Zares – Social Liberals ( sl, Zares – socialno-liberalni) was a social-liberal political party in Slovenia. Its first president was Gregor Golobič, former Secretary General of the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia and former close advisor to the late

Janez Drnovšek Janez Drnovšek (; 17 May 1950 – 23 February 2008) was a Slovenian liberal politician, President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia (1989–1990), Prime Minister of Slovenia (1992–2002, with a short break in 2000) and President of Slovenia (2 ...

, who had previously abandoned active political involvement due to disagreements with his party. Until October 2011, the party was called Zares - New Politics (''Zares - nova politika''), when the party adopted its current title. The party supported a

social progressive Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techno ...

and economically social-liberal agenda, strongly supported the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

and was a staunch opponent of the former Slovenian

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

Janez Janša Ivan Janša (; born 17 September 1958), baptized and best known as Janez Janša (), is a Slovenian politician who served three times as a prime minister of Slovenia, a position he had held from 2004 to 2008, from 2012 to 2013, and from 2020 to 2 ...

. Since 17 November 2007, ''Zares'' has been an observer member of the

Liberal International Liberal International (LI) is a worldwide organization of liberal political parties - a political international. It was founded in Oxford in 1947 and has become the pre-eminent network for liberal parties, aiming to strengthen liberalism aroun ...

, and was also a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).

History

''Zares'' was founded in 2007 as the result of a split within the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia, when 6 MPs of the National Assembly, led by former Minister of Economy Matej Lahovnik, left their original party and founded a new parliamentary group. In the 2007 presidential election, the party supported Independent presidential candidate

Danilo Türk Danilo Türk (; born 19 February 1952) is a Slovenian diplomat, professor of international law, human rights expert, and political figure who served as President of Slovenia from 2007 to 2012. He was the first Slovene ambassador to the United Na ...

, who was elected

President of Slovenia The president of Slovenia, officially the president of the Republic of Slovenia ( sl, Predsednik Republike Slovenije), is the head of state of the Republic of Slovenia. The position was established on 23 December 1991 when the National Assembly p ...

. The party's first

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

, Zares gathered 9.4% of the vote, gaining 9 parliamentary seats and became the third strongest party in Slovenia. Before the election the party allied itself with the

Social Democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

and the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia in an unofficial coalition. From November 2008 till October 2011, Zares was part of the centre-left government led by Social Democrats party president

Borut Pahor Borut Pahor (; born 2 November 1963) is a Slovenian politician who served as President of Slovenia from 2012 to 2022. He previously served as Prime Minister of Slovenia from November 2008 to February 2012. A longtime member and former presi ...

. At the

2011 Slovenian parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Slovenia on 4 December 2011 to elect the 90 deputies of the National Assembly. This was the first early election in Slovenia's history. The election was surprisingly won by the center-left Positive Slovenia par ...

on 4 December 2011, ''Zares'' won 0.65% of the vote, thus not reaching the parliamentary threshold of 4%. On 15 February 2012 Pavel Gantar got 78% support on party congress and became the new president.RTVSLO.si - Na čelu Zaresa po novem Pavel Gantar
/ref> After party received only 0.91% of votes in the 2014 European Parliament election, and thus losing the party's European parliament representation, Gantar resigned as party president. He was replaced by Darja Radić as a ''pro tempore'' president.

Prominent members

;Leaders * Gregor Golobič: 2007-2012 * Pavel Gantar: 2012-2014 *'' Darja Radić'': 2014-2015 ;Other prominent members: * Franco Juri - vice president (?-2012) * Darja Radić - vice president (?-2012) * Cvetka Ribarič Lasnik - vice president (2012-) * Vito Rožej - vice president (2012-) * József Györkös * Janez Kopač * Matej Lahovnik - left the party on 5 July 2010 * Andrej Rus * Majda Širca * Vito Turk *

Ivo Vajgl Ivo Vajgl (born 3 March 1943) is a Slovenian politician and former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Slovenia. In his second term in the European Parliament he was a member of DeSUS and an individual member of the European Democratic ...

;Other prominent former members * Alenka Bratušek * Dušan Radonjič

Ultra Scandal

In June 2009, Golobič was involved in a so-called ''Ultra Scandal'' named after the Slovenian IT company Ultra, where Golobič was employed between 2003 and 2007. He was accused of misleading the media about his investment into that company during the campaign for the 2008 parliamentary election. According to allegations, the company had some 21 million euro of unsecured loans at the state-owned

Nova Ljubljanska Banka NLB Group is the largest banking and financial group in Slovenia, with the core of its activity being in Southeast Europe. History Founded in 1994, the bank now covers markets with a population of approximately 17.4 million people. In addition to ...

(NLB). When the media examined the loans, it came out that Golobič owns 10% of Ultra SUM, a

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

-based company which owns 70% of Ultra company. This was a fact that he had withheld from the public during the 2008 general election campaign. Golobič publicly apologized for having misled the public, but refused to resign as the minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology. The Ultra Scandal was also one of the reasons for the decision of Matej Lahovnik, one of the co-founders of the party ''Zares'', to leave the party in July 2010. Lahovnik, at the time Minister of Economy, mentioned Golobič's alleged misuse of political influence in order to favor his business partners as one of the reasons for his break with the party. As a response, Golobič demanded that Lahovnik step down from his position of Minister of Economy and qualified his behavior as "

Brutus Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC), often referred to simply as Brutus, was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Serv ...

-like", that is, treacherous.

External links

ZARES
official site

References

{{Slovenian political parties 2007 establishments in Slovenia Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party member parties Liberal International Liberal parties in Slovenia Organizations based in Ljubljana Political parties disestablished in 2015 Political parties established in 2007 Pro-European political parties in Slovenia