Modern Centre Party

The Modern Centre Party (Slovene: Stranka modernega centra, SMC) was a social-liberal political party in Slovenia led by Minister of Economical Development and Technology Zdravko Počivalšek, who succeeded former Prime Minister and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Miro Cerar as the party president. It formed in 2014 and merged with Economic Active Party in 2021, to form a party Concretely.^[8]

Modern Centre Party Stranka modernega centra
President	Zdravko Počivalšek
Founder	Miro Cerar
Founded	2 June 2014 (As Party of Miro Cerar)
Dissolved	4 December 2021
Merged into	Concretely
Headquarters	Ljubljana
Ideology	Social liberalism Liberalism^[1] Pro-Europeanism
Political position	Centre^[2] to centre-left^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]
Regional affiliation	Liberal South East European Network (LIBSEEN)
European affiliation	Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
International affiliation	Liberal International^[7]
Website
www.strankasmc.si/
Politics of Slovenia Political parties Elections

History

The party was established during the founding congress on 2 June 2014 as the Party of Miro Cerar (Stranka Mira Cerarja, SMC).^[9][10] SMC was spearheaded by Miro Cerar, a law professor and legal advisor to parliament,^[11] and the son of a famous Yugoslav Slovene athlete.^[12] The party rapidly ascended to top opinion polls shortly after its establishment.^[11]

Only six weeks after its establishment, on 13 July 2014, the party received 34.6% of the vote in the 2014 parliamentary election, winning a plurality of 36 seats in the National Assembly,^[13] the most parliamentary seats of any party in the independent nation's history.^[14] Miro Cerar was appointed as the Prime Minister designate.^[15]

On 18 September 2014, the Cerar cabinet was formed, with the SMC as lead party in a coalition with the Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia (DeSUS) and Social Democrats (SD).

Despite the outstanding performance during the parliamentary elections, SMC saw little success during the 2014 local elections, failing to win a single mayoral post.^[16]

On 21 November 2014, the SMC was admitted as a full member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) at the ALDE congress in Lisbon.^[17]

On 7 March 2015, at the SMC party congress, the name of the party was changed to Modern Centre Party.^[18][19]

After its record-setting electoral victory in 2014,^[14] SMC parliamentary representation was decimated in the 2018 Slovenian parliamentary election, the party having garnered just 9.8% of the vote, thus winning only 10 MP seats.^[20]

In the wake of the 2018 parliamentary election, Milan Brglez, hitherto Speaker of Parliament and SMC vice-president, was ejected from the party in a unanimous decision by the party's executive committee. Brglez alleged the expulsion was a result of his principled opposition to and criticism of some party decisions, and for his opposing a prospective SMC coalition with the right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party.^[21][22][23] Brglez further stated that the expulsion precipitated after allegations surfaced that he was considering a self-candidacy for a second speakership term (which Brglez denied) that enraged Cerar (who was purportedly also vying for the post), and that the expulsion was concocted by Cerar, who orchestrated it with a bottom-up reshuffling of willing party functionaries so as to enable the expulsion.^[24][25] Brglez had been known to quarrel with Cerar about government policy during Cerar's premiership, with Cerar calling on Brglez to resign on one occasion, though the two later partially reconciled.^[22] On 2019 party congress Zdravko Počivalšek was elected a new president of the party.

Following the negotiation to form a 14th Government under premiership of Janez Janša, which SMC would join, founder and former president Miro Cerar left the party saying that it no longer "pursued its founding values" and called on other party members to do the same.^[26]

On 26 March Janja Sluga, Igor Zorčič and Branislav Rajić left the party and announced that they are working on forming a new parliamentary group with Jurij Lepi that is to be led by Janja Sluga.^[27]

On 4 December 2021, SMC merged with a non-parliamentary Economic Active Party to form a new party, Concretely.^[8] With this, SMC's membership in ALDE was automatically terminated.^[28]

Ideology

The party's initial focus was the "rule of law, liberalising the economy and improving the efficiency of the public sector".^[11] Cerar also voiced support for "liberalising the economy and labour market rules, cutting red tape and selling off smaller state firms", but offered few policy details before the party's premiere election.^[12]

Electoral results

National Assembly

Election	Leader	Votes	%	Seats	+/–	Government
2014	Miro Cerar	298,342	34.6 (#1)	36 / 90		Coalition
2018		86,868	9.7 (#4)	10 / 90	26	Coalition

European Parliament

Election	Leader	Votes	%	Seats	+/–
2019	Gregor Perič	7,823	1.6 (#12)	0 / 8

Presidential

Election	Candidate	1st round		2nd round		Result
		Votes	%	Votes	%
2017	Maja Makovec Brenčič	13,052	1.73			Lost

References

1. Nordsieck, Wolfram (2018). "Slovenia". Parties and Elections in Europe. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
2. "Sunday's Vote Battle of Old and New and Divisions on Way Forward". The Slovenia Times. 11 July 2014.
3. Tom Lansford, ed. (2015). Political Handbook of the World 2015. CQ Press. p. 5557. ISBN 978-1-4833-7155-9.
4. Novak, Marja (19 June 2014). "Slovene PM hopeful says is against Telekom privatisation". Reuters.
5. "Opinion poll: 41 percent of Slovenians want Miro Cerar as prime minister". MMC RTV SLO. 16 June 2014.
6. Nuttall, Clare (24 June 2014). . BNE Business News Europe. Archived from the original on 29 June 2014.
7. "Stranka Modernega Centra (SMC)".
8. "Na združitvenem kongresu SMC-ja in GAS-a nastala stranka Konkretno". Rtvslo.si (in Slovenian). 4 December 2021.
9. "Cerar: Razdeljeno ljudstvo je šibko, kar vladajoči vedno izrabijo :: Prvi interaktivni multimedijski portal, MMC RTV Slovenija". Rtvslo.si. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
10. "Stranka Mira Cerarja". Mirocerar.si. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
11. Novak, Marja. "Slovene PM hopeful says is against Telekom privatisation". U.S. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
12. "Son of local hero bids to lead Slovenia to limited makeover". Reuters. 10 July 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
13. Predčasne Volitve V Državni Zbor 2014 Republika Slovenija - Državna volilna komisija. Accessed 13 July 2014
14. "SMC po številu poslancev presegla rekord Janeza Drnovška". Dnevnik. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
15. "Neuradni rezultati: Cerar najverjetnejši novi premier". Mladina.si. Retrieved 20 March 2015.
16. Solutions, EIU Digital. "SMC has little success at local elections". country.eiu.com. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
17. . ALDE Party. Archived from the original on 29 November 2014. Retrieved 20 March 2015.
18. "Miro Cerar's Name Out as SMC Renamed Modern Centre Party". www.sloveniatimes.com (in Slovenian). Retrieved 1 July 2018.
19. "Slovenia PM optimistic over 'fragile' economic recovery". Yahoo News UK. 7 March 2015. Retrieved 20 March 2015.
20. Kos, Katarina Bulatović, Suzana. "Pod Šarcem nastaja nova LDS" (in Slovenian). Retrieved 1 July 2018.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
21. "STA: Brglez expelled from SMC". english.sta.si. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
22. "SMC expels high-profile party member Milan Brglez :: Prvi interaktivni multimedijski portal, MMC RTV Slovenija". www.rtvslo.si. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
23. "Milan Brglez: Vrgli so me iz SMC, ker sem bil proti koaliciji s SDS". Časnik Večer d.o.o. (in Slovenian). Retrieved 1 July 2018.
24. "Brglez: Moja izključitev je bila povsem zrežiran dogodek #video" (in Slovenian). Retrieved 1 July 2018.
25. "Brglez napisal pismo lokalnim odborom SMC" (PDF).
26. "Cerar izstopil iz SMC-ja. Počivalšek: Iti moramo naprej". www.rtvslo.si. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
27. "Sluga: SMC je postala avtokratsko vodena stranka enega človeka". RTVSLO.si (in Slovenian). Retrieved 7 April 2021.
28. "SMC in GAS postala Konkretno in ostala brez članstva v evropski Alde". 24ur.com (in Slovenian). 4 December 2021.

External links

• Official website