Slovenia's oldest party eyes comeback with first female leader

A party that used to make and break Slovenian governments, the Slovenian People's Party (SLS) is looking to carve its way back into the national parliament under a new leader. Tina Bregant, a 49-year-old paediatrician, was elected the party's first female leader at a congress.

A successor to the Farmers' Union, Slovenia's oldest party, the SLS has been on the margins of national politics since it was squeezed out of parliament in the 2014 election. In the 2024 EU elections, the party also lost its member in the European Parliament, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.

This caused considerable discontent within the party in particular with leader Marko Balažic, who was elected to the top job in 2022 with a mission to restore the party's former stature, but was now forced to call an early congress to internally consolidate it.

His successor, Tina Bregant is best known for her stint as a state secretary at the Health Ministry during the Covid pandemic, under former Prime Minister Janez Janša. She currently serves as a Ljubljana city councillor.

In the 2022 parliamentary election Bregant ran for MP on the list of political alliance Connecting Slovenia, spearheaded by Zdravko Počivalšek, the economy minister in the 2020-22 Janša government. Later that year, she also ran for Ljubljana mayor against incumbent Zoran Janković with the support of the SLS, winning 5.69% of the vote.

Rival candidates withdraw

Bregant was elected SLS leader uncontested after Balažic and another candidate, Nina Strah, withdrew their bids for the top party job, the latter after the congress failed to endorse her proposal to suspend the vote until after she received information in response to alleged voting rights issues.

Addressing the delegates at the congress in Slovenska Bistrica, Bregant expressed confidence that the party would make it to the National Assembly in the 2026 election. For that the party would need to garner at least 4% of the vote, with opinion polls currently giving it 1-2%.

Talking to the press, Bregant said she believed in a development-oriented coalition of similar parties. But before entering such an alliance, the SLS must get back on its own two feet.

As her priorities she listed a welfare state supporting the weak and the vulnerable, accessible healthcare, a fiscal system that stimulates work, entrepreneurship and innovation, minimal red tape, dignity for the elderly and a good future for young farmers.

Balažic hailed the party's first woman president after the SLS had been led by 11 men since its inception in 1988. "We don't need dogfights about the past and humiliations. This is what has gotten us from 29 MPs to none," he told the congress.

Speculation about election alliances

The congress was attended by representatives of some other conservative parties, including an MP for Janša's Democratic Party (SDS), leader of New Slovenia (NSi) Matej Tonin and Marko Lotrič, the president of the upper chamber of parliament, who founded a business-friendly party named Focus in January.

Their attendance sparked speculation about a potential pre-election alliance of right-leaning parties, an idea advocated by Tonin. He believes smaller conservative parties should contest the election on a joint ticket and then form a government with the SDS.

Beyond hailing cooperation in principle, representatives of other parties have been more reserved, with Lotrič suggesting time for potential talks could follow after the parties set out their platforms.

Despite its demise at the national level, the SLS continues to have strong albeit waning presence at the local level. Amid a surge of independents in the 2022 local elections, the party won 15 mayoral seats, the most of any single party. It won 26 four years earlier.