Slovenia’s Freedom Movement set to win vote: exit poll
Slovenia’s incumbent Prime Minister Robert Golob’s ruling Freedom Movement was on track to win parliamentary elections, but an exit poll showed it needed to find more coalition partners to form a government after seeing a decline in its projected number of seats.
The exit poll, broadcast by public broadcaster TV Slovenia and commercial Pop TV, showed the Freedom Movement (GS) winning 29.9% of the vote, or 30 seats in the 90-seat parliament, compared to 41 seats in the previous election.
According to the poll conducted by the Mediana pollster, the opposition Slovenian Democratic Party, led by populist leader Janez Jansa, is preparing to come second with 27 seats in the parliament.
Jansa said after the exit polls were published: “If someone wants a government like the one we have had so far, then they will probably be happy with what these parallel results show.”
“Anyone who wants change, just like us, will probably have to wait for the final results and then we will analyze the situation. But we have done everything within our power,” he said.
The election campaign, which observers have described as dirty from the start, escalated this month when undercover videos allegedly exposing government corruption were posted on an anonymous website.
A report published this week claimed Jansa met with officials from Israeli private espionage firm Black Cube, which LinkedIn alleges was behind a hidden camera campaign targeting activists and journalists ahead of the 2022 elections in Hungary in 2023.
Writer Ifigenija Simonovic, 73, said after voting in Ljubljana: “There is no civility, some lies appeared on one side or the other, so I did not feel that they were telling us, the voters, the story that we could follow.”
“So it wasn’t really easy to decide today.”
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