Party Foundations, Leadership and Program
The party was founded on 17 March 1991 by Zmago Jelinčič Plemeniti. Although Jelinčič has maintained a strong hold on the party's leadership ever since, the party has suffered several internal fractures and divisions over the years, with many prominent members abandoning it. This however has not seriously affected the party's structure, even though the ideologies of both SNS MPs and the party's membership tend to sometimes differ from Jelinčič's stands.
The party receives support from various strands of society; these range from Communists nostalgics to more moderate voters, especially among young people. The party advocates state intervention into economic matters, strict economic regulations, secularism, development of basic and applied science, and civic education in public schools. The party also calls for a change of the national flag (regarded by the party's program as "Pan-Slavic") and the coat of arms (called "an a-historical and hippie-inspired fabrication" by Jelinčič), reform of the justice system and withdrawal from the European Union and NATO.
In the second democratic elections in Slovenia in 1992, the SNS won more than 10% of the popular vote, which declined to around 6% in the 2004 legislative election. The party motto is "with no hair on the tongue" (a saying equivalent to "calling spade a spade"). The SNS takes pride in the party's rejection of all standards of political correctness in speech. For example, when Jelinčič was asked what the prime difference between SNS and the leftist Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia was, he replied: "A young woman from time to time."
The traditional 19th century Kozler map of United Slovenia is one of the official party symbols. Jelinčič has also written a book entitled Hrvatje v luči zgodovinske resnice ("Croats in the light of historical truth"), originally published under the pseudonym "Psunjski" (the possessive form of "epithet"), wherein he harshly criticised Croatia and praised Slovenia, Serbia, the policies of Tito, and the anti-fascist struggle.
Parliamentary representation:
Read more about this topic: Slovenian National Party
Famous quotes containing the words party, leadership and/or program:
“The party out of office becomes the articulate one.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The liberal wing of the feminist movement may have improved the lives of its middle- and upper-class constituency—indeed, 1992 was the Year of the White Middle Class Woman—but since the leadership of this faction of the feminist movement has singled out black men as the meta-enemy of women, these women represent one of the most serious threats to black male well-being since the Klan.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“The westerner, normally, walks to get somewhere that he cannot get in an automobile or on horseback. Hiking for its own sake, for the sheer animal pleasure of good condition and brisk exercise, is not an easy thing for him to comprehend.”
—State of Utah, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)