Original article (in Slovenian) was published on 07/02/2023
SDS president Janez Jansa retweeted a tweet by a user who provided inaccurate and unofficial data on the number of votes received by four women ministers.
“Government of the unelected: all four women ministers in the Government of the Republic of Slovenia together did not get as many votes as a single SDS deputy. So much for legitimacy,” Janez Jansa, president of the Democratic Party (SDS), wrote on Twitter on 25 January.
Janša did that by retweeting a tweet in which a Twitter user posted photos of ministers Alenka Bratušek, Dominika Svarc Pipan, Emilija Stojmenova Duh and Tanja Fajon with the caption that they had received 715, 741, 783 and 1,133 votes, respectively. The tweet was posted on 24 January, when the National Assembly confirmed the terms of nine ministers, three of whom were new.
The current 20-member cabinet consists of seven female ministers, five of whom stood as candidates in last year’s general election. In addition to Infrastructure Minister Alenka Bratusek, Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon, Justice Minister Dominika Svarc Pipan and Minister for Digital Transformation Emilia Stojmenova Duh, who were all mentioned by Jansa, Culture Minister Asta Vrecko was also a candidate for MP.
Of the five female ministers who stood in last year’s general election, Alenka Bratusek received the most votes (1,555), followed by Tanja Fajon (1,172), Asta Vrecko (1,074), Emilija Stojmenova Duh (796) and Dominika Švarc Pipan (759), according to National Electoral Commission data. The five women ministers received a combined total of 5,356 votes.
The four women ministers mentioned by Jansa received a total of 4,282 votes, which is more than 16 current SDS deputies got, and more than the number of votes received by Janez Magyar, whose term as deputy ended on 23 December, after he was elected the mayor of Lendava.
The data on the number of votes received by the four women ministers mentioned by Jansa corresponds to the data published by public broadcaster RTV Slovenija online on 25 April last year, where the figures were still unofficial, which was explicitly stated in the report. The official data on the outcome of the election were published by the National Electoral Commission on 7 May last year.
And in quoting the number of votes received by Alenka Bratusek, the author of the tweet which was retweeted by Janša only looked at unofficial data on the votes received in the Kranj 1 constituency, although she also stood as a candidate in the Kranj 2 constituency.
In last year’s general election, voters elected 27 SDS deputies.
In January this year, Janez Magyar was replaced in the National Assembly by Andrej Kosi. Kosi received 2,893 votes in the general election, while Magyar received 3,778. The latter’s term ended on 23 December last year. In a tweet, Jansa claimed that the four women ministers represent a government of the unelected. “So much for legitimacy,” he added.
Under the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly, ministers are appointed by the National Assembly at the proposal of the prime minister. Fajon and Svarc Pipan were appointed by the National Assembly last June, while Stojmenova Duh and Bratušek were appointed this January.
The law does not directly set down the conditions for who can be a minister, Ciril Ribicic, a professor of constitutional law at the Ljubljana Faculty of Law, explained to Razkrinkavanje.si in 2019.
In August 2020, the Ministry of Public Administration stressed in a response to a citizen’s proposal on the eligibility criteria for ministerial candidates that the work of ministers is supervised by the National Assembly and the government, so it would not make sense to limit eligibility. They added that the current system “allows the post of minister in the executive branch of government to be filled by a person who is professional and competent in the department in which he or she will be acting as a minister”.
We have informed the SDS deputy faction of our findings. When we receive a response, we will publish it.
Jansa’s claim that four female ministers (Bratusek, Svarc Pipan, Stojmenova Duh, Fajon) together did not get as many votes as a single SDS deputy is not true.
Jansa also claimed that these ministers are part of the government of the unelected. After quoting the data on their votes, he added: “So much for legitimacy.” The claim is unfounded.