Non-partisan local actors as the element of absorbed local democracy?

• Author: Hacek, Miro
• Position: Report

1. A Conductive Political Sphere: Anti-partisanship In Slovenia

Political parties first appeared in Slovenian territory in the second half of the 19th century and disappeared prior to World War II. One can only identify two periods in Slovenian history during which partisanship flourished: the early 1920s and the early 1990s (Luksic 1994: 23). Instead of witnessing the rise of partisanship, Slovenian politics were harshly criticised by partisanship which developed new forms of political and social organisation instead of parties. An anti-party trend is --on the other side--one of the more recent phenomena in contemporary democracies around the world (Bale and Roberts 2002: 1).

In different periods of the 20th century in Slovenia, the Catholic side offered a corporatist state featuring the strong role of the Church, while the socialist side offered a corporatist state with the stressed role of a single class (Zver 1990: 154). The tradition of the non-partisan organisation was first enhanced by Ljudska fronta--the People's Front--and even more so by Osvobodilna fronta--the Liberation Front. However, the Catholic side opposed the Liberation Front and, in so doing, opted against the non-partisanship type of organisation and strived towards the old party structure in which it had played a hegemonic role.

Thus, during the war, a battle for the type of postwar political organisation to be put in place was also being fought: a battle between partisanship and nonpartisanship (Luksic 1994: 24). As an alternative to partisanship, a system of self-governance fictitious-democracy developed after WW II whose main aim was to express the interests of a human who is the embodiment of a range of personal and social interests.

It was only in the late 1980s and early 1990s that political parties were revived, with the democratisation of political life culminating in the first post-war democratic elections which were held in the spring of I990. The end of the 1980s saw the formation of new political parties while the old socio-political organisations which had, until then, enjoyed a guaranteed monopoly status in organising and leading all political interests and activities, were transformed into new political parties (Krasovec 2000: 23).

In the commentary on the Law on Political Parties (I994) political parties were defined as ''a form of organisation with a clearly defined ideology (a party's programme is mentioned), whose goal is to contest or maintain political power through democratic elections. That is the reason political parties are organised groups with political goals that are distinguishable from other political organisations, whose members come together for the purpose of protecting defined interests with political means ... Political parties exercise their active role on all levels of public life."

In the years when Slovenia was gaining its independence, the newly established parties were primarily a vehicle of mass protest against the former regime and a form of striving for a more sovereign status of Slovenia, but they did not have any more precisely elaborated programmes encompassing the most important spheres of life (Krasovec 2000: 24). Political parties are organisations which in society and in the state perform several different functions. Through historical development political parties became an actor playing key roles at elections to political representative institutions and in candidate-selection processes for elections (Fink-Hafner and Krasovec 2000: 143). Political parties are organisations which assist candidates in entering political representative institutions; in exchange, the selected candidates are expected to be loyal to their political party and act in accordance with the party's expectations. As a reflection of the thesis that political parties are the main actors at parliamentary elections, we only see a relatively small number of independent candidates and an even smaller number of successful independent candidates. But this description does not apply equally to the local levels of government, as will be discussed a little later.

A relatively strong resistance to party politics can be recognised in the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia since it only mentions political parties in a negative context. Article 42 of the Constitution states that membership in political parties is forbidden for professional members of the police and the armed forces. The Constitution consistently reveals its liberal, anti-partisan nature, including in the article which states that members of parliament are representatives of the nation and are not obliged to follow any directions. The drafters of the Constitution realised that political parties exist and that Parliament will always be a partisan institution, but political parties were still not given a natural right to be included in the Constitution (Luksic 1994: 27). Moreover, the apex of Slovenian distrust of parties is represented by a corporatist body--Drzavni svet--the National Council. It was supposed to be beyond the influence of political parties since the candidates for it are chosen by associations, social organisations and unions, chambers and universities, that is, non-partisan organisations. However, half of its members, namely 22 representatives of local interests are also elected to the National Council for each term of office and these candidates appear on party lists. One therefore cannot say that the operation of this body is absolutely non-partisan.

Alenka Krasovec (2000: 26) states that a common problem of all Slovenian political parties is the problem of unsatisfied structural connections to society, as indicated in the negative public opinion of Slovenian political parties. Trust in political parties has declined rapidly since 1991; in 1991 12.1 percent of voters had high or middle levels of trust in political parties, in 1995 this description only applied to 4.5 percent of voters (Tos in Krasovec 2000: 26), and in 2001 (survey SPO 2/2001) to 9.3 percent of voters. At the end of 2008 (Politbarometer research, 12/2008) 9 percent of voters had high or middle levels of trust in political parties, although 43 percent of voters had extensive levels of distrust.

The lack of trust in political parties is regarded as a consequence of the visible egoistic and ideologically burdened activity of political elites (Fink-Hafner 1997: 152). A Politbarometer survey (2003) ascertained that Slovenian political parties are among the least trusted institutions; moderate levels of trust in political parties could only be seen in I0 percent of voters but, on the other hand, 42 percent of them had high levels of distrust. (2) The 2008 Politbarometer survey found that political parties are the least trusted political organisation among 24 listed political institutions and organisations. (3) If we take into account the different Politbarometer surveys conducted from 1996 onwards, we can comprehend that political parties are, among the five most important political institutions (4), constantly the one that voters distrust the most. The level of membership in political parties in Slovenia is quite low, especially in comparison with older EU members. According to various sets of available data, around I0 percent of voters were members of a political party at the end of the last decade (Krasovec 2000: 26) (5), just below 5 percent of voters were members of a political party in 2005 (Slovenian public opinion 2005/2) (6), and 6.5 percent of all voters were members of a political party in 2007 (Brezovsek et al., 2008: 148).

2. Electoral Systems, Non-partisan Lists And Independent Candidates On The Local Level Of Government

   This article adopts the supposition that electoral systems have a strong influence on both the candidacy possibility of independent candidates and non-partisan lists and on actual chances of being elected. The electoral system that is used for elections to the National Assembly discriminates in favour of established political parties; according to empirical evidence gathered from all five parliamentary elections carried out so far, is it clear that independent candidates and non-partisan lists only have slim chances of being elected. Since the country's attainment of independence in 1991, no independent candidate has been even close to being elected to the National Assembly and, in addition, the number of such candidatures has always been small or even non-existent. At the election to the National Assembly in 2000 there were seven independent candidates, but not a single one managed to gather more than one percent of the votes; in 2004 there were three independent candidates and none even managed to attract more than 0.1 percent of the votes; and even worse, at the last election to the National Assembly in 2008 there were no independent candidates at all. (7)

   However, the situation is quite different on the local level of government. At mayoral elections Slovenia applies a two-round absolute electoral system (8), whereas at municipal council elections both a one-round relative majority and a proportional electoral system are used depending on the size of the municipality. (9)

   We will focus our analysis initially on mayoral elections where we can state that candidates...