SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

#Karlexit

There was an almost audible gasp on social media in Muddy Hollows once the results finally came in and it had become obvious that Aleksandra Pivec ousted Karl Erjavec as DeSUS leader, by a landslide.

*Aleksandra Pivec, the new DeSUS leader (source)*

The implosion was immediate. Erjavec came into the congress as one of the longest-serving party leaders in the history of independent Slovenia and with an impressive CV of serving as foreign minister in three governments and as minister of defense in two, including the current one, but left almost as a private citizen, announcing his resignation from the government.

Clearly, No-one Was Thinking (part 5: Contra-Iran)

As the shit was brewing in the Middle East over the last few weeks, one man was especially tormented over what his next course of action should be.

*Karl Erjavec with Chief of the General Staff, Maj. Gen. Alenka Ermenc (r) (source)*

You might suspect pengovsky is thinking of Donald Trump or Ayatollah Khamenei, but you’d suspect wrong. The tormented person in question was none other than Slovenian minister of defense Karl Erjavec.

Keeping The Eye On The Ball

Pengovsky was about to write up the fifth (and possibly last) installment of the Clearly, No-one Was Thinking series, when Angelika Mlinar was somewhat unexpectedly not green-lighted as minister for EU cohesion funds by the relevant parliamentary committees.

*Angelika Mlinar during her committee hearing (source: Matija Sušnik/Nat’l Assembly)*

The one thing that stood out as a sore thumb was the fact that it was not her credentials that were debated but rather her national loyalties. In fact, what we witnessed in the committee hearing on Tuesday was a mix of latent nationalism and sexism, with some internal party strife to boot.

Clearly, No-one Was Thinking (part 4: Spies Like Us)

A corollary to one of the Murphy’s Laws states that if multiple things can go wrong, they will go wrong in the worst possible order. Additionally, Murphy’s Fourteenth Law states that if anything can’t go wrong on its own, someone will make it go wrong.

*With apologies to Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd (source)*

This, in a nutshell, is the unnecessary, avoidable and wholly manufactured spook-scandal that is engulfing Muddy Hollows in the last few days. To put it simply, the turf war between SOVA (Slovenian intelligence service), KNOVS (parliamentary oversight committee) and PM Marjan Šarec (to whom SOVA reports directly) makes the plot of Spies Like Us look like a fucking John Le Carre thriller.

Clearly, No-one Was Thinking (part 3, feat. Angelika Mlinar)

The Alenka Bratušek/Angelika Mlinar duo is making waves again. After their failed attempt to make the cut in the EU vote last May, the SAB leader nominated the former Austrian-Slovenian MEP for the position of minister without portfolio in charge of EU cohesion funds. Somewhat predictably, all hell broke loose.

*Angelika Mlinar, the SAB nominee for minister in charge of EU cohesion funds (source)*

There are various ways of looking at the move and not all of them paint a rosy picture of Bratušek and the SAB. But in what was either a shrewdly calculated risk or pure luck, the debate has largely centred on Mlinar’s eligibility for the position, once more showing that the one thing the political landscape in Muddy Hollows sorely lacks is any sort of open-mindedness and imagination and that is in fact bursting with autarchy, bigotry and jingoism.