IG Live with Brane Golubović: “Elections are a race of teams. And Team LMŠ has it all!”

On Friday, 1 April 2022, the MEP Irena Joveva hosted the leader of the LMŠ parliamentary group, Brane Golubović, for a live Instagram chat. They talked about many things, including the upcoming parliamentary elections and stressed that this is not a race of presidents, but of teams. Teams that have the knowledge, experience, maturity and solutions for the present and future. And Team LMŠ has it all!

Joveva and Golubović started the conversation with more light-hearted questions from the audience, such as what the leader of the LMŠ deputies does in his free time. He was also asked to share an anecdote from his last four years in the National Assembly, and Golubović replied that what particularly stuck in his mind was the December 2020 earthquake.

The audience was also interested in his assessment of the situation in the National Assembly over the last two years with the hung parliament, which Golubović described as very unfavourable for the stability of the country and caused by deputies who do not share common values and programmes, but only pursue their own personal and partisan interests. According to him, we should be tackling the key challenges that lie ahead, such as demography, technological development and climate change. And the key to starting to address these challenges is to change the current political set-up and to turn out for the elections on 24 April.

The two speakers agreed that right-wing populist politics deliberately divides society, as such an environment makes it is easier to govern. But both were also adamant that not everyone is the same.

“Every kind of populist politics strives to divide society. What’s the easiest way to instigate unrest in society? With lies. With half-truths, fake news, contempt for those with the wrong surname, colour, social or family status … That’s their goal. Their aim is to create so many lies and divisions in society that people no longer trust anyone, including the institutions. And this is the environment in which right-wing populists find it easiest to govern.”

When asked what was the biggest failure of the Slovenian government in the last three years, Golubović answered on three levels: the global, European and national. On the first level, the biggest mistake was congratulating Trump for winning the 2020 election, which did not happen. At the European level, the biggest blunder was the failure to appoint European delegated prosecutors and the encroachment on media freedom, and at the national level the referendum on water, which resulted in a clear vote of no confidence in the government and the minister responsible, and was met with derision and arrogance by those in power.

Golubović added that he hopes for more substantive issues to be raised during the campaign, and that he misses more discussions on key issues such as the current energy crisis, food security challenges, a stable environment for young people, and a secure old age for the elderly. He believes that there needs to be an awareness among people that we are electing deputies and not the Prime Minister directly, and that it is therefore important who we elect to represent us in the National Assembly.

The final topic of discussion was young people, where both Joveva and Golubović support a process of generational renewal and agree that too many older people are now deciding the future of the young. They both feel that young people should have a stronger voice in shaping their future, and that intergenerational solidarity is key to all of this.

The discussion concluded with the speakers expressing their wish that as many people as possible will take part in the parliamentary elections on 24 April.

You can watch the full conversation HERE.