The Day after the European Parliamentary Elections

The List of Marjan Šarec (LMŠ) came in second in last year's parliamentary elections, lagging far behind the victorious Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS). Nevertheless, LMŠ has managed to form his government by being politically savvy. Two months later at the local elections, LMŠ failed to achieve better results. They even lost in Kamnik, the political springboard of the new Prime Minister, who successfully led the city as the mayor for two terms of office.

The elections to the European Parliament are fundamentally different from the Slovenian parliamentary elections because they are organized according to the principle of proportionality, meaning that each state is a single constituency in its own right and that voters have the option of a preferential vote, which they can use to express their support for a specific candidate. Thus, parties have a far lesser impact on the...