The covers and editorials from leading weeklies of the Left and Right for the work-week ending Friday, 19 November 2021.
Mladina: Signs of optimism upon Janša's looming defeat
STA, 19 November 2021 - Mladina says in its latest editorial that with the announcement of the election date, a countdown has started in Slovenia and in the EU as well, an "increasingly optimistic countdown to the end of a painful period of authoritarian rule".
Under the headline 155, Mladina says that the majority of politically active people are counting down the 155 days left until the election, and compares Slovenia's situation to the final period of President Trump's rule in the US.
Turning to Prime Minister Janez Janša, the commentary suggests that his recent behaviour reflects "a man whose plans have all fallen through and who has experienced rejection everywhere".
"Janša is defeated, and he knows it. We have never seen anything like this in the history of the rotating EU presidency: other EU leaders and representatives making it so clear to the PM of the country holding the presidency that they despise him."
"But his defeat at home is even greater. He has failed to break the media and the judiciary, he has failed to establish a cult of personality, he has failed to overturn the mood of a society so clearly opposed to the Slovenia he would like to create."
"Janša is now counting only on the government's alleged economic success, that is the only thing he talks about in an attempt to cover up the completely misguided fight against the epidemic, which is taking on frightening proportions."
Mladina adds that despite all the government's interference in various state institutions, certain forms of optimism, strength and rebellion are spreading through Slovenia's society, a certain "mockery at the autocratic ruler and his followers".
"As we are in the midst of an epidemic, it is hard to laugh - but the sentiment is there. Laughter is a sign of freedom, and the beginning of laughter signals the end of fear," concludes the commentary.
Demokracija: Fight against heirs of Communism
STA, 18 November 2021 - Demokracija magazine argues in Thursday's commentary that it is time to fight against the heirs of Communist ideology, which it says stages "media pogroms and show trials" whenever a government is not led by "red monsters disguised as social or liberal democrats".
These people perceive themselves as democratic advocates of liberty, and yet they designate everyone who disagrees with them as authoritarian enemies of democracy. "In their mental processes, shaped through decades, the (bourgeois) right is bent on racism and fascism, whereas the middle class, the pillar of the free market system and the engine of development, remains their biggest enemy."
According to the commentator, the time has come to determine whose country Slovenia is. "Do the 'proud heirs of the League of Communists' really have the exclusive right to bypass all the rules ... and terrorise others in the streets? Who will stop these guerrilla actions by leftists, concealed behind nice-sounding names of NGOs?"
History shows that red revolutions have always been deadly for good, God fearing people, that they have only brought devastation and sadness, Demokracija says.
"Nowadays a coordinated and systemic attack is carried out differently than it was a hundred years ago, but the consequences are the same. Our future demands that we fight, and that we remember the legendary times of this generations for actually liberating [the country], not only making it independent."
All our posts in this series are here
