STA, 24 January 2022 - Robert Golob, who has been ousted as chairman of energy trader Gen-I, has ended weeks of speculation about his future by announcing he will vie to become a president of a small non-parliamentary party this week to contest the general election in April.
Z.Dej, a green party formed by former environment minister Jure Leben in May 2021, will hold a congress this Wednesday. "I hear the [presidential] post is vacant, this is the magic of adventure," Golob said on Monday as he presented the company's results.
The decision comes after Golob spent several weeks in talks with various party leaders, having already decided before that he would enter politics in one way or another.
A critic of particracy, he was initially sceptical of joining an existing party, but he recently acknowledged the realities of the Slovenian political system necessitated this type of political organisation.
Golob would not go into detail about his political plans and said the members of Z.Dej would hear about that first. "Out of respect, they should not learn that from the media. This is the only way I can expect respect from them as well."
The statement came at a press conference at which he talked at length about the success of Gen-I, a company he established and led since its inception, offering it as a model for how the country could be governed.
While he refused to answer many of the direct questions about his politics, he made repeated references to the election during the presentation, for example by noting that mistakes in the country would be "addressed in April" and saying that his next job will probably be in parliament - should the voters decide so.
He also referenced a "combination of seemingly impossible goals" of the kind that Gen-I achieved, and said the focus should be on green, digital as well as investment in people and the sharing of gains.
Golob thinks it is time to change political culture in the country. "Anger and fear lead to nothing but perdition," he said, noting that there would be "more light" come April.
"The man whose ultimate value it is to instil fear among the citizens will never be my interlocutor," he said, in an apparent reference to the current prime minister.
Golob was eased out of Gen-I in what the centre-left opposition and many media outlets have described as political staffing.
The company is still without a CEO and a court is currently deciding on several competing proposals for management. Golob was among the names put forward but he said today he had revoked his consent and would not be joining the company again.
