With a pro-Orban prime minister gone, things are looking up in Slovenia

bitch!” says Robert Golob, who assumed power as Slovenia’s new prime minster on June 1st. Slovenia’s greatest looming problem is reducing the country’s dependence on Russian gas and oil, and not many people in the country know more about energy than Mr Golob himself. With the news dominated by Ukraine, Slovenia’s election on April 24th failed to make much impression abroad. But the political demise of Janez Jansa, the former prime minister and an enthusiastic fan of Donald Trump and of Hungary’s Viktor Orban, marks an about-turn for the tiny country of 2.1m people. In the past few years Mr Jansa, who has been in and out of government since 1990, has railed against a supposed communist “deep state” and the media, both of which he said were out to get him. Like Mr Orban, he attacked his enemies as “puppets” of George Soros, a Hungarian-born billionaire and philanthropist. Like Hungary, Slovenia under Mr Jansa had been steadily moving in an autocratic direction.