Informal Powers by Presidents in a Small State: Semi-Presidentialism in Slovenia

The Slovenian constitution grants the directly elected President of the Republic limited powers. These weak formal powers do not prevent a particular individual in the office from exerting informal powers, in particular in the form of a strong political influence on the other branches of power and the public with various activities. Such attempts have indeed been visible in terms of all four presidents (Milan Kučan, Janez Drnovšek, Danilo Türk and Borut Pahor) during the period 1992-2017. While trying to exert such an influence, the presidents have needed to be highly trusted and respected politicians. Opinion polls have consistently shown that the office of the President of the Republic is the most trusted political institution and its officeholders have been among the most trusted politicians (Toš et al. 1999; 2004; 2009; 2012; 2015). We can therefore claim that so far all Slovenian presidents have enjoyed high-level legitimacy, which enabled them (to try) to exert informal powers on Slovenian politics. Someone could expect to see the presidents have made such attempts particularly during the cohabitation periods 2004-2008 and 2012-2013, when in Slovenia centre-left presidents have to liaise with centre-right Prime Minister. However, some other factors could determine presidents’ informal powers as well, either personal characteristics like charisma, political style and ambitions, or political environments like divided versus united government, relationship between the president and “his” parliamentary party. In Slovenia, both factors, personal as well as political, have proven to be important, albeit to different extent in different periods (i.e. for different presidents). The main goal of the proposed paper is to explain the use of personal and political factors of informal powers of presidents in the Republic of Slovenia in the period 1992-2017.