SDS Throws A Pension Tantrum

In a surefire sign that election countdown is well underway in Muddy Hollows, the SDS of Janez Janša launched an all-out offensive against the Golob government. It all has to with pensions and the ferocity makes the Battle of the Bulge look like a walk in the park.

In short succession, The Party called for a referendum on pension bonuses for exceptional artists, staged a mass rally, filed to dismiss a National Assembly VP, demanded a public apology and moved for interpellation of the government, simply because the PM said words on national telly.

This may all sound a bit cray-cray. And to an extent, it is, as whole episode rests on a relatively technical interpretation of past and current pension policies. Win the pensioners, win the elections, was the usual logic. Not that it was ever as simple as that (DeSUS, anyone?). But with simple being the predominant state of mind in Muddy Hollows political class… Well, you do the math.

Vulnerable on pensions

At any rate, SDS started banging the “raise the pensions” drum. It then went ballistic when National Assembly VP and senior Levica comrade Nataša Sukić more or less said they are full of shit. She opined that Janša 2.0. administration basically stifled the pensioners back in 2012 and that they never really recovered from that. Days later, PM Golob said virtually the same thing on national telly.

Whether that is true or not is a matter of some advanced political mathematics. GS and Levica swear by it. The SDS is busy disproving them, with some success. But the fact that The Party went apeshit over this shows two things: that a), they feel the Golob coalition is vulnerable on this issue. And b), they see themselves as vulnerable on this issue as well.

Campaign prep

But rather than engage in the usual battle of the narratives, the SDS decided to hog the parliamentary procedure by first moving to fire Sukić from her VP post and then file for an interpellation of the entire government.

Both moves are well within the parliamentary rules and legitimate opposition instruments. In this case, they also have precious little to do with holding he government’s feet to the fire. Neither of the two bids have any chance of success. The interpellation thing will not even result in a vote. It’s just a debate.

Rather, this has everything to do with campaign prep. The Party has two main goals. To hog parliamentary time that could otherwise be used to, dunno, pass reforms. Ant secondly, to generate footage to be used over the coming weeks and months, at the taxpayer’s expense. It is all as pedestrian as it is effective.

Referendum on Svetlana Makarovič

Funnily enough, there’s another pension-related angle of attack The Party is pursuing: a bid to annul an overhaul of a law on pension bonuses for outstanding artists. Pengovsky wrote about this recently at the other gig, but it basically boils down to the fact that SDS types went on a witch-hunt against poet Svetlana Makarovič as they cannot stand her for being politically outspoken with a zero-fucks-given attitude.

The aim here is to frame the coalition as a bunch of elitist champagne socialists, giving handouts to their “artist” friends, whereas the “ordinary people” are hung out to dry. But Svetlana Makarovič is not just any artist and the SDS just might have bitten more than they can chew here,.

Bait-and-switch

But there may be a catch. It is entirely possible the whole pension-related pearl-clutching is a simple bait-and-switch tactic. Maybe SDS just wants the government to go all-in on pensions messaging, and then pivot to something they are much more at ease with. Say, anti-migrant policies, LGBT-bashing, climate change denial and such.

This has happened before. In the run-up to the 2018 election campaign, the SDS ran a country-wide messaging effort on the state of the health system (which, fair), but then pivoted to things that would make Nigel Farage giddy with excitement. And it worked quite well.

It is entirely reasonable to expect something along those lines over the next 12 months. Pengovsky can’t wait.

Pengovsky writes this blog free of charge. If you like it, buy him a coffee using the above button. If you already did, thank you so much and rock on!