The covers and editorials from leading weeklies of the Left and Right for the work-week ending Friday, 4 June 2021. All our stories about coronavirus and Slovenia are here
Mladina: Govt abused epidemic for political, economic goals
STA, 4 June 2021 – Mladina, the left-wing weekly, says in its latest editorial that the excessive number of Covid-19 deaths in Slovenia is the responsibility of the government as it has acted as if it knows everything, while taking advantage of the epidemic as a state of emergency in order to achieve its political and economic goals.
"It was quickly clear to residents of this country that, despite the high-flying words and a lot of talk, it was not about as few people as possible getting infected and dying," the weekly says under the headline 4,265 Slovenian Flags.
The title refers to the small flags set up by the youth wing of the opposition Social Democrats (SD) in Tivoli Park in Ljubljana to commemorate as many victims of Covid-19 in Slovenia.
All this is the reason why the current government is so unpopular, and its latest great defeat is vaccination, and young people are now getting vaccinated because the "government's conduct and authoritarian governance has deterred many people from getting vaccinated."
Vaccination is a matter of trust and by expanding the age groups for vaccination, the government is trying to conceal the poor results when it comes to vaccination rates by all age groups, Mladina says.
"The government has not implemented any serious vaccination campaign, and the current campaign is carried out by friends of the leaderships of the coalition Democrats (SDS) and New Slovenia (NSi)."
They do not understand that this is not a campaign for Twitter, but hard work in which people who are away from the information flow need to be addressed, the weekly adds.
There is also some more bad news, as Slovenia should be gearing up for the autumn, when a new outbreak of the epidemic is expected. Hospital capacities should start to be expanded right away and new stimulus packages should be in the making.
"Last summer the virus disappeared, so to say. The government did practically nothing over the summer, it behaved arrogantly and rejected good-willed warnings - even at the end of August, when it was completely clear what was coming."
This "nothing" could be seen this week in the form of Slovenian flags in Tivoli Park, concludes the commentary.
Demokracija: Centre-left turning into narcissistic exhibitionists
STA, 3 June 2021 - It is bizarre that trade unions have joined leftist activists and organisations in the streets while the centre-right government is adopting a tax reform that will bring higher pay for all workers, the right-wing weekly Demokracija says in Thursday's editorial in reference to Friday's anti-government rally in Ljubljana.
"It has once again become obvious that Slovenian trade union associations are a political appendix of leftist political parties and that socialist ideas thrive only where workers are kept at the brink of survival."
But if various leftist activists and their rioting in the streets can somehow be understood, the leftist parties' exaggerated insistence on toppling the government defies common sense, says the weekly.
While noting that every political group aims to come to power to implement its political agenda, "the problem" is that the four centre-left political parties think that only they can be in power and that only their view of the world is legitimate and "normal".
Demokracija advises them that in order to push for their political agenda, they should first win an election, adding they had a chance to be in power but Prime Minister Marjan Šarec "chickened out" and the centre-left coalition collapsed more than a year ago.
The weekly says they should take a deep breath and wait for the election to get a new opportunity, adding that all their attempts to undermine the government and the prime minister with interpellation and impeachment motions have failed.
"If you can count, the Janez Janša government has quite enough votes in parliament. And your 'sniper' search for opponents is childish, your invention of bad things and manipulation is a sign of hopelessness and sick malice," Demokracija adds, saying they are turning into "narcissistic exhibitionists".
All our posts in this series are here