Robert Golob (born 23 January 1967) is a Slovenian businessman and politician, serving as

Prime Minister of Slovenia The prime minister of Slovenia, officially the president of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia (), is the Head of government, head of the Government of Slovenia, Government of the Slovenia, Republic of Slovenia. There have been nine offi ...

and leader of the Freedom Movement since 2022.

Early life and education

Golob obtained his PhD in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana (, , ), abbreviated UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 38,000 enrolled students. The university has 23 faculties and three art academies with approximately 4,000 teaching and re ...

in 1994 and continued his studies as a post-doctoral Fulbright scholar in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, at the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

Business career

In 2004, Golob co-founded an energy trading company GEN-I, which is state-controlled, and where he remained chairman until 2021.

Political career

Between May 1999 and June 2000, Golob was the State Secretary at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the government led by prime minister Janez Drnovšek of the LDS party. In 2002, he was elected to the City Council of

Nova Gorica Nova Gorica () is a town in western Slovenia, on the border with Italy. It is the seat of the Municipality of Nova Gorica. Nova Gorica is a planned town, built according to the principles of modernist architecture after 1947, when the Treaty of pe ...

, a position he held until 2022. In 2011, Golob joined the Positive Slovenia party, founded by the mayor of

Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...

Zoran Janković. In 2013–14, with the rising tensions within the party between its founder and chairman Zoran Janković and Prime Minister Alenka Bratušek, Golob played a mediating role between the two factions. In May 2014, after the final split between the two factions, he joined the breakaway Party of Alenka Bratušek (SAB), becoming one of its vice-presidents. After SAB's poor performancein the subsequent 2014 election, he moved away from national-level politics, remaining active only at the local level in his municipality of Nova Gorica. Among other engagements, he chaired the neighborhood assembly of Kromberk- Loke between 2010 and 2014, and remained member until 2022. In 2021, Golob decided to once again take an active role in national politics, after his mandate as chairman of GEN-I had not been extended.

Prime Minister (2022–present)

In January 2022, Golob took over the small extra-parliamentary Green Actions Party and renamed it to Freedom Movement. On 24 April 2022, in the 2022 Slovenian parliamentary election, the Freedom Movement won 41 seats in the 90-seat

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

. Golob formed the government by joining forces with

Social Democrats Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...

, another

centre-left Centre-left politics is the range of left-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. Ideologies commonly associated with it include social democracy, social liberalism, progressivism, and green politics. Ideas commo ...

party, and The Left, giving him a majority in the legislature. On 25 May 2022, Golob was appointed

by the National Assembly. Golob criticized Israel's military operations in the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

during the Gaza war. In May 2024, he announced that his government would recognize the

Palestinian state Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, collectively known as th ...

Personal life

Golob was married to Jana Nemec Golob for over thirty years. They have three children together. Since autumn 2022, he has been living with Tina Gaber, a former model, in Ljubljana.

References

External links

* , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Golob, Robert 1967 births Living people People from Šempeter pri Gorici No local image but image on Wikidata Slovenian businesspeople University of Ljubljana alumni Positive Slovenia politicians Prime ministers of Slovenia