Europe has entered an era of perpetual crises, social unrest and the rise of extreme, autocratic, mainly extreme right-wing parties. The change in conditions has incited the activation of civil society. In Slovenia, the civic response has traditionally been short-lived and tended to peter out as the crisis ended. During the Covid-19 epidemic, however, the government measures and particularly interventions in key societal subsystems that were perceived as unjustified and not epidemiologically necessary have managed to ignite the longest-lasting protest movement in the country's history. Additionally, new civic initiatives and movements arose and gained strength, among them the civic initiative Voice of the People. Prior to the parliamentary elections, the initiative had explicitly rejected the paradigm in which the democracy is reduced to passively choosing options presented in the elections, and challenged the candidates to present clear and substantial answers and accept political responsibility for their pre-election commitments. Voice of the People is an informal, horizontal, non-hierarchic and inherently democratic coalition of civil society organisations, informal groups and individuals. The first part of the research focuses on its potential predecessors and role models, such as the new social movements in the 1980s, the protest movement in 2012–2013 as well as its links to the bicycle protests. Further on, the focus shifts to the way the initiative is organised and how it functions, its visibility and significance in the civic space as well as the plans and expectations for the future.
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