Janez Jansa

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In 1989, Janša was involved in the founding of one of the first opposition parties in Slovenia, the Slovenian Democratic Union (SDZ) and became its first vice-president, and later president of the Party Council. Following the first free elections in May 1990 he became the Minister of Defence in Lojze Peterle's cabinet, a position he held during the Slovenian war for independence in June and July 1991. Together with the Minister of Interior Igor Bavčar, Janša was the main organizer of Slovenia's strategy against the Yugoslav People's Army.

In 1992, when the Slovenian Democratic Union broke into a liberal and a conservative wing, the leaders of the liberal fraction wanted to propose Janša as the compromise president of the party, but he refused the offer. After the party's final breakdown, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia (now called Slovenian Democratic Party) and remained Defence Minister in the center-left coalition government of Janez Drnovšek until March 1994. In May 1993, he was elected president of the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia, a position he has held ever since.

Janša has been accused of having abused his position as defense minister to consolidate political power, engaging in arms trafficking to arm combatants in the Yugoslav Wars in violation of a United Nations arms embargo, and blackmailing prominent individuals, including politicians, businesspeople, journalists, and cultural and literary figures, by threatening to make public information (to which he was privy to in his ministerial role) regarding their previously undisclosed involvement with the former communist secret police.

In 1994, Janez Janša was dismissed by Prime Minister Janez Drnovšek from his role as Defence Minister because of his involvement in the Depala Vas affair (which centered around an incident in which military personnel arrested and mistreated a civilian off-duty undercover police associate that was attempting to obtain classified documents about the Ministry of Defence). SDS subsequently left the Drnovšek government as a result. The dismissal prompted protests by Janša's supporters and there were founded fears inside the government that Janša, backed by the nascent military, may refuse to relinquish power. A 2003 Mladina article alleged that Slovenia's military's special unit (MORiS) was in 1994 performing military exercises intended to prepare the force to carry out a military coup d'état. The police force was at the same time covertly preparing to secure the state and prevent a military takeover. In a press conference shortly prior to the article's publication, Janša pointed to documents detailing these police plans to secure state institutions to argue that a coup was in fact afoot against his Ministry. In a 1999 interview with Delo, Janša commented on the events of 1994, saying: "I held immense power in my hands. [...] And in 1994, when they were deposing me, there was a lot of suggestions that we not accept this removal. I could have done that. But I didn't." In 1995, Janša was charged for alleged illegal arms trafficking, but the case was never brought to trial.

In 1996 parliamentary elections Janša's party's vote share rose significantly, from around 3.5% in the previous election to over 16%, becoming the third largest political party in the parliament and mounting an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to form a governing coalition. SDS largely remained in opposition for until 2004 years, save for a brief period in 2000 when it entered a short-lived centre-right government led by Andrej Bajuk,

During his time in opposition, Janša supported the government's efforts for the integration into EU and NATO. Between 2002 and 2004, he re-established cordial relations with now-President Drnovšek: in 2003, Drnovšek headed a round table on Slovenia's future based on Janša's recommendations.

During this time, Janša was frequently accused of political extremism and radical discourse. Janša's former friend and fellow dissident Spomenka Hribar argues that his campaigns seem like conspiracy theories, and emphasize emotion, especially patriotic fervor, over rationality. The post-Marxist sociologist Rudi Rizman describes Janša's rhetoric as radical populism, close to demagoguery. The notion of "Udbo-Mafija", a term coined by the architect Edo Ravnikar to denote the illegitimate structural connections between the post-communist elites, is particularly prevalent in Janša's thought. Most critics agree that Janša is similar to other European radical right-wing populist leaders. Janša's rhetoric is nationalist and xenophobic, including verbal attacks against foreigners, especially from the other former-Yugoslav states, and "communists". Hribar considers these elements a form of extreme nationalism and chauvinism; to her, his irredentist claims towards Croatia seem obvious neo-fascism.

The sociologist Frane Adam instead explains Janša as the product of culture wars between the old communist elites and the hitherto disenfranchised elites of the right wing. The writer Drago Jančar similarly interprets the animosity against Janša as unjustified reactions of a culture unused to conservative political discourse.

Ahead of the 2004 electoral campaign, Janša turned towards moderation, tempering his radical language and attacks against alleged communists. Still, some critics continued to point out nationalistic rhetoric against immigrants.

Janša was prime minister of Slovenia for the first time from November 2004 to November 2008. During the term characterized by over-enthusiasm after joining EU, between 2005 and 2008 the Slovenian banks have seen loan-deposit ratio veering out of control, over-borrowing from foreign banks and then over-crediting private sector, leading to its unsustainable growth.

It was also for the first time after 1992 that the president and the prime minister had represented opposing political factions for more than a few months. The relationship between Drnovšek and the government quickly became tense. After the landslide victory of the opposition candidate Danilo Türk in the 2007 presidential election, Janša filed a Motion of Confidence in the government on 15 November 2007, stating that the opposition's criticism was interfering with the government's work during Slovenia's presidency over the European Union. The government won the vote, held on 19 November, with 51 votes supporting it and 33 opposing it.

In the beginning of December 2011, several clips of the recordings of closed sessions of the Government of Slovenia during the term of Janez Janša were published on the video-sharing website YouTube.

Allegations were made against Janez Janša that he tried to subordinate Slovenian media. On 1 September 2008, some three weeks before the Slovenian parliamentary elections, allegations were made in Finnish TV in a documentary broadcast by the Finnish national broadcasting company YLE that Janša had received bribes from the Finnish defense company Patria (73.2% of which is the property of the Finnish government) in the so-called Patria case. Janša rejected all accusations as a media conspiracy concocted by left-wing Slovenian journalists, and demanded YLE to provide evidence or to retract the story. Janša's naming of individual journalists, including some of those behind the 2007 Petition Against Political Pressure on Slovenian Journalists, and the perceived use of diplomatic channels in an attempt to coerce the Finnish government into interfering with YLE editorial policy, drew criticism from media freedom organizations, such as the International Press Institute and European branch of International Federation of Journalists whose representative, Aidan White, IFJ general secretary, said "The (Janša's) government is distorting the facts, failing to tell Slovenians the truth and trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the European public about its attitude to media".

In the November 2008 parliamentary election, Janša's party placed second. Janša was replaced as prime minister by Borut Pahor, leader of Social Democrats.

In December 2011 Janša's party won the second place in the Slovenian parliamentary elections. Since the prime minister-designate of the first-placed party, Positive Slovenia, Zoran Janković failed to secure himself enough votes in the National Assembly, and Danilo Türk, the President of Slovenia, declined to propose Janša as prime minister because Janša had been charged in the Patria bribery case, Janša was proposed as prime minister by the coalition of the parties SDS, SLS, DeSUS, NSi, and the newly formed Gregor Virant's Civic List on 25 January 2012. On 28 January he became prime minister-designate. His cabinet was confirmed on 10 February, and Janša became the new prime minister with a handover from Pahor on the same day. On 13 February the President received the new Government and wished them luck. Both parties agreed that good cooperation is crucial for success.

During his second term as prime minister, which lasted only one year, Janez Janša responded to the weakening of Slovenian economy during the global economic crisis and European sovereign-debt crisis with opening up old ideological fronts against liberal media, and against public sector – especially educational and cultural sectors, accusing them of being under influence of members of old regime (called Udbomafia and "Uncles from Behind the Scenes" (In Slovene: "strici iz ozadja")) and against everyone who doubted that austerity measures forced upon Slovenia are right ones.

Slovenian political elites faced the 2012–2013 Slovenian protests demanding their resignation.

In January 2013, the 2012–2013 Investigation Report on the parliamentary parties' leaders by Commission for the Prevention of Corruption of the Republic of Slovenia revealed that Janez Janša and Zoran Janković systematically and repeatedly violated the law by failing to properly report their assets. It revealed his purchase of one of the real-estate was indirectly co-funded by a construction firm, a major government contractor. It showed that his use of funds in the amount of at least 200.000 EUR, coming from unknown origin, exceeded both his income and savings.

Immediately after the release of the report, Civic List issued an ultimatum to Janša's party to find another party member to serve as a new PM. Since Janša was ignoring the report and his party didn't offer any replacement for him, all three coalition parties and their leaders left the government within weeks and were subjected to ad hominem attacks by Janez Janša who accused the SLS's leader Radovan Žerjav of being "the worst (economics) minister in history of Slovenia", while the leader of the Civic List Gregor Virant has been mocked by Janša as engaging in "virantovanje" (a word game on kurentovanje, a Slovenian carnival festival). On 27 February 2013, Janša's government fell, following a vote of no confidence over allegations of corruption and an unpopular austerity programme in the midst of the country's recession. Gregor Virant welcomed the outcome of the vote, stating that it will enable Slovenia to move forward, either to form a new government or to call for an early election. Janša took over Ministry of Finance on 1 February.

Following the fall of his government, Janša decided not to resume his position as a member of the National Assembly. Instead, he decided to work for his party (SDS), write books, lecture at international institutes and help as a counsellor.

On 5 June 2013, the District Court in Ljubljana ruled that Janša and two others had sought about €2m in commission from a Finnish firm, Patria, to help it win a military supply contract in 2006 (Patria case). Janša was sentenced to two years while Tone Krkovič and Ivan Črnkovič, his co-defendants, were each sentenced to 22 months in prison. All three were also fined €37,000 each. Janša has denied the accusations, claiming the whole process is politically motivated. The following day, the Minister of Justice, Senko Pličanič, emphasised that the court ruling was not yet binding and therefore Janša was still presumed innocent.

Several hundred supporters had rallied outside the court to protest the ruling, while another group of people welcomed the outcome. In his first response, Janša stated he will fight with all available legal and political means to overturn the ruling at the superior court. He has also drawn parallels to the politically motivated JBTZ trial, where he was sentenced to prison 25 years ago. Members of SDS, NSi and SLS, the opposition parties, condemned the ruling. The coalition mostly abstained from comments. Borut Pahor, the President of Slovenia, stressed that the authority of the court should be respected, regardless of personal opinions. The ruling was welcomed by the members of the Protest movement and Goran Klemenčič of the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption of the Republic of Slovenia, who stated that the fight against corruption in Slovenia must continue.

After the Constitutional Court of Slovenia with the majority of votes dismissed Janša's appeal due to him not having exhausted every other legal means available to him, on 20 June 2014 Janša started serving his prison term in Dob Prison, the largest Slovene prison. He was escorted there by about 3,000 supporters. The influential German centre-right wing newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported the following day that the domestic Slovene and the international law experts recognised large violations of Janša's rights in the court case. The case is to be reviewed by the Supreme Court, but this does not postpone the execution of the sentence that started just three weeks before the parliamentary election. Former constitutional judges criticised the decision of the Constitutional Court for being based on formalities instead of on the content, and commented that a large legal inconsistency in the process was discovered only in front of the Constitutional Court and that it will prevent the Supreme Court from not overturning the judgement. On 12 December 2014 Janša was temporarily released from the prison pending the review of the case by the Constitutional Court. The conviction was unanimously overturned by the Constitutional Court on 23 April 2015.

In the early election on 3 June 2018, Janez Janša was re-elected as a deputy. He was elected in the electoral district of Grosuplje and received 7,020 votes or 39.3%, the largest share of all candidates in the country. The Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) won the election by receiving 24.92% of votes and gaining 25 seats out of 90 in the National Assembly.

Following the resignation of Marjan Šarec as prime minister, Janša was elected as prime minister-designate on 3 March 2020, to form the 14th Government of Slovenia. He was sworn in on 13 March 2020.

On November 4, 2020, the day after the United States presidential election, Janša congratulated Donald Trump on his alleged reelection; he remained the only world leader to have done so when news organizations instead called the election for Joe Biden on November 7.

Janša described the Fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021 as "the greatest defeat for NATO in history".

His third term as a prime minister ended on 13 May 2022.

In April 2021, two documents, named the Balkan non-papers, which called for the "peaceful dissolution" of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the annexation of parts of Montenegro and North Macedonia into a Greater Serbia and Greater Croatia, as well as the unification of Albania and Kosovo, was said to have been created or distributed by Janša. The story of the non-papers was broken down by Bosnian web portal politicki.ba on 12 April 2021. The document's plans and ideas were heavily criticized and reacted to by many political leaders from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia and as well as by politicians from the European Union and Russia, including Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov and the European Commission's Vice-President and EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell.

Upon the non-papers being sent by Janša, Bosnian Presidency member Šefik Džaferović sent a letter of concern to European Council President Charles Michel. After hearing news about the document, Janša spoke in a telephone call with Džaferović, stating that "there is no non-paper regarding border changes in the Western Balkans" and adding that he supports "the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina."

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