pengovsky | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Juan Carlos Janković

A couple of days ago Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković provided us with another juicy remark – this time aimed at parliamentary chief whip of Janez Janša’s SDS Jože Tanko. Namely: Zoki was rather eloquent in his support of Mitja Gaspari and then of Danilo Türk during the presidential campaign. Furthermore, he said that Lojze Peterle is too close to the ruling coalition which is actively seeking to harm Ljubljana.

In the heat of the election campaing SDS of course responded by Tanko demanding a public appology. And on Tuesday last (one decision by the constitutional court and one electoral result later) mayor Janković struck back at Tanko, slamming him pretty hard:

I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help myself 🙂

Funny thing is though, that Spanish king Juan Carlos did basically the same thing to Hugo Chavez the other day. But he did it in person while his PM Zapatero was unsucesfully trying to be both calming and assertive. Anyone speak Spanish around here? 🙂

The Corbomite Manouver

Things are happening with lightning speed these past few days. Yesterday PM Janša acknowledged that Sunday’s elections were predominantly a vote against his government and said that in the aftermath anything is possible, including a resignation of his government.

JJ sworn in as PM

Personally, I think this statement was a very wise move, but perhaps for a not so obvious reason. But this does present a wonderful opportunity to see how a Slovenian government can be changed in mid-term. In short: it is mighty difficult to do so. As I already noted in this post, government is appointed by the parliament and can thus be changed only by the parliament. And the only was for the parliament to change the government is if some major political shift happens and a new coalition is formed. Because the incumbent PM can only be replaced by appointing a new PM – the upside being that there is a very short period of interregnum, where the outgoing government assumes a caretaker role.

Alternatevly, a government can resign. It can do so colectivelly or just by resignation of the prime minister. In this case, the parlimanet must appoint a new prime minister and a new government for the remainder of the four-year term. In this case too, the outgoing government assumes caretaker responsibilities.

And last but certainly not least, the prime minister can demand a vote of confidence. Should he/she lose this vote, the parliament must within thirty days appoint a new PM or confirm the incumbent one. If none of the two happens, the president of the republic disloves the parliament and declares elections.

However, I serioulsy think Janša’s statement is mostly of a pre-emptive value. It might be his pride talking, but in reality this was a very smart political move. Since he said that resignation is an option, he took this issue off the agenda and few people will press him on it. Especially the opposition which would rather gnaw its leg off than forming a new coalition with a new prime minister when parliamentary elections are only a year away and EU presidency is looming like a giant storm.

Opposition naturally ran for cover, saying that Janša can do whatever he pleases, but that noone is thinking of toppling him just yet. Which is again very smart – they would rather see JJ shoot himself in the foot repeatedly for the remainder of this term. Chances are that he will. Unless JJ outfoxes them and does indeed resign. In that case all bets are off. But I don’t think anyone (let alone Janša) needs an unstable enviroment just because the people elected “the other” presidental candidate (i.e.: not one to Janša’s liking).

So Janša’s statement was the political equivalent of the corbomite manouver: Janša is threatning to hasten his political demise which would in short term provide a lot of joy on political left, but would quite probably backfire a year later at parliamentary elections, since there is little that can be done in a year’s time. So the opposition – although aware that JJ is bluffing – is suddently tiptoeing, because… just because… what if he isn’t bluffing?

Elections Explained

Michael the Great was wondering yesterday what is it with Slovenes that they seem to run politicians from power for no apparent reason, case in point being Sunday’s elections. As there are some fantastically flawed analyses out there, let me try to put things in some kind of perspecitve.

Lojze Peterle and his spokesman Janez Cigler Kralj (photo: Jure Eržen, Delo)

A lot of it has to do with the fact that there are only two milion people living in Slovenia (only 1,6 eligible voters at that) and that there is little or no margin of error when performance of politicians is concerned, as discontent tends to spread fast, especially when the right buttons are pushed. In most cases “the right buttons” have to do with social equality and other welfare state issues.

Furthermore, voting preferences for electing a president are not the same as for parliamentary elections. As I noted some time ago, the role of the president is largely ceremonial, but not completely insignificant as it carries great moral significance. Which of course means that people will choose a president who will in their opinion represent their values best. So, by extension, you can measure this country’s values by looking at the president (Incumbent president Janez Drnovšek being an exception to the rule as his transformaton took place while he was in office). Or – at the very least – you can look at the runner-up to see which values are not shared by the majority.

Also – and this phenomemnon is not limited to Slovenia – people tend to remove politicians that have outlived their usefulness. The most eloquent example of this is good old Winston Churchill who was voted out of office only 78 days after winning WWII.

And lastly: Slovenes seem to be convinced that they have a god-given right to the best political leadership this planet has to offer and that exceptional politicians are thick on the ground in this country (incidentally, most of this country’s politicians think they are a brass-balled godsend). And so Slovenes wouldn’t think twice about trhowing an able (but not exceptional) politician out of office before you can say “electoral commision”.

So, politicially speaking, Slovene voters are ungreatful bunch of spoilt brats.

And so – taking all this into account, adding the fact that the government of Janez Janša has done excpetionally well in fucking up a pretty decent ecenomy (how do you come from a model euro-adopting country to a text-book example of economic and fiscal no-nos in eight months?!?), combined with a what was perceived as a dismantling of the welfare state, and you can see why any candidate even remotely connected to the current government would have a hard time getting anywhere in the vicinity of a narrow defeat. And – just to round everything up – Janeza Janša didn’t really put his back into supporting Peterle, showing that the former Prime Minister was not exactly the incumbent Prime Minister’s first choice, which of course further alienated a significant part of the right wing voters.

This year the political planets were favouring the left, and all they had to do was not to screw it up big time. They didn’t. As for the parliamentary elections, to be held in a year’s time – dr. filomena is right. The game’s afoot.

A Landslide Win for Danilo Türk

According to the exit polls, Danilo Türk won the second round of Slovene presidential elections in a landslide. He received an anstonishing 70 percent of the vote while the winner of the first round Lojze Peterle received 30 percent, faring far worse than in the first round. Turnout was criminally low – just below 50 percent.

Danilo Türk after the first electoral roud (photo: www.daniloturk.si)

Pengovsky predicted a much more close result, but it seems that the smear campaign only presuaded the undediced voters to support the victim of the campaign, while it more or less failes to galvanise the political right close to Lojze Peterle.

I will comment on the result posthaste, but for starters – just a few thoughts:

-This is a massive warning sign for Janez Janša. I suspect plenty of votes for Türk were actually protest votes agains the government of Janez Janša and its policies.

-Add to that an article ran by Croatian daily Jutarnji list, clamining that Janša and his war buddies made some 150 million euros in arms dealing immediately after independence and you can see that today is not a good day for Janez Janša

–Smear campaigns do not work in Slovenia

-Türk set a new electoral record, as he got ~~more votes~~ a higer percentage of the vote than the legendary Milan Kučan (althoug Kučan won at a much higher turnout and consequently with a higher number of total votes cast).

EDIT @ 2100 hrs: In his first statement Lojze Peterle put the blame on his humiliating defeat squarely on Janez Janša and his government. And he’s not far off. This election was also a test for Janša’s government and he flunked it big time. The question of course is if Janša will get the message. And (if he will), is there enough time for him to change the downward trend. The political left if right now of course euphoric, but it may be that Janša & Co. are about to spiral out of contol. Just to give you two examples:

Janša failed to support Peterle with more than just a quick tap-on-the-back. This will not go down well with Peterle’s Nova Slovenija, which until now was a very reliable coalition partner. And – perhaps even more importantly: More than one third of voters of Slovenska Ljudska Stranka (another coalition partner) voted for Türk. This of course means that the two parties will become increasingly independent from Janša, which means that good old JJ will have a lot on his hands until next November, when parliamentary elections are to be held. And his grip on things is slipping, it seems. Namely, Slovene Press Agency STA (government owned and controlled) ran the already mentioned article about Janša’s arms dealings. Which means that someone wasn’t paying attention and that heads will probably roll.

At this moment Janša’s response it all that’s misisng. But we’re not holding our breath. He would do well to congratulate the new president-elect, but (knowing Janša) he’s just as liable to question the legitimacy of the elecoral result, due to low turnout.

Incidentally, Janša also suffered defeat on referendum on the privatisation of Triglav insurance company. And also incidentally: the new president will probably be sworn in in mid-December

Constitutional Bitchslapping

The political turmoil of the past few days combined with my severe cold has prevented me from blogging about a very important development in Ljubljana- Slovenia relations. Namely: the Constitutional Court has finally ruled on motion of the City of Ljubljana (supported by three other municipalities) to repeal several articles of the Law on Funding of Municipalities.

The inner corridors of Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia

Now, some of you may remember this post, or even this post, when the City of Ljubljana filed a request to review the constituionality of the said law. So you now have the perfect opportunity to see expedience of Slovene judicial system almost first-hand

The fun part is that this actually is expedient. The Constitutional Court took slightly less than a year to rule on a very tricky matter. I won’t go into details, but the gist of it is that the Court decided that theyn (Janša & Co.) pursued a fair goal (spreading funds over several municipalities) but employed unfair (unconstitutional) means to achieve it. Not in the least by spreading funds so thinly that it made most municipalities actually more dependant on the state that they already are. The added “bonus” was that these funds were originally earmarked for the City of Ljubljana, but suddenly the capital was left with virtually nothing.

So, tehnically, the unconstitutionailty was twofold: firstly the effect of the law violated the constitutional provision that municipalities should be as financially independent as possible, and secondly that the change was immediate and absolute, without a transitional period (unconstitutionality here being that the government arbitrarily worsened the plaintiffs’ positions)

And finally, the Constitutional Court ruled that the Parliament must amend the said law within a year.

So what does it all mean politically?

Well, first and foremost, it is a huge political vicory for Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković. His political stock went through the roof, but unfortunatelly for him, all he can count on is to cash in on it furhter down the road. Because he ain’t getting the money. At all.

As I said, the Court gave the parliament a year to ammend the law, which puts the deadline for ammending the law well within 2008 election period. Add to that the fact that the state budget for 2008 is already passed and that the government only yesterday passed the 2009 budget proposal, and you can see that city coffers will not see the 60 milion euros that the government has unconstitutionally taken.

But more importantly, this ruling basically kills the proposed regional legislation which was on ueasy footing even before the ruling, as no political decision could be reached on the number of regions Slovenia is to be divided into (the numbers varying from six to absurd twenty-five, with government proposing fourteen). But with this ruling the Minister for Self-Government Janez Žagar is basically dead in the water.

Alongside Žagar, Finance Minister Andrej Bajuk took a beating as well, as it was his ministry which drafted the unconstitutional law which was more or less aimed at throwing cash at rural municipalities whose inhabitants were more likely to support the current government. On the other hand, however, Minister for Civil Service Gregor Virant (chief government negotiator with Mayor Janković) can take silent joy in the ruilng, because he admitted somewhat hastily in February that Ljubljana was wronged by the law (consequently, PM Janša sent lightning bolts in Virant’s direction) and – perhaps more importantly – he was locked in a bitter political struggle with minister Žagar, who wanted to change the structure of the entire civil service en passant while setting up regions. Virant, who – admittedly – has done a pretty good job at bettering the civil service, obviously went apeshit over it, but was until now unable to counter Žagar effectively.

And last but not least – the whole thing is a serious blow to Prime Minister Janez Janša, who exactly a year ago suffered a humiliating electoral defeat in Ljubljana and is now being bitch-slapped by a political newbie Zoran Janković. (do check out the link!). And he’s set for some serious asswhooping this Sunday unless the “october surprise” yields unexpected results.

But the PM’s got more important things on his mind right now. As you read this, he’s in China, asking “who’s president and when’s prime minister“. But not to overdo the joke, the fun part is that Janša (a former hardcore communist with residual dicatorial tendencies) is visiting only remaining communist superpower with emerging capitalist tendencies. It must feel quite bizzare for all of them 🙂

Who Will Mount Triglav?

Sunday’s elections will not only be about choosing a new president. The good, the bad and the ugly will also have us vote on a referendum concerning privatisation of Triglav Insurance company, which is at the moment state owned: a good 66 % of it are owned by KAD and SOD managed – but not owned.

HQ of Triglav Insurance

Triglav Insurance Company was namely another socialist/self-management attempt at reaching past capitalist concept. It was basically a mutual insurance company, with insurees becoming owners as well. Uppon the dissolution of (and disisllusionment with) socialism, Triglav became a typical incorporated-but-government-owned company, so typical for transitional economies. But there was a catch. Noone really knew how much the company was actually worth, because noone exactly knew how much money people have put into the company in the past fourty years.

So, when privatisation began after 1990, it soon became clear that a) Triglav is a goldmine and b) the topic of its value is as explosive as a truckload of ~~natrium~~ soduim near a hydro-power plant. So no government wanted to touch it until it was absolutely necesary. This burden thus fell on the former government of Tone Rop, who (curiously enough) began his carrer in top governmental ranks as state secretary (underminister) in charge of privatisation. So he knew exactly that all hell will break loose eventually. And so it did. His government prepared what was then considered a half-baked attempt at privatising a portion of Triglav, but they did it so late in the game (it was just prior to elections) that noone took it seriously. Most of us even though that they’re just trying to stuff their pockets just in case they lose the elections. Which they did. Lose the 2004 elections.

The plan called for actuall transfer of government owned portion of Triglav to KAD and SOD (which until now only managed but did not own this share), the idea being that the dividends would be used to keep the pension system solvent.

The new government immediately pulled out of the plan, saying that it needed to reevaluate Triglav’s value. And sure enough, they came up with a more than double the value. The mathematics of both calculations are somewhat fuzzy, though. Anyways. The incumbent government basically came up with the exact same plan, but what it failed to include was a provision forbidding KAD and SOD to sell Triglav on.

The government obviously says that it has no intention of selling Triglav, but history teaches that if something can be done, it will be done. And selling the biggest insurance company is not a smart idea.

EDIT: Just so that there’s no misunderstanding – I don’t have a problem with KAD and SOD owning Triglav. I do, however, have a problem with selling family jewels. There is more than enough competition in the market and I strongly support the idea that Triglav’s profits should be partly used to finance the pension system. And I’m not sure that the previous government didn’t want to sell Triglav, either.

Smear Campaign

So, the second round of presidential elections is five… no… four days away and the Peterle Campaign has finally decided to hit below the belt. Namely: during Monday’s debate Lojze Peterle drew a disctinction between himself and Danilo Türk, saying that the latter was still representing Yugoslavia at UN HQ in Geneve in 1991 while he (Peterle) was among those who put their heads in a bag and went for broke during preparations for Slovene independence.

The “incriminating” document

In normal circumstances this would have been a bomb-shell… However, what Peterle and his team conveniently forgot is the fact that Slovenia was recognised by the EU on January 15th 1992 and that it became a member of the UN in June 1992.

So the fact that Türk was technically a part of Yugoslav delegation means that he was resorceful enough (and the UN permissive enough) to find a way to operate in the institution, albeit as a member of the already defunct Yugoslavia. Just to give you a comparison: foreign minister Dimitrij Rupel (whose ministry leaked the above document) attended an OSCE conference at about the same time (pre-1992) as a member of the Austrian delegation and yet I don’t see or hear anyone claiming that he – say – wanted Slovenia to become an Austrian province.

This move by Peterle carries all the trademarks of a panic-attack, not unlike the one in the final stages of municipal elections in 2006, when government of Janez Janša leaked documents supposedly damaging to the then-front-runner Zoran Janković. The documents turned out to be a load of bollocks and Janković went on to become mayor of Ljubljana with a landslide 63 percent of the vote. And those documents were much more substantial than today’s document aimed at bringing Danilo Türk down a peg or two.

While this might galvanise the nationalist element within the political right, it might blow right into Peterle’s face by getting Türk additional sympathy votes of people who don’t care about either candidate, but hate low blows. And there are a surprising number of those out there.