2020 Slirnian general election

The 2020 Slirnian general election is scheduled for Thursday, May 5, 2020. These are planned to be the sixth elections in Slirnia to elect the future composition of the Parliament and the next holder of the office of the Premier, since the creation of this office in 1995. With the information provided by the Slirnian Electoral Court as of April 2020, voters will be given with the choice to elect their candidate and parliament composition from the eight political parties and their leaders that were previously registered.

After the elections, the political leader with the most votes, will be holder of the informal title, elected Premier, and his or her future duties as Head of Government will be subject first, of a meeting with the Presidency of Slirnia and later of their performace at the parliament presenting their political programme. The rest of the political parties will be given with the option of handing in their confidence or not to the recently elected Premier; in the case of not giving it, the Premier will hold a new meeting with the Presidency and will expose the programme of his or her party for a second time, where only a simple majority is going to assure him or her an administration of at least five years; in recent times, political parties have tried to avoid these circumstances by forming coalitions with parties alike. This process can be repeated within no more than two months from the first ballot.

2020 elections in Slirnia come after the 17 years of almost uninterrupted administrations of the Sotirian Democrats, with the exception of the four years terms of Aleksandar Keşco in front of the Slirnian Democratic Centre. The completion of the process of denationalisation and privatisation of most of the Slirnian economy, several cuts in the budget and the deterioration of a neo-liberal platform proposed by the centre-right governments, have remained key points in the political discussion since 2019 and in the same line, the future of the Euclean membership talks and the different views on regional integration, have positioned parties with moderated views such as the Social Democrats and the Slirnian Democratic Centre as the preferred for winning the elections.

The elections resulted with the first woman being chosen for the position of Head of Government of Slirnia. Irena Mesić, from the Social Democrats, was the most voted candidate ^[1] and formed an alliance with the other two parties alligned on the left of the political spectrum that gained parliamentary representation. Moreover, the night after ballots were closed and voted counted, the former Premier and candidate from the Sotirian Democratic Party announced his resignation as leader of the party.

Overview

Electoral system

Milo Jovanović in the Parliament of Slirnia during his investiture ceremony in 2016

After the elections in 2016, the candidate from the Sotirian Democratic Party, Milo Jovanović was granted with a term of five years before new elections could be celebrated and a new government formed. During general elections, Slirnians vote the composition of the unicameral legislature, the Parliament of Slirnia, which is formed by 179 members. After the elections, seats are allocated to each party using the D'Hondt method and the three members of the Presidency are in charge of holding talks between all the political leaders to appoint the one which will be capable of commanding the confidence of the legislature; altough the Presidency is belived to have the power to choose any of the leaders, this selection usually leads to the candidate which received the most votes during the previously celebrated elections. The vote in Slirnia is based on the idea that suffrage must be universal, compulsory and secret.

Voters in Slirnia have the choice to vote between specific candidates (and their respective factions) inside a party, to vote for the entire party or to vote absentee, the votes of this last option will be equally distributed among all the parties. According to the Constitution of Slirnia, parties and independent candidates must be registered before the elections take place in the Electoral Court of Slirnia, which oversees and controls the procedures during elections and referendums. Independendent candidates in Slirnia are uncommon and there are only few cases in the past, for the 2020 general elections, there was a total of 9 political parties (most of them already represented in the Parliament) and none independent candidates. Parties must cross the 2% election threshold to be allowed to hold a seat in the legislature.

Election date

Unless the Presidency dissolves the legislature by advise of the Prime Minister, new general elections must take place after five years of the previous. The Prime Minister Milo Jovanović publicly announced the date of the new general elections in the morning of the 4th of May of 2020 together with Tomislav Ivo Stier, who ceremonially presides the collective organ that functions as Head of State of Slirnia. The date of the general elections were set that same day with a law passed during a special session in the Parliament of Slirnia. If the investiture of the Prime Minister failes and the Parliament does not grant the candidate with the confidence, the acting Prime Minister is commanded by the Presidency to make a call for new elections within a two-month period from the first ballot. Additionally, the Parliament should be dissolved and new members should be choose during the new general elections. Although in it common in other parliamentary systems of Euclea, in Slirnia this is uncommon and there have been only few cases in which the elected candidate was not granted with the confidence of the Parliament.

Background

Campaign period

Aleksandar Keşco, former Prime Minister and candidate from the Slirnian Democratic Centre during his campaign in Postojna.

The campaign period started in Slirnia in early April after parties celebrated their primary elections to elect their leaders that were going to be represented a month later during the general elections. For the first time in the history of the party, the Social Democratic Party was represented by a woman, Irena Mesić, an issue that sparkled the discussion about woman participation in leading charges in the politics of Slirnia, something that has been an important issue in the previous term of the legislature. In the same line, Slirnia lived the first elections in which two women were running for the office of the Prime Minister. Shortly after the Green and Socialist parties of Slirnia agreed in forming the coalition called Socialists-Green Alliance, the activist Jana Bečić was chosen to be the candidate for the 2020 general elections. The left side of the political spectrum of the politics of Slirnia saw the exponential growth of the centre-left Progressive Slirnia.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the elections saw the slight turns of Milo Jovanović, leader of the Sotirian Democratic Party and Prime Minister of Slirnia, towards the right, which left the Slirnian Democratic Centre on a position of advatage to capitalise the centre-right. However, according to analysts, this was not consolidated by its candidate, the former Prime Minister between 2012-2016, Aleksandar Keşco, who was even seen fourth in the polls until it recovered its third position in the last days before the 5th of May. The small right-wing liberal party, Liberals-Možemo, elected its candidate, the then Minister of Economy and Finances that would faced the 2020 general elections; Vuk Žbogar resigned to its position on the cabinet of Milo Jovanović a day after this was proposed by him from the party and started the campaign with a strong speech advocated to continue through the path of the liberal economy and the integration with the rest of Euclea, in special with the East portion of the continent.

Televised debates

As it is a tradition in Slirnia, there were four televised debates that were aired by all television channels in the country. The first and fourth were organised by the state-owned Radio and Television of Slirnia while the other two by the private channels TV3 Slirnia and NovSlirnia 12. The moderators and dates of the debates were previously chosen by all channels. The debates were divided independently by the organisers but in general terms, all had a similar composition being divided in thematic blocs to cover a wide range of questions and topics, such as welfare and healthcare, women participation, security, foreign policy and the future of the Slirnia in the Euclean Community, economy and finances, housing and others. For the first time in the history of televised debates in Slirnia, there was a special block to discuss the environment in the three debates and out of the four, one was composed exclusively by women members of the parties convoked to the occasion.

2020 Slirnian general election debates
Date	Broadcaster	Moderator(s)	Participants — Name Participant N Party not invited/did not participate									Notes
			SDPS	SDC	SDP	PS	L.mž	SGA	IP	NL	CPS

25 May	RTS 1	Lazar Bojević Miljana Vladić Slaviša Antić	Irena Mesić	Aleksandar Keşco	Milo Jovanović	Vidoke Lukšić	Vuk Žbogar	Jana Bečić	Vojislav Ljajić	Tomislav Bandić	Dražen Josipović
13 Apr	TV3 Slirnia	Dubravka Ugljanin Emilija Ristić Mirjana Popović	Katja Novak	Katarina Dejanović	Vesna Vukomanović	Ana Ružić	Dijana Gajević	Katarina Joksimović	Jadranka Udovički	Tomislav Bandić	Dražen Josipović	Women debate
24 Apr	NovSlirnia 12	Obrad Velimirović Slavko Urošević Zorana Ignjatović	Peter Hebrang	Ivica Orešković	Ivo Bernardić	Ana Ružić	Ivan Radić	Katarina Joksimović	Martina Dalić	Tomislav Bandić	Dražen Josipović	Deputies debate
27 Apr	RTS 1	Lazar Bojević Miljana Vladić Slaviša Antić	Irena Mesić	Aleksandar Keşco	Milo Jovanović	Vidoke Lukšić	Vuk Žbogar	Jana Bečić	Vojislav Ljajić	Tomislav Bandić	Dražen Josipović

Candidates

Irena Mesić
Social Democrat
Aleksandar Keşco
Slirnian Democratic Centre
Milo Jovanović
Sotirian Democrat
Vidoke Lukšić
Progressive Slirnia
Vuk Žbogar
Liberals-Možemo
Jana Bečić
Socialists-Green Alliance
Vojislav Ljajić
Independent Party
Tomislav Bandić
Nationalist League
Dražen Josipović
Communist Party

Participating parties

	Party leader	Before elections	Position	Ideology
Social Democratic Party	Irena Mesić	Opposition	Centre-left	Social democracy welfare state progressivism
Slirnian Democratic Centre	Aleksandar Keşco	Government	Centre and Centre-right	Liberalism conservative liberalism welfare state pro-Eucleanism
Sotirian Democrats	Milo Jovanović	Government	Centre-right and right	Sotirian democracy conservatism economic liberalism
Progressive Slirnia	Vidoke Lukšić	Opposition	Centre-left and left	Socialism progressivism pro-Eucleanism
Liberals-Možemo	Vuk Žbogar	Government	Centre-right	Liberalism progressivism welfare state
Socialists-Green Alliance	Jana Bečić	Opposition	Centre-left and left	Green politics socialism progressivism
Independent Party	Vojislav Ljajić	Confidence	Centre	Liberalism conservative liberalism centrism Sotirian democracy
Nationalist League	Tomislav Bandić	Extra parliamentary	Right and far right	Conservatism agrarianism right-wing populism
Communist Party	Dražen Josipović	Extra parliamentary	Left and far left	Communism socialism Eucleansceptisism