Resni.ca
Resni.ca is a Slovenian political party, founded on 14 January 2021, led by Zoran Stevanović. The party has organized protests against the introduction of the "recovered, vaccinated, tested" measure for limiting the COVID-19 epidemic, which contributed to the public visibility of the party. The party's central issues are: the fight against corruption and science, national sovereignty, reducing taxes and duties, denying the COVID-19 pandemic, and reducing budget deficits and public debt. Overview. On 14 January, the Resni.ca Citizens' Movement party was formed by Kranj City Councilor Zoran Stevanović (who also leads the party) and like-minded individuals. The  party's headquarters are located on Koroška cesta 2 in Kranj. According to Stevanović, the party's name simultaneously represents the words "truth" ("resnica") and "serious" ("resni"), as the party represents truth in contrast to "the lies of corrupt main political parties (which divide citizens into "left-wingers and right-wingers" while jostling to control the flow of public funds) "and because they are serious in their intention to carry out their goals. According to Stevanović, the party was founded due to unsolicited requests from supporters. In an interview with the party in February 2021, Stevanović said that the party  already had at least 37,000 "ambassadors" and "many more" supporters across the country, and that the party was already setting up a network of party representatives across Slovenia, that contesting the upcoming parliamentary elections is the party's "first-order ambition", that the party intends to run in local and European elections, and that they are not backed by any "[...] lobbies or other power structures, which is also reflected in the fact that the mainstream media does not pay us even a second of attention. [... .] I was called by journalists I know personally that told me they had received instructions  from their editors-in-chief that it is forbidden to report about us." According to the results of the Mediana poll, the newspaper Delo concluded in October 2021 that the party Resni.ca has little electoral potential. Political relations. In an interview in December 2020, Stevanović said that he personally wrote to Prime Minister Janez Janša to propose that Resni.ca and the government cooperate in finding solutions to ongoing challenges. List "Zoran For Kranj. Prior to the founding of Resni.ca, Zoran Stevanović was politically active in Kranj municipal politics, where he twice ran for mayor and won the same number of  council seats with his Zoran Za Kranj list as the local SDS party during the last election. In January 2021, Stevanović already spoke at the session of the Kranj City Council as a representative of the Resni.ca party; He did not answer the media question whether the Resni.ca party therefore represents the legal successor of the Zoran list for Kranj; he did not answer a request for comment asking him whether the party Resni.ca is the legal successor to his municipal electoral list. Political involvement of Resni.ca's leadership in other parties. Stevanović was a member of the Slovenian National  Party in the past; according to Stevanović, he was invited to join the SNS in 2016 by SNS leader Zmago Jelinčič and him with promises to overhaul the party's program and fight corruption, but that that he soon realized that the party was in fact "Jelinčič's personal political firm"; he called his membership in the SNS a mistake. In 2018, Stevanović, as a representative of the SNS party, participated in a round table discussion on patriotism organized by the far-right organization Institute for Patriotic Values, which was also attended by Andrej Šiško and SDS MP Branko Grims . One of the key party figures in Resni.ca also co-founded the far-right Homeland League party. Assumptions about the covert cooperation of the Resni.ca with SDS. With the abrupt rise of Resni.ca's visibility, speculations arouse that Resni.ca may be a satellite (or "Trojan horse") of SDS with which SDS could secure enough parliamentary support for a coalition government under SDS's leadership in the case Resni.ca succeeded managed to break through into parliament. History. The party was founded on 14 January 2021 with its headquarters in Kranj with Zoran Stevanović as party leader. On 3 October, Stevanovic addressed  a letter to the Slovenian government, calling for the immediate repeal of the "recovered, vaccinated, or tested" (RVT) measure and the resignation of the government. In the letter, he stated that the government bears "all responsibility for what is happening on the streets, squares and protocol locations", hinting that during the EU-Western Balkans summit in Brdo pri Kranju, protests against the RVT condition will try to disrupt the summit. On 4 October, Stevanović met with the President of the Republic Borut Pahor as the organizer of the protests against the PCT condition in the Presidential Palace. At the meeting , Pahor expressed the expectation that Stevanovic would call on the protesters to adhere to non-violence. Pahor also warned Stevanović about the unacceptability of the position that protesters can freely choose the place of protest themselves. Stevanovic suggested to Pahor that he call on the government to resign and lift its measures (which Pahor rejected). Stevanović attended the meeting without wearing a face covering (face covering were not worn by other participants in the meeting, including the president, as according to ordinances then in effect the use of face coverings was not required in environments where all participants meet the  RVT condition). during the visit, they checked whether Stevanović fulfilled the RVT condition. On the morning of 7 October a house search was conducted at the headquarters of the Resni.ca party and Stevanović's home under the direction of the National Bureau of Investigations. Stevanovic was also said to have handed himself over to the police. On 8 October, Reporter magazine reported that it had received a written request from the Resni.ca movement to withdraw a photograph of Zoran Stevanovic's real estate property. In the letter, Resni.ca also threatened the media organization with a lawsuit if it did not  do so. Reporter pointed out that filming or photographing of private real estate from public areas is prohibited (and that the media routinely publishes such images during house searches) and that Reporter was not even one of the media outlets that published pictures of his house. Ideology and views. In the draft statute of Resni.ca, the party identifies its core principles as: the fight against corruption, opposition to political servility towards the EU, opposition to "theft of funds through high taxes and excise duties", opposition to increasing the government debt, opposition to "misappropriation of public funds", advocacy for higher wages  and greater purchasing power of citizens, "improved conditions in health care and public administration" and "elimination of injustices suffered by our citizens". In an interview in February 2021, Stevanović stated as the party's goals "[...] ridding the country of corruption, establishing sovereignty, reducing taxes, increasing salaries by lowering of taxes and contributions, reforming the healthcare system from a state-administered one to a public one, increasing pensions, revitalizing the administrative state, and starting to reduce external debt." Populism. In an interview in December 2020, Stevanovic said that he met the dictionary definition of a populist, which is supposed to be  someone "advocating something that is liked by the broad public", and that he does not see populism in this sense as something negative, although the term has a negative connotation in political use. In an interview in February 2021, Stevanović stated that the party's candidates would be "nominated by citizens" and that they demand that all prospective candidates prove they had never been criminally convicted and are not involved in ongoing criminal proceedings. In the same interview, he also expressed his belief that "[in Slovenia] we don't really have a left-wing or a right-wing. It's  just two poles that falsely divide people based on attitudes towards recent history and marginal topics. So it's two wings of the same bird of prey, with one and the same interest, namely the control over public funds ... ' Economy. Tax policy. In an interview about the goals of Resni.ca in December 2020, Stevanović proposed that Slovenia become a tax haven. Universal basic income. In an interview in December 2020, Stevanović stated that Resni.ca advocated a UBI in the amount of €300 which would replace all existing social transfers, and pointed out that this amount would probably not be  enough for anyone to survive if they were unemployed which would encourage citizens to seek employment. Program. The program starting points of the Resni.ca client are: