Videos of Šarec’s Political Imitations Still on the Internet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcuxl4O2R3k

Marjan Šarec, who was convincingly elected as the mandate holder for the future government on Friday, is a 41-year-old with a degree from the Academy of Theatre and Film and a member of the new generation of Slovenian politicians.

Born on December 2, 1977, he never met his biological parents as he was placed in a foster family in Moravče as a baby.

He lived there until the age of three when he was adopted by the Šarec couple from the village of Šmarce near Kamnik. He inherited a house and a small estate from them, where he still lives today with his wife Barbara, a professor of Slovenian and Italian languages, and their daughters Gabrijela and Viviana.

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Although the broader political public only got to know him last year when he narrowly lost the presidential race as a challenger to Borut Pahor, Šarec is a successful local politician in his municipality of Kamnik.

He has won two mayoral mandates and gained political experience at the local level, but his competitors question his abilities necessary for national politics and international communication.

Even before he entered politics, Šarec became famous in Slovenia as an actor-comedian, especially for his impersonations of famous personalities. After finishing vocational high school and at the suggestion of friends whom he entertained with teacher impersonations in elementary school, he applied to the Ljubljana Academy of Theatre and Film and managed to enroll on his second attempt.

Šarec impressed the examination committee with an impersonation of then Croatian President Franjo Tuđman and an improvisation in which he played a victim kidnapped by South American guerrillas.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s – when domestic politicians could be mocked on stage and television with the liberalization and approach to the EU – Šarec won the sympathy of viewers as a stand-up comedian and impersonator.

He successfully impersonated almost all domestic politicians, from Janez Drnovšek and Janez Janša to Anton Rop and Karl Erjavec, which he stopped after his first entry into “serious” politics. However, recordings of his performances on television, radio, fire department parties, and other occasions still have hundreds of thousands of views in Slovenia.

In contrast, those who know Šarec personally say that he is a very consistent, serious, hardworking person, but also strict, which is why he was allegedly exposed to accusations of bullying his colleagues as mayor.

In his inaugural parliamentary appearance, he warned political competitors that they are mistaken in announcing that his government will be short-lived and a government of “horns in a sack” because he claims that everything depends on the people who lead and give initiative, not on the number of the coalition and words “behind which there are no deeds”.

As priorities for the future government’s program, which is to be presented to parliamentary committees in the coming weeks and confirmed in parliament in mid-September, he mentioned addressing the critical state of public health and public administration, a friendly policy with neighboring countries, including Croatia, and the effort to introduce more culture into communication in domestic politics.

“There will be disagreements and points we will have to think about to improve our bilateral and international cooperation,” Merkel said at a press conference in Berlin during the visit of Montenegrin Prime Minister Duško Marković.

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“The number of problems that concern us, from Ukraine to Syria regarding cooperation issues, including economic cooperation, is so great that we need to maintain a constant dialogue about it,” the chancellor said, adding that no special results should be expected from the meeting on Saturday.

Germany and France are the sponsors of the peace process in Ukraine, which is currently at a standstill. Kyiv and the West accuse Russia of militarily supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine, which it denies.

Berlin has a secondary role in the coalition in Syria against the Islamic State group but has close relations with actors in the region, such as Turkey or Iraqi Kurds. Germany has accepted hundreds of thousands of Syrian migrants.

Merkel mentioned on Friday the possible holding of a summit on Syria in Turkey with Putin and the presidents of France and Turkey, Emmanuel Macron and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Merkel said that “the meeting must be well prepared, which is why a date has not yet been set.”

On Friday, the chancellor spoke with Macron, and the two leaders confirmed the need to support an inclusive political process in Syria to achieve lasting peace in the region.

Merkel and Putin are expected to meet at 6 PM local time on Saturday at Meseberg Castle, the residence of the German government, 70 km north of Berlin.