Children of the Revolution
Here we have it, ladies and gentlemen… The first major political rift in the ranks of PM Janez Janša (JJ).
Friends no more…
Not to bore you with details, former State Secretary Andrijana Starina Kosem (ASK) has written a letter to various top members of Janša’s party (and some influential non-members as well) about how JJ forced her to do all these dirty things for the party, including making sure SDS would keep control over Delo once Laško brewery bought the newspaper. Among other things, she wrote
I objected to [Janša’s orders to sell] Večer newspaper to Austrian buyers, since the Austrians, influenced by their socialist government, could not be trusted too keep Večer from publising communist propaganda.
Ouch… Very hardcore… And this from a lady who was the Big Kahuna of Slovene ecnonomy for the past two years.
Janša of course retaliated in kind, but with a surprisingly short letter. Only 35 lines and some 300 words. Among other things he wrote that
It is an insult to common sense that ASK as head of Delo’s Supervisory Board is a guarantee for the newspaper’s independence, especially since attorney Stojan Zdolšek is also a member of the Board […] The latter also had in hand during the political purges following the Depala vas scandal as well as in a number or murky enterprises during transition. So we must be prepared for everything.[…] People ask themselves why these so-called party faithful act the way they do precisely in the time when investiations into black-ops funds, misuse of archives and other intelligence service wrongdoings are being launched.*
Double ouch! The paranoid JJ is using his biggest and most deadly weapon (discreditaion through using secret service) for a mere former state secretary. He really must be feeling the heat..
But all of this is just another example of revolution devouring its own children. As ASK became a hardcore party member she came to abhore anything and anyone who did not toe the party line. Including the PM himself, who did not even stop to think that Austrian social-democratic government could use a Slovene newspaper as a vehicle for communist propaganda”.
We have just witnessed the begining of an end of JJ. This will most likely not bring him down. But it is a bad omen for the future. Other challengers and challenges will follow. And Janša will have an increasingly tough time fending them off
*please take note of this post for refferences to Depala Vas affair, and also of this post for reffrences to influence of politics and economy on one another
June 13th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Pardon the flawed analogy, but this is way more exciting than you average daytime soap, even if it bares some resemblance on some level.
Every day I visit this page (except for Fridays and Mondays, when you know what’s, erm, coming :P), I’m wondering what’ll happen next…
June 13th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Apology not at all necesary… This really is a political soap-opera (Santa Barbara being the locally used term).
The only problem is that we’re having a hard time distingushing the good guys from the bad
The Movie Prewiev Guy Voice: Tune in next time to see whether ASK runs to the opposition or will she lead the righteous fight against her former mentor…
June 13th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Great music!
And yes, I am enjoying the up-to-date analyses, too.
June 13th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Thx! On both counts!
June 13th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
The good guys in politics are so rare that they needs must go rotten in the overwhelming bad company.
SO, let us at least have fun while reading about them: eg. BUsh’s watch being stolen by someone in the hand shaking crowd during his visit to Albania. Hilarious.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Whenever I see her, I remember her English butchering at some conference…
http://starinamrcina.ytmnd.com
June 15th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Ouch… That hurts, man!
January 13th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
[…] Fast forward a year and a half and Janša gets stabbed in the back by Andrijana Starina Kosem, his hench-woman in the world of economy. Soon after that Laško (being now the sole owner of Delo) replaces Janša’s Board members at Delo and replaces them with its own people, naming Andrijana Starina Kosem president of the supervisory board. In the mean time Zoran Janković got elected as mayor of Ljubljana and is fast becoming a politial force to be reckoned with. Matjaž Gantar didn’t get the bank that was promised to him and quit SECO and joined LDS’s team of economic experts and Igor Bavčar and Janša became foes at least for the time being as Istrabenz sold it’s Mercator shares, enabling Laško to control the company and by extention own Delo completely. Shortly before that, in an attempt at keeping his job, Danilo Slivnik, CEO of Delo (an ardent Janša supporter whose assuming the position was part of the deal) fired the criminally incompetent Editor-in-Chief Peter Jančič and replaced him with Janez Markeš, Editor-in-Chief of a centre-right magazine Mag (acquired by Delo some years ago via political pressure as well). But of course Slivnik did not keep his job and Delo as a whole embarked on a path much more critical to the government than before - one must note that after the August 2005 deal Delo was purged of its more popular journalists and became very pro-government. Politicaly, this thing culminated for the first time with the vote of confidence to Janša’s government, which the PM abused for a massive reckoning with the media. But it did not end there… In the dwindling days of 2007 Boško Šrot (who turned out to be a member of Pahor’s Social Democrats but left the party soon after the disclosure) gave an interview to his Delo, where he blatantly attacked the Prime Minister of meddling with the media but claimed that it was Zoran Janković who wanted to deal with Janša in the first place and that he (Šrot) was defending himself anyway he could. Zoran Janković replied early in 2008 (Tuesday last) and said that Boško Šrot is a liar and that he (Janković) never offered to deal with Janša. […]
March 11th, 2008 at 10:25 am
[…] to Andrijana Starina Kosem, a senior party member and the all-powerful business-biyotch, who blew the whistle on Janez Janša and his meddling with Delo newspaper. She now claims that she heard of her expulsion from the media, but pengovsky asks: What. Did. You. […]
May 13th, 2008 at 4:30 am
[…] remember him from events surrounding Delo newspaper, subsequent anti-media drive by the government of PM Janša and his pre-dawn […]
June 4th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
[…] where average salary does not exceed 900 euros. He did not want to hear that both Boško Šrot and Andrijana Starina Kosem blew the whistle in Mercator-Delo deal and that Delo was hijacked by Danilo Slivnik-Peter Jančič duo (CEO and Editor-in-Chief […]