A slovene history society politics culture

 

 

555 

themselves the parties of the ‘Slovene Spring’). In the 1996 parliamentary elections, the first 

bloc (the LDS and the ZL) gained a little over 37% of the vote,  while the ‘Slovene Spring’ 

bloc won more than 45% of the vote. Compared to the 1992 elections, the most successful 

parties were the SDS and the SLS, which both significantly increased their share of the vote. 

The SDS increased its share of the vote from 3.2% (1992) to 16.1% (1996) and the SLS 

progressed from 8.7% (1992) to 19.4% (1996). Nevertheless, the absolute winner of the 

elections was again the LDS, who were strengthened in 1994 by the inclusion of some of the 

former Democrats, Socialists and Greens. They gained 27% of the vote in the 1996 election, 

and Janez Drnovšek and the LDS were again able to form a government, this time in coalition 

with the SLS and the Democratic Party of Pensioners (Demokratična stranka upokojencev – 

DeSUS). 

 

The rapid growth  in support for the opposition parties, especially for the SLS and 

SDS, was partly the result of the democratisation of public life, and partly due to social, 

economic and political changes resulting from the new social and political order that followed 

Slovenia’s independence. By 1993, a law had already been passed broadening the extent of 

‘local self-government’ and enabling the creation of new municipalities, but their number 

grew only slowly due to the considerable opposition to attempts to divide old municipalities. 

The introduction of local powers of self-government was also impeded by a rigid, centralist 

state. This caused dissatisfaction at the local level. In the first elections after the new Local 

Self-Government Act was adopted in 1994, independent and SLS candidates were the biggest 

winners. The SLS and SDS also successfully gained votes through debates that engaged the 

public on national issues. Since the early 1990s, the reappearance of the Catholic Church in 

public life had caused major divisions. After independence, the Church, which under the 

Communist regime had been pushed to the sidelines of society and politics, attempted to 

increase its influence in politics, the economy and education, as well as trying to regain the 

property taken from it in the nationalisations that had followed the Second World War. The 

Church’s aspirations were supported by the ‘Slovene Spring’ parties, which improved their 

standing in the eyes of the traditionally Catholic sections of society. Yet these demands 

divided public opinion because, after the long period of Communist secularism, even many 

Catholics thought that the Church should focus on its spiritual work and not involve itself in 

politics, business and education, which, according to the constitutional separation of church 

and state, should remain exclusively the domain of the state. Nevertheless, between 1991 and 

1993 some Catholic secondary schools were re-opened and, in 1992, the Faculty of Theology 

in Ljubljana again became a full member faculty of the University of Ljubljana; and from 

---

 

 

556 

1994 onwards, it also had a department within the University of Maribor. 

 

The state of the economy was one of the main causes of public concern, and deepened 

the divisions between the governing coalition and the opposition. Slovenia may have been the 

most technologically and economically developed of the Yugoslav republics at the time of 

Yugoslavia’s collapse, but in the early 1990s it encountered serious economic problems. The 

break-up of the Yugoslav federation and its market, combined with the opening up of the 

domestic market to foreign goods, saw demand for Slovene products fall, with many large 

industrial concerns going bankrupt. This led Slovenia’s gross domestic product to fall by more 

than a quarter in the early 1990s, while industrial production fell by more than half, and banks 

struggled to remain solvent. The LDS-led governing coalitions tried to solve the critical 

economic situation through monetary measures, by strengthening the national currency (the 

tolar), a moderately liberal economic policy and ensuring that the process of ownership and 

structural transformation took place gradually. In this way, the government managed to reduce 

inflation from over 200% in 1992 to 13.5% by the mid-1990s, while generating new 

economic momentum and halting the growth in unemployment. Over 100,000 people lost 

their jobs between 1989 and 1993 as a result of the economic crisis, with many more taking 

early retirement. This caused mass dissatisfaction and a wave of strikes that only calmed as 

the economy began to grow again in the latter half of the 1990s. 

 

Denationalisation and privatisation had a major impact on economic and social 

transformation after the fall of Communism. The 1991 Denationalisation Act was met with 

significant opposition and dissatisfaction due to the provisions on the return ‘in kind’ of 

property confiscated by the Communism regime to the original owners or their descendants. 

The process was complex and lengthy because the tenants or users of denationalised 

apartments, buildings, land, business premises and forests were not prepared to simply 

relinquish rights they had gained under socialism. The public and the political parties were 

polarised in particular by the question of returning forests to the Catholic Church. The parties 

agreed relatively quickly, however, that Slovenia would not return forests to foreign nationals 

who had owned forests in Slovenia prior to 1945. Political negotiations over the form 

privatisation should take lasted longer, as even the leading economists proposed different 

models of privatising the formerly ‘socially owned’ property. At the end of 1992, the National 

Assembly finally adopted a law regulating the gradual ownership transformation of public 

enterprises (subsequently amended on several occasions), which stipulated that a number of 

state funds would retain a 30% ownership stake in the formerly ‘socially owned’ enterprises, a 

20% stake would be divided into ownership certificates and distributed among Slovene 

---