Slowly, with the speed of a decrepit snail on valium, pengovsky is bringing this blog up to speed all the stupid that happened in the lull before the campaign storm. And at last, we get to take a look at the NATO near-miss that made everyone look up and ask whether Slovenian political class really is capable of handling this sovereign state thingy.
As everyone knows by now, there will not be a referendum on Slovenian NATO membership. There will not even be a referendum on defence spending resolution. In fact, six weeks after nearly sleepwalking into a clusterfuck of epic proportions, people involved are pretending like the whole thing never happened.
This self-induced collective amnesia was achieved through a complex mating ritual where political parties tried to unfuck what they have so thoroughly fucked up in early July, while simultaneously still trying to fuck each other over.
Oh look, another motion is tabled
The way to unscrew this particular light-bulb was found by ways of another parliamentary vote, this one annulling the original motion to call the referendum on defence spending. And this new motion passed. PM Golob said that all was well and that he will not go forward with his bid to have a referendum on NATO membership.
Now, once more, for the people in the back: there was absolutely no political let alone legal necessity to link the two motions. Muddy Hollows only came *this* close to sleepwalking into a Brexit-type political disaster because Apex Avian was butt-hurt and couldn’t handle it.
But be that as it may, the conundrum for the political parties was significant.
In the initial vote, Levica tabled the motion (note that pengovsky uses this term in its non-US definition) that went against government policy and was amazed to see that SD, SDS and NSi sided with them and voted in favour, albeit for different reasons.
SD jumped on this train for the same reasons Levica launched the bid in the first place. Namely, appeasing the base and some light virtue signalling. SDS and NSi, however, just wanted to fuck around with the coalition, because these ruling jokers were wide open. As large as it is, the GS parliamentary count is still less than half of all MPs.
Moving as little as possible
But the second motion, that is to say, the motion to annul the previous motion, was tabled by GS. Allegedly because the referendum question was sus. Or something.
This time, Levica voted against. Obviously. Less obviously, but completely unsurprisingly, SDS and NSi also voted against the motion. Because why not stir the pot some more, right?
In fact, GS was the only party to have voted in favour of rescinding the original motion for a referendum.
So, after much posturing, gritting of teeth and rendering of garments, the only thing that has changed was that SD abstained rather than voted with Levica and SDS. Thus they made it possible for Gibanje Svoboda to win a plurality on the new motion and cancel the referendum.
It’s like everyone hoped to move as little as possible, hoping nobody will notice their collective dereliction of duty.
So yeah, we went from Brexit part deux to Nothing so see here, please disperse! because one seven people had a change of… heart? Because it definitely was not brain.
Tinderbox, gasoline and burning matches
Before anyone starts applauding SD for doing being the adult in the room, pengovsky would kindly like to point out that we shouldn’t have fucking been here in the first place. This was not statecraft, this was ostensibly intelligent people trying to see if there’s gas in the tank by lighting a match and taking a look inside.
Speaking of burning matches, Janez “Marshal Twito” Janša and soon-to-be-appointed SDS VP for NSi Affairs Jernej Vrtovec played their part in this clusterfuck. Then again, this is par for the course for these two characters. Counting on them to not flick matches into a political tinderbox, even if national security is at stake, is criminally naive at best.
Make no mistake. Even though it was just a handful of people abstaining, this was a massive walk-back. It was also very humiliating. Not because there will not be a referendum on NATO membership (thank fuck for that). It was humiliating because this piece of kabuki theatre showed that one simply cannot leave Muddy Hollows alone for too long. Otherwise, things start to go sideways of their own accord.
Slovenian political class does not deserve applause. They deserve a Don Corleone style slap in the face and being told to never do shit like that again. Knowing full well that it’s all like talking to a wall of fucking bricks.
All the wrong lessons
You see, for thirty-five years, whenever they were called, referendums were also held in Muddy Hollows. Sure, there were instances of referendums bids being voted down or even denied. The ability to call a referendum was also heavily curtailed over the last three decades. But never was a referendum called by the parliament and then immediately cancelled by said parliament.
And yet, this NATO referendum walkback was the second such instance in less than a year. I guess the political class took all the wrong lessons from the fiasco of the nuclear energy referendum last autumn.
Typical.
Next time; how their anti-NATO votes are causing SDS and NSi to come up with all sorts of diversionary shit, including more referendums.
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