After a day of tense politics, procedural manoeuvering in the parliament and dubious life choices in general, Slovenia last night recognised the State of Palestine.
Predictably, however, the more the debate dragged on, the less it was about Palestine and the more it was becoming about domestic politics, electoral soundbites and pure brinkmanship.
In the beginning, it seemed that Janez Janša and his SDS scored a bit of a tactical victory. They came up with a motion to call a consultative referendum on Slovenia recognising Palestine, thus throwing a spanner in the Golob coalition works.
Throwing curveballs
The Glorious Leader recognised (sic!) that the ruling coalition was hell-bent on recognising Palestine this week so he could crow about it before the Sunday EU elections and referendum vote. And he was hell-bent on denying the Big Bird his moment in the international spotlight, however brief.
Sure, there is an element of moral imperative for the centre-left coalition here, too. Especially for Levica, whose electorate is especially keen on recognising Palestine. But as pengovsky wrote a couple of days ago, PM Golob dragged his feet on the issue until he realised that he can snatch a couple of votes from Levica. They weren’t going to make the European Parliament threshold anyway, so why not try and divert some of their support to Gibanje Svoboda?
On the other side of the equation, the SDS was throwing curveball after curveball. First, they moved for a referendum, ostensibly putting the kibosh on recognition of Palestine for a month. Then the party pulled the motion, clearing the path for the vote. But before the parliament could wrap the debate up and vote, they reintroduced the motion once again.
So, what the fuck was going on?
Bad optics
Possibly at least two things. First, the coalition majority was hard at work trying to find some sort of a workaround to SDS stalling tactics. And they appeared to me making some headway.
Second, Janša must have realised that by blocking the proceedings, he was shaping himself to be the focus of some very negative attention. And that could cost him at the ballot box on Sunday. Or, at the very least, SDS MPs were getting antsy about the optics of the move.
Especially, after the centre-left MPs started circulating a Twix post by Israeli foreign minsiter Katz, where he expressed hope that the parliament denies the recognition and tagged Janša personally. It was easy to spin this as a directive from one right-wing politician to another.
But withdrawing the motion made Janša only look weaker. As in, everyone knew where he stood already, but didn’t have the cojones to go through with it. And so the Glorious Leader and supposed master strategist decided to not stop digging even though he found himself in a pretty big hole.
Article 184(3)
Thus the SDS reintroduced the motion, further making it clear that they don’t really care about Palestine, Israel or anything really. They just want to make life difficult for the ruling coalition.
The entire maneouvre hinged on Article 184(3) of parliamentary rules of procedure. The said article says, somewhat confusingly, that a referendum proposal is debated in the next parliamentary session provided it was submitted no later than 30 days before said session.
Seeing as a valid referendum proposal puts the kibosh on the matter at hand, the interpretation (until yesterday) was that any such move halts the debate for at least 30 days. Upon that, either a regular or an extraordinary session is called and the referendum is either called or nixed.
This is a move Janša so deftly employed against Golob when the Big Bird wanted to rearrange government portfolios at the start of his term. It is also a move that drove Janša mad at the terminal stage of his last government, when then-opposition was throwing curveballs like this constantly and he couldn’t really do anything about it as his majority back then way only theoretical.
But in this parliament the Big Bird has votes to spare and then some. And with Janša and the Party making all kinds of bad-faith moves to derail the Palestine vote, the majority felt they had cover for some hardball tactics.
Reinterpreting rules of procedure
And so Speaker Urška Klakočar Zupančič used her authority to interpret rules and procedures, got some carefully crafted legal advice and re-interpreted Article 184(3). She stopped the session on Palestine, called an extraordinary session on the referendum bid, had the majority railroad the bid and then continued with recognition of Palestine.
For the record, pengovsky would like it much better if the coalition let that cup pass from it. There is something to be said for parliamentary tradition and practice. Even if the procedural wording is dubious. Or maybe especially if the wording is dubious. But procedural aboutfuckery is something of a national past-time in Slovenia. And the SDS are especially good at it.
So the ruling coalition was facing a dilemma. Whether to take the moral high-road and cry foul or find a workaround. This time they chose the workaround.
Ugly? Yes. Hardball? Absolutely. Iffy? Maybe.
The thing is that last night’s reinterpretation upends more than thirty years of established practice. But rules of procedure specifically empower the chairperson to interpret them.
And the opposition could, theoretically, challenge the move in the constitutional court. But they rather left the session than cast a nay vote. Which further entrenched the notion that for them it was all about the show. And not so much about Slovenia or its national interest, as they claimed.
Finally, as long as this interpretation remains the new standard – and there is every indication this will be the case – there is not much anyone can do about it.
Bad juju down the road
Right now, the opposition in Slovenia is hopping mad. They are entertaining silly talk of procedural abuse and even coup d’etat. The former is thin, the latter laughable. But this sort of Jerry-rigged solutions rarely turn out well in the long run. And pengovsky has a sinking feeling this new interpretation of the referendum procedure will eventually result in even more obstructionism.
But in the short term, Robert Golob scored a foreign policy goal and Janez Janša wasted a procedural wildcard.
In the end, Slovenia did formally recognise Palestine. But 24 hours later in Muddy Hollows that hardly qualifies as news anymore.
