungary and Austria, where euroskeptics have won elections on anti-immigrant platforms.
“If everyone stays true to their word, we are counting on getting a chance to form a government,” Sarec told POP TV after balloting stations closed.
President Borut Pahor has said he’ll give the first coalition mandate to the “relative winner.” Jansa, who campaigned alongside Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and praised his neighbour’s goal of creating an “illiberal democracy” that has put him on a collision course with the EU, may try to lure detractors into a cabinet.
In his post-ballot speech, Jansa said he was open to cooperation with other parties but stopped short of saying he intended to lead the next administration. “It’s a victory in vain for Jansa,” Otilia Dhand, a political analyst for Teneo Intelligence, said.
“As for Sarec and his coalition building effort, it will be a nightmare.”
SDS won 25 percent, according to official results with almost 100 percent counted, followed by Sarec’s List with 13 percent. The next six parties had 46 percent combined, pointing to the need for a broad coalition to muster a majority in the 90-seat parliament.
The process may begin around June 15 when Pahor will call the first session of parliament, presidential spokeswoman Spela Vovk said by phone. A premier designate may be named in late July, and in a best-case scenario, a government could be in place by mid-August, she said.
In any case, the motley group of partners may make any dramatic policy changes impossible.
“There are no ideal options,” Andraz Grahek, managing partner at Capital Genetics, an investment adviser in Ljubljana, said by phone. “New elections are also an option.”
Investors have warmed to Slovenia since 2013, when it suffered the second plunge of a double-dip recession and enacted a 3.2 billion euro ($3.7 billion) banking rescue to avoid a Greece-style bailout. The yield on the country’s 10-year government bond stood at 1.166 percent on Monday morning, from more than 6.8 percent half a decade ago.
The next administration now faces important economic decisions, starting with the sale of the former Yugoslav republic’s largest lender, Nova Ljubljanska Banka d.d., which has been postponed by successive governments that have dragged their feet in disposing of state assets.
The new formation will also pick the next governor of the Slovenian central bank after Bostjan Jazbec left in April for another job, weakening the country’s voice on the European Central Bank’s Governing Council.