Nice One!

Like most other election campaigns, the current Slovenian one is full of big words, bigger promises, even bigger denunciations of political enemies and “the-world-will-end-if-you-don’t-vote-for-me” approaches. What is lacking, though, is a bit of heatly recklesness, something to burst the bubble, to give politicians floating two inches above groung a bit of a reality check. And although I took them apart a couple of months ago for exactly the above reasons, Zares party did pull of a rather nice political stunt on yesterday Tuesday.

Gotcha! Majda Širca to Janez Janša (source)

When he was still deep in the oppostition, Janša used a number of approaches to try to undermine LDS-led governments. One of the more effecitve ones was petition “Nekaj je treba storiti” (Something Must Be Done) (Slovene only) in early 2003. Among other things, the petition decried the fact that “Slovenia is facing an unprecendented conentration of political, financial and media power in the hands of the government and its network and this concentration is already threatning the foundations the democratic balance. The parliament had become a voting machine, unwiling to listen to oppostition, let alone consider its proposals serioulsy…”

and it goes on to add that

“…The government must provide for a pluralism of opinions, criticism and control of its actions, and prevent political and other monopolies, even its own. Failure to do that will lead to a dictatorship”

Remember, this was written in 2003. During Tuesday’s debate on tycoons, however, Majda Širca, a Zares MP, proposed that the parliament passes an ammendment to the proposed resolution. The ammendment first noted that “Slovenia is facing an unprecendented conentration of political, financial and media power in the hands of the government and its network and this concentration is already threatning the foundations the democratic balance. The parliament had become a voting machine, unwiling to listen to oppostition, let alone consider its proposals serioulsy…” and went on to propose to the parliament to call upon the government to “provide for a pluralism of opinions, criticism and control of its actions, and prevent political and other monopolies, even its own.“.

Coalition deputies – surprise, suprise – voted against the ammendment, putting themselves in a rather curious position of voting against the very words they cried five years ago.

Now, to be sure, this is nothing more than a slightly childish PR stunt, but a very effective one. It shows that SDS is just about as arrogant as LDS was just before it was voted out of power. But truth be said, this was before Comrade Janša came to the parliament and told the opposition how and what to think.