The recent parliamentary elections in Slovenia were carried out against the backdrop of foreign election interference and resulted in a political deadlock in the country.
After over 99% of the votes had been counted, incumbent Prime Minister Robert Golob’s liberal Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda, GS) secured a narrow victory with 28.6% of the vote against Janez Janša’s right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka, SDS) with 28.0%.
With a difference of roughly 5,000 votes, they received 29 and 28 seats respectively in the 90-seat parliament. Turnout in the elections was close to 70%.
Currently, neither of the parties is close to forming a coalition government, which requires a majority of 46 seats. The final election results will be published at the beginning of April, after the votes from Slovenians abroad have been counted. However, those are not expected to make any difference.
Last Friday, Golob met for talks with representatives of some of the other parties, but not all of them turned up. Janša’s party was not invited. In the meantime, his government continues as a caretaker government until the new parliament is inaugurated in mid-April. If no majority government is formed by then, it is expected that snap elections will be called.
As previously reported, the elections were overshadowed by foreign election interference by a private Israeli intelligence company (Black Cube) following contacts with Janša and his party. An anonymous website appeared online in Slovenia ten days before the elections. It showed covertly recorded videos of prominent persons linked to the government party who openly talked about their dealings.
Before the elections, some opinion polls showed that Janša was in the lead, and it was believed that the election manipulation would benefit him. However, this did not happen. A Slovenian journalist told The Brussels Times that the polls are unreliable and that the net impact of the election interference by Black Cube was marginal, if there was any.
"Influence operations are complicated, and elections are multi-variable," commented Achiya Schatz, an Israeli expert on Influence Operations and Digital Manipulation who participated in the team which disclosed the links between Black Cube and Janša’s party (SDS).
"It seems that the operation didn't just fail — it may have actively contributed to Janša's defeat," he commented. "When you're running a covert operation, and it gets exposed before election day, you hand your opponent a story that is bigger than anything in the recordings. That's what happened here."
Even in losing, Janša legitimised tactics that have no place in democratic elections, Schatz said. "Foreign mercenary intelligence firms, covert recordings, coordinated digital manipulation — these are now part of the Slovenian political record. That's a loss for everyone, regardless of who won. Democracy doesn't recover from that kind of contamination just because the ‘right side’ won the vote."
Will the election interference affect the negotiations on forming a new government? "The outcome – a near-tie — actually makes the interference more politically consequential," he replied. "When margins are this thin, even a modest coordinated manipulation campaign becomes a legitimate democratic integrity question."
"The government-formation negotiations will now take place under that shadow," Schatz said. "Any coalition partner considering an alliance with SDS will have to answer publicly whether they are comfortable entering government with a party that met with Black Cube operatives and then lied about it — to media, to parliament, and to the public."
Best practices
It remains to be seen if the investigation by the Slovenian authorities will confirm the allegations in the report published by the investigative team on the contacts between the Israeli intelligence company and the leader of the opposition party. In a letter to EU leaders, Slovenia’s Prime Minister claimed that the media reports had been mostly confirmed by the Slovenian Intelligence and Security Agency.
Asked about the letter, a Commission spokesperson confirmed that the Commission had received it and will reply in due time.
"We are not in the habit of commenting on elections," the spokesperson said, referring to the ongoing investigation in Slovenia. "The Commission strengthens democratic resilience but does not interfere in elections. They are a national competence and in the hands of the citizens."
The European Commission presented last November the ‘European Democracy Shield’, a series of measures to empower, protect, and promote strong and resilient democracies, and an EU strategy for civil society. Among its layers is the European Centre for Democratic Resilience, which has just been launched.
There are also cooperation mechanisms in place for sharing best practices among EU Member States and civil society, such as roundtables provided by the Digital Services Act (DSA). Their objective is to make sure that large online platforms do not promote foreign information manipulation and interference in elections.
Such a roundtable did take place in Slovenia before the website with the covertly recorded videos appeared. Apparently, it could not have been foreseen at the roundtable. According to the Commission spokesperson, there is no indication that any platform had boosted this type of interference.
In its conclusions, the recent European Council stressed: "the responsibility of online platforms to mitigate the systemic risks associated with the use of these platforms and the need to safeguard the integrity and the accountability of the information space."
It called on the Commission to make full use of the instruments provided for by the DSA.
The next challenge for the Commission will be to assist Hungary, where a roundtable has also taken place to prevent foreign election interference in the elections on 12 April. Russia is suspected of online disinformation. The American Vice President JD Vance plans to visit Hungary to show support for the reelection of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Update: A Commission spokesperson clarified that the DSA applies to all on-line platforms. While the Commission enforces the DSA as regards very large platforms (with more that 45 million users in the EU), national authorities are playing a crucial role in implementing the DSA at Member State level where smaller platforms face the same risks as the larger ones.
