So, yeah, this happened. By now most of you know that SDS, NSi++ and Demokrati backed Resnica boss Zoran Stevanović for Speaker of Parliament. Which is a bit like putting the bouncer in charge of the nightclub. It might look cool but you just know bad shit is waiting to happen.
To say that Robert Golob and GS were blindsided by this is an understatement. They had it all gamed out six steps ahead and were ready for some serious 3D chess. But it all hinged on the failure of the first speakership bid. Imagine their surprise when a disgraced former cop got the nod at the first try and was driven home by his buddies from the police academy.
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To cut a long story short, this development dramatically shortens the odds on the fourth Janez Janša government. Which would be more than a little ironic given how our brothers in paprikash kicked Janša’s erstwhile Lord Protector out to the kerb a couple of days ago.
History has a dark sense of humour
But no-one accused history of having a vanilla sense of humour. Doubly so since the word on the street (rather, the word in the corridors of the parliament) was that SDS and NSi++ backed Stevanović only to burn him and remove his sorry ass from the equation. But in the end, the man convicted of fraud who came in ona platform of cozying up to Russia, denying science and being willfully ignorant, actually won the speakership vote.
But wait, there’s more! It turned out NS++, Resnica and Demokrati were marking their fucking ballots, even though the vote was technically secret. Why would they do that, you ask, if the vote is technically secret? Obviously, they are dealing with significant trust issues. Again, fucking hillarious, given that NSi++ chief Jernej Vrtovec spet the past three weeks droning on about how he redirected Golob’s meeting requests to a spam folder, because “there is no trust between NSi and GS”.
But then again, maybe it’s not that Resnica, Demokrati and NSi++ don’t trust one another. After all, they have formed a loose alliance of sorts even before all of this. Maybe it is Marshal Twito who doesn’t trust them and needed them to prove to him that they can stick to a deal. Which would be vintage Janša, him needing them more than they need him, and yet somehow humiliating them in the process.
Shot-gun wedding
The Glorious Leader in all likelihood knew that ballots, even though they are anonymous, fall under the freedom of information act and that some enterprising journalist will get a hold of them. And if no-one took the bait, he’s got enough media propagandists in his employ that the marked ballots would see the light of the day.
So, when the number or each type of marks corresponded to the number of MPs each of the three parties has in the parliament (minus Stevanović, who obviously voted for himself), it became painfully obvious this was not a team-building trust exercise but rather a shot-gun wedding.
So, how does this all play out?
In theory, the speakership vote is a thing unto itself and needed primarily so that the new parliament can assume its powers and start to function. In practice, however, the position is a part of the general post-election horsetrading. Therefore, the general wisdom is that the coalition that elects the Speaker will also elect the prime minister.
Exceptions to the rule
However, there are also exceptions to the rule. Back in 2018, a parliamentary term that pengovsky has invoked more than once when describing the upcoming political clusterfuck, the liberal-left parties were bending over backwards to woo NSi and Matej Tonin to join then in an across-the-aisle coalition. To that end, they even got him elected as Speaker.
But the man pengovsky dubbed the Internet Explorer of Slovenian politics either got too greedy too soon or too happy too fast, and didn’t make the jump. And so then-PM Marjan Šarec struck a supply-and-confidence deal with Levica, formed a minority government and ousted Tonin as Speaker.
Could something like this happen this time as well, just the other way around? In theory, yes. At the very least, the Big Bird, after overcoming the initial shock of being outmaneuvered, is apparently still trying to cobble together something resembling a majority. But seeing as it would now take not one but two parties to take the cross-aisle plunge (NSI++ and Demokrati), the odds are as long as Muddy Hollows has ever seen.
Promises and changing circumstance
Doubly so since it is Anže Logar who is making the left-wing-coalition-is-still-possbile noises. On one hand he is signalling that Golob is still the only one who came up with a draft coalition deal. But on the other, whenever he needs to make an actual decision in favour of bipartisanship, his fear of Janez Janša apparently takes over and the dude goes all BSOD and resets to an SDS default setting.
So, pengovsky is not really holding his breath, even though there are rumours about Logar’s parliamentary group not being happy about the prospect of the fourth Janša government. For that matter, neither are Resnica rank and file, especially since Head Bouncer actually signed an affidavit before the election that he will not collaborate politically with Janez Janša.
The political amateur that he is, Stevanović is now saying that his previous promise is irrelevant because the circumstances have changed. Seems like the newly minted Speaker has yet to watch House of Cards. Because to put in the words of Frank Underwood, the nature of promises is that they are immune to changing circumstance.
Crossing the Rubikon
At any rate, with Zoran Stevanović grabbing the gavel, the clock started ticking for the president to nominate a PM. She has thirty days to do so and she said repeatedly that she will nominate whoever will show they command at least 46 votes. That is to say, a simple majority, at the very least.
Stevanović already crossed Rubikon in one direction and hooked up with Janša. Vrtovec and/or Logar on the other hand very much are not crossing it in the other direction (ditching Janša in favour of, you know, political moderation). Therefore, odds are that despite coming in second in the national vote, the audacious autocrat will get first dibs in forming forming the government.
And even though his strategizing abilities are way over-hyped, he is not the type to fuck it all up this close to the finish line. Even though he said that he is not interested in forming a weak government. But with so many new voters who have yet to drink the Janša Kool-Aid, he may not have a choice but to go for it.
