Slovenia: Trump friend favourite in heated election

TT

Published 06.42

 

Slovenia's then Prime Minister Janez Jansa at a meeting with then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2020. After four years in opposition, Jansa now hopes to become head of government again. Archive photo. Photo: Jure Makovec/AP/TT

Janez Jansa has been prime minister in Slovenia three times. Now the Trump friend can make a comeback again, after an unusually dirty election campaign.

Jansa, from the conservative SDS, has been just ahead of incumbent Prime Minister Robert Golob's center-left coalition in opinion polls ahead of Sunday's parliamentary elections.

The fight is hot. Golob has accused Jansa of hiring the notorious Israeli security company Black Cube to obtain compromising material through wiretapping. SDS, in turn, has singled out EU Commissioner Marta Kos from Golob's alliance as a former police agent in the former Yugoslavia.

Well-known women's rights activist Nika Kovac worries about a return for Jansa.

"We have to decide whether we want to live in a democracy or an authoritarian state," Kovac told the AFP news agency earlier in March.