The accordion player is a fixture in the historical center of Slovenia's capital, Ljubljana.

Whatever the season, he perches on a chair in Preseren Square — sporting traditional costume and a feather in his hat — and runs through a limited repertoire of traditional tunes.

In the collection box at his feet, a sign reading "Slovenian Music" points punters towards the CDs he offers for sale.

In an odd turn of events, the accordion — and the traditional music played on it — has become a symbol for Slovenia's main opposition party, the right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS).

With parliamentary elections taking place on March 22, it is hard to turn a corner in Ljubljana without running into a campaign poster featuring a winsome young boy posing with the instrument in his hands. "Vote SDS, so your grandson will still sing Slovenian songs," reads the accompanying slogan.

'We are Slovenians first'

"As an Alpine country, the accordion is one of the basic instruments which gives us our identity," says Tone Kajzer, a former diplomat who now serves as foreign policy spokesperson for the SDS.

"It's all about making people aware that we are Slovenians first, then Europeans, and then the people on the globe — focusing back to our roots. Because, you know, the tree without roots will fall very soon," he told DW.

The SDS campaign is deliberately playing notes that hark back to an idealized past, with the inference that everything was better in the years immediately following Slovenia's independence in 1991.

Focus on moving forward

In contrast, the campaign posters for the governing center-left Freedom Movement (GS) focus on a single word: "Forward."

The party's Secretary General, Matej Grah, says this sums up the difference between the two main protagonists in the imminent polls.

"These elections are about two different visions of Slovenia. Either we speak and work for the future or we turn back to history," he told DW.

Voters will be presented with as many as 18 candidate lists on their ballot papers, some from the smaller parties which will undoubtedly have a role to play in the formation of the post-election governing coalition.

Golob versus Jansa

But the main struggle boils down to two men: the Freedom Movement's leader and current prime minister, Robert Golob, and SDS leader and three-time former Prime Minister Janez Jansa.

Grah casts this as a battle for the soul of Slovenia.

"It's not only about the public health system, jobs or growing the economy. It's about the sovereignty of Slovenia, the rule of law and maintaining this island in the middle of Europe that still has values that matter — values that are liberal, open and strengthening the social state," he said.

Breaking the cycle on the center-left

The Freedom Movement has at least managed to buck one long-standing trend in Slovenian politics.

The country had been stuck in a cycle of churn on the center-left, with new parties emerging at every election as voters favored "fresh faces" over existing leaders.

Robert Golob burst onto the political scene ahead of the 2022 elections and his party won a record number of parliamentary seats. Since then, voters have cooled, making reelection a tricky proposition.

But the Freedom Movement did at least manage to serve a full four-year term in government — and this time there is no new figure on the center-left to push Mr. Golob into irrelevancy.

"It's quite amazing that we don't have a fresh face on the center-left," said Igor Bergant, one of the best-known news presenters at the national broadcaster, RTV Slovenija.

Bergant believes that the center-left has been trying and failing to identify a convincing figurehead since the death of the former prime minister and president Janez Drnovsek in 2008.

Did Golob promise too much?

"The attention span in Slovenia is quite limited, so, people get annoyed with politicians quite quickly," he told DW, adding that Mr. Golob made a problem for himself by over-promising and under-delivering.

"He said he would need two mandates — so, eight years — to realize the necessary reforms. But after four years, his track record is not so good. Apparently, he got scared of reform, so, he didn't deliver a lot — and a lot of people got angry because of that."

The Freedom Movement points to changes in healthcare, housing and pensions as evidence that it is, in fact, making progress and should be given the opportunity to complete its eight-year program.

But all the leading parties are highlighting Slovenia's ailing health service as the biggest issue, which indicates that voters are not yet feeling the difference.

Controversy just days before the vote

Meanwhile, the days ahead of the election have been consumed by controversy, following the release of covert recordings which imply corrupt practices by leading figures on the center-left.

Robert Golob has directly accused Janez Jansa of deploying a private Israeli intelligence agency and undermining Slovenia's democracy by working with a foreign power.

The SDS has retorted that the real story is about a country being "captured by systemic corruption."

How this feeds into the thoughts of Slovenian voters is between them and their ballot papers.

But by Monday it should be clear whether they prefer the old tunes offered by Jansa and the SDS or the progressive pulse promised by Robert Golob and his Freedom Movement.

Edited by: Aingeal Flanagan