sex and politics

Pengovsky was out of action yesterday. Sorry. There was yet another election debate on POP TV, but the analisys will have to wait, since pengovsky is going on vacation (yes, I know… it’s bizzare). But today’s Friday Foxy is still on. A bit sticky around the mouth, but I think you won’t mind, right?

This one is exactly a week old, but it is still a telling story. Upon his return to his hometown of Brežice, Slovenian Olympic gold-medalist Primož Kozmus was greeted by more that 5000 fans and a couple of politicians, including Prime Minster Janez Janša, who was - somewhat surprisingly - booed throughout his short speech. Surprsingly, because booing at politicians is not exactly commonplace in Slovenia. Indeed I’d venture to say that even Milan Kučan at an SDS even would receive a warmer reception (OK, I may be pushing it here :)) And secondly, because Janša’s SDS carried Brežice by a huge margin in 2004 elections (it got some 44% of the vote) and yet Janša was received by a definite lack of enthusiasm.

Janša starts talking at 02:00 (source: POP TV)

Now it could very well be argued that it wasn’t political and that the crowd just resented JJ trying to steal the moment and thougth that he had no place on the stage, but only weeks before elections everything is political. And the PM getting booed at is not a good thing. But he needn’t worry. RTVSLO - the state television did not report on it at all. Instead, they cut his speech out altogether, and just showed his handing back the microfone with the crowd cheering. It looked much better

EDIT: You’ve got a nice comparison over at JaKa’s - he dug out SDS’s version of the event and the one published by Vest.si

Apparently it wasn’t just pengovsky who wasn’t all that impressed by Borut Pahor’s perfomance Wednesday last. Dnevnik ran a poll on Saturday where Janša’s SDS for the first time in more than six months enjoys a small-but-distinctive lead over opposition Social Democrats. 1.9 percent might not seem a lot - and is still very much within the margin or error - but in terms of a dead heat between SDS and SD we’ve been seeing for the past few weeks, this is quite an important shift. Namely, Pahor’s SD got 17.4 percent, while Janša’s SDS got 19.3 percent.

This could very well be a turning point in this election campaign. On one hand Borut Pahor and his SD have more than enough time to rectify things, on the other hand, however, they don’t have enough time to wait for another poll and act then. One more result like this and the glow of victory surrounding Pahor at the moment will have diminished dangerously (dangeroulsy for his prime-ministerial ambitions, that is). The same thing happened in presidential elections a year ago, when Lojze Peterle was long thought of as having already cliched a victory, but as he didn’t win in the first round, he had to reposition himself, but by then he was no longer thought of as invincible and unbeatable (with a little help of Janez Janša becoming as unpopular as he was ever going to get). Today, with 26 days until elections this is the worst possible time for Pahor to have to make a come-back in polls. Because if he looses the aura of PM-apparent, he is facing an extremely uphill battle. Luckily for him, the three parties of the left bloc (SD, Zares and LDS) still enjoy a comfortable lead over the three right wing parties (SDS, NSi and SLS).

Pengovsky’s projection:: This could very well be it. If Pahor and SD don’t do anything about it (or go about it the wrong way) it can all go downhill from here. It is highly likely that Borut Pahor will adopt a more hard line rhetoric, but if he overdoes it, it will backfire, alienating moderate voters. Also, as he did a rather poor job at citing numbers, Pahor will probably do a crash-course in economy or (sligthy more likely but less effective) will stand firmly alongside Mitja Gaspari as the latter will try to tear the economic policies of this government to pieces. Pengovsky eagerly awaits next polls.

Election 2008 badge: Will be updated during the day.

Data: Is avilable in MS Excel file.