Few national finals (if any) have offered more drama than EMA 2002, even if everything looked very organised and peaceful from the beginning.
The red hot favourite to win was Karmen Stavec, who had made an impression already the year before with "Ostani tu". Now she was ready to go out into the international limelight with a disco song seemingly tailormade to hit home with the televoters.
Karmen Stavec - Še in Še (Slovenia NF 2002)
However, the national expert juries probably found this entry too lightweight and favoured the merry flight attendant trio Sestre. According to reports, the sentiment in the green room was growing tense and unpleasant at this point and nothing got better as the hosts failed to produce a televoting result.
The minutes dragged by, the hosts tried to keep the audience in a good mood, the recap of songs was reprised three times and finally, after some twenty minutes or something, the results finally came in.
And when all the numbers had been counted, the three ladies in red had won by one point. Slovenia, still rather conservative and not in any way progressively gay friendly, was to be represented by drag queens at Eurovision.
Once the show was over, the tension exploded and two composers attacked each other physically in the green room. I suppose the Slovenian gossip press must have thought Christmas came unusually early that year.
However, Sestre slowly won the hearts of the Slovenians and ended in a 13th place in Tallinn. Not a bad placing for Slovenia.
Sestre - Samo ljubezen (Slovenia 2002)
The year after, Karmen finally won (perhaps partially as a consolation prize) and represented Slovenia in Riga where she, despite a good draw, only managed a 23rd place. Would she have fared better in 2002? What if the Slovenian televoters had it their way, would the outcame have been better or worse?
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