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Brussels Bruises For Bulc And Bratušek

As pengovsky writes this, Jean-Claude Juncker (yes, he of selfie-with-a-convict fame) concluded his meeting with Violeta Bulc, Slovenia’s second entry for the post of the European Commissioner later today. Thus a sordid saga of backstabbing, ruthless power-play, misoginy and blatant incompetence continues, reportedly with Bulc being nominated for the transport portfolio.

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JCJ with Frau Komisaar vol. 1 and vol. 2 (photo credit: @NatashaBertraud)

Pengovsky sadly didn’t have the time to cover the first instalment of this particular tour-de-clustefuck as he was too busy covering Ljubljana local elections for The Firm™ and has yet to write it up for this blog as well (Janković won, in case you didn’t know). But you all know the final outcome: Alenka Bratušek, Slovenian former MP in the end withdrew her nomination after a humiliating 113-12 vote rejecting her appointment as Commission VP for Energy Union.

Bratušek debacle

Now, what happened to Bratušek was about as brutal as can get and in all honesty her being singled out as the lone reject of the Juncker Commission is unfair at very least. From the moment the former prime minister was appointed as one of three possible nominees from Slovenia a chain of events was set in motion that – combined with her (admittedly) very much lacking performance during the committee hearing – could only end in a disaster.

You see, the main sticking point of Bratušek nomination in Slovenia (as presented by her political rivals and happily carried by numerous newsmedia) was not her lack of expertise, but rather the fashion in which she was nominated, her supposed singing of communist songs at an event last year and her potential paycheck (the latter two being typically Slovenian issues). The fact that she knew about as much about the emerging Energy Union as the next guy came a distant fourth.

While some criticism was well deserved, Bratušek was subject to daily, no, hourly abuse that was blatantly misoginous in nature and was not unlike all the shit thrown at her during her year-long reign as this country’s PM, from the length and pattern of her skirt, colour of her shoes, the dress she wore when she met the pope to rampant speculation whom was she sleeping with to get where she was. And yes, at one point Jucker was mentioned as her bed-trophy. Despicable doesn’t even being to cover what Bratušek was subjected to. Thus the character assassination that commenced immediately after Juncker picked her from the list containing Tanja Fajon (Slovenian MEP for S&D) and Karl Erjavec (foreign minister and leader of the pensioners’ party DeSUS).

Adding to that was the anti-graft commission (KPK) which took issue with her (self-)nomination process and the fact that Bratušek handled that part of the equation pretty badly, giving the appearance that he was avoiding a quick closure of the case by first waiting until the last possible day to pick up the registered mail, then letting her attorney deal with it and in the end even picking a new attorney. Pengovsky is still dumbfounded as to why she didn’t tackle the issue head-on, especially as the KPK found her actions amounted only to a conflict of interest and not a full-blown corruption (while we’re on the issue: in formulating the case against Bratušek, KPK created an infinite loop and more or less emasculated itself. More on that soon)

And then there was the horse-trading in the European Parliament where no-one even bothered to hide that it was going on over Bratušek’s back. The EPP and the S&D struck a deal to rub each others’ backs regardless of their respective nominees inappropriateness for selected portfolios, perhaps with a few cosmetic adjustments. This left Bratušek (an ALDE nominee) as the odd one out and boy did they let her have it.

But, at the end of the day, it was her under-prepairedness that made every other piece of her downfall-puzzle to fall into place. A blunder here, a blunder there, her signature lackluster and repetitive performance, sub-par use of euro-speak (where the fuck were phrases like “fully acknowledging the sovereignty of member states we will strive to create a fair, transparent and effective single market, blah, blah, subsidiarity, blah, blah, competition, blah, blah, and so on) and – finally – the fact that the Energy Union still but a figment of European imagination, this horse was not only out of the race, but was lying by the race track, panting, being kicked, screamed at and reduced to sun-dust.

The only one who on the surface at least played a fair game was Jean-Claude Juncker, who stood by his nominee and had his PR people maintain there were no changes to the Commissioners’ roster until Bratušek withdrew herself. Whether Jucnker really stood by her, helped Bratušek reach that decision or was only happy to see EPP and S&D do his bidding, we’ll never know. But at the very least, the next EU top dog kept his composure and class, which can not be said for anyone else involved in this story.

This goes for Slovenian PM Miro Cerar as well. The ruckus he raised when outgoing Bratušek government (acting well within its authority) put forward its list of nominees, was epic. He later came about but only after he was told by Juncker personally that it was he (Juncker) who is putting together the Commission, not Cerar or any other PM. And when Bratušek came tumbling down, it was up to Cerar to come up with a nominee.

Enter Bulc

The newly minted PM all of a sudden found his spine and flat-out rejected demands by EPP and S&D to appoint Tanja Fajon as the new Slovenian nominee, going with Violeta Bulc, his government’s VP for development instead. And almost immediately the whole wheel of disqualifications-ad-nauseam started turning yet again. To be sure, Bulc nomination carries a few gems, as well. Mostly, these have to do with more-than-eyebrow-raising entry of her being an alumnus of Shamanic Academy in Scotland and her statements about “syntropy”. But on the other hand, Bulc has had a successful career as a businesswoman, both in IT as well as a consultant. Her main drawback, however, are not crackpot theories about space and time. After all, how many MEP believe in the existence of a super-natural being which will ultimately judge our lives on this Earth? Or, how many of them are anti-vaxxers? (I’m shooting at random here).

Her main drawback is her lack of experience in a senior governmental position. Which – unless Bulc gave a stellar performance tonight during here tete-a-tete with Jucnker – means that a Commissioner from Slovenia will not be appointed Commission VP. Serves us right, I guess. At any rate, this wasn’t a “Slovenian” job Bulc is now aiming at, it is a Bulc job, formerly a Bratušek job, both of them got to have a shot at because they’re Slovenian. But I guess this still is a lesson we need to learn as a nation. There seems to be an unhealthy notion prevailing that we should do everything possible to prevent any of our compatriots from making it outside Slovenian borders. And if he/she makes it despite everything, we collectively expect this individual to disperse the goodies of his/her position among the rest of us. Just because.

But as far as lessons go, the biggest one was served not to Bratušek nor to Bulc but to Miro Cerar. For if there never was more poetic a justice served when the new Cerar government had to rush their decision on the new nominee and did so in a correspondence session, the very same way Bratušek rushed her outgoing government’s approval for Juncker’s original roster and drew some serious flak over it. Indeed, questions were raised as to legality of the issue. Bogus questions, but still. At the time they added to the fog-of-war surrounding Bratušek nomination.

And you can expect the same pattern to repeat again in the next few days. Even though the whole thing is not about Violeta Bulc, Alenka Bratušek or even Slovenia as a whole. What we have here is a power-play between the Juncker Commission and the European Parliament where the latter is looking to draw first blood (which it did) and keep the upcoming Commission in check for the duration of the five-year term. On the other hand, new new Commission boss has more than enough experience to know that in the curious menage-a-trios of EU top institutions he must subjugate the parliament early on lest he be spending more time fighting off rabid parliamentarians than actually making policy.

Which means that the Bulc hearing in the EP will quite possibly be just as bruising as Bratušek hearing was. Juncker did not go along with his own conservative EPP and socialist S&D suggestions-cum-blackmail about Tanja Fajon, nor did Slovenian PM Cerar. And with the credibility of any Commissioner candidate from Slovenia being question to begin with (and highly likely to go south from there), Juncker and now Bulc are fighting an unexpectedly steep uphill battle. Of course, say the EPP and S&D, if Commission President-elect were to nominate Tanja Fajon, or perhaps, former EPP MEP Romana Jordan, then all of his remaining problems could simply just.. go away. Get it?

In this respect (the inevitable portfolio reshuffle notwitstanding) Slovenian nominees were nothing more than collateral damage in a high-level, high-stakes game of political poker. And yet, a good portion of this country was weighing in as though Juncker was waiting for their opinion before he made his next move. In reality, however, it was just a freak-show at the outer edge of the circus, where they keep the ugly people.

Scotland Referendum: Notes From An Independent Country

The first time pengovsky really went abroad (yearly summer migration to Croatia notwithstanding) was Scotland. Looking back, I can’t believe how lucky I was, catching the last train from Prestwick to Glasgow on account of Ryanass flight being late and then walking alone in the middle of the night down the streets of Glasgow, map in hand and two backpacks on me, looking for a hostel which seemed pretty close on the map, but really wasn’t… Well, let’s just say I could have been an easy target. But instead this guy Ian came up to me, moderately inebriated, and asked me if I was lost. Since he was satisfied that I wasn’t, he proceeded to ask me where I was from. And upon hearing my country of origin, he broke into wild cheers of “SLOVENIA! ZAHOVIC!” and then decided my hostel of choice was “shite” and personally took me to “this other place”, which was cheaper and nearer. And sure enough it was. Run by Iggy Pop‘s long lost twin brother (or so it seemed), it was a shabby place which could only provide a mattress for the night, but since I was off to Edinburgh the next morning, it didn’t really matter. And I got a discount. But I digress. Point is, my first encounter with Scotland was bizarrely pleasant which is why the whole Scottish Independence Referendum Thing perks more than just my political sciences side.

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In the words of John Oliver: Nothing screams Scottish freedom more than a millionaire Australian anti-Semite on horseback (source)

Just so there’s no misunderstanding, freedom has no price. That much should be taken for granted. And in a few hours you, the good people of Scotland, will decide. There is no wrong answer here. But living in a country that did in fact pull off a relatively smooth independence (especially when one takes into account the bloodbath that followed in ex-Yugoslavia), pengovsky feels he is in a position to give some qualified unsolicited advice, should tomorrow come to a “yes” vote.

Borders

First thing you will notice once the will of the people is enacted for real is the border. There hasn’t been a proper land border in your area for the last three hundred and seven years and I’m sure none of you remember how it was before then. And I can tell you it will be much more of a hassle than you ever imagined. Especially if you commute regularly from Scotland to England (or vice-versa, for that matter).

Now, I’m sure that should you vote in favour of independence, both countries will try to make border crossings as painless as possible. But some hassle is unavoidable. And whenever there’s a terrorist scare or even a problematic football match, borders tend to become much more tightly guarded. Really, if you’re not used to it, it’s not pretty. And since England or “rest of the UK“, as Whitehall apparently calls it, will probably join the EU Schengen border agreement on the Saint of Never, you’ll be pretty much stuck with that for the forseeable future. And just to give you an idea of how much that sucks: after Slovenia entered the Schengen system and we started thinking of our borders with Italy and Austria and most EU airports as glorified toll-booths, it came as a real shock to me when, visiting the US for the first time, I had to stand in line for two hours just to get past customs.

Majority

Second, and I sort of hate to bring this up since it is much too late in the game, is the legitimacy of your decision. Again, whatever you do decide is fine, but you might take a moment and a deep breath, because you’re not just fulfilling a dream of a generation(s) of Scots but also setting the environment for your children and your children’s children. And I was startled to learn that only a simple majority is required for a “yes” vote to win. In real life this means that in an eighty percent turnout, a fifty-one percent vote in favour of independence would actually mean that minority of Scots voted “yes”. Somehow, that don’t really fly, don’t you think?

You see, when Slovenia was putting together its rules for the independence referendum, the issue of a majority was a tricky one, too. Most of the right-wing wanted a simple majority rule, while most of the left-wing wanted a qualified majority of all eligible voters. The argument being that if you can’t trust your own people to support you, who can you trust, then. And the argument prevailed. Not only did more than half of Slovenians of voting age vote in favour of independence, the “yes” vote gathered as much as 88,5 percent support. Which is about as unanimous as you can get in a democracy. Henceforth legitimacy of Slovenian independence was not a question anymore. It was only a matter of convincing others of that fact and, well, executing it.

Because once you go for it, there’s a shitload of stuff that needs to be done. Take currency. I take it you’ve realised by now the English will not let you keep the pound. Which means you’ll have to issue your own and back it up. Now, having your own currency is expensive. Although it is probably even more expensive (as things stand now, at least) to adopt the euro, which you’ll have to do if you decide to join the EU. So that kind of sucks.

President Salmond?

Next up it’s the constitution. You might think it is simply a matter of upgrading current legislation, but it is much more than that. With the constitution, everything is up for grabs. You can do what ever the fuck you like. But since I doubt Bonnie Prince Charlie has any legitimate successors and any claims to the Scottish throne will in all likelihood be fake, you’ll probably form a republic. Will you be a parliamentary republic or will you go for a more presidential system? Does the PM appoint ministers or does the parliament do it? You see, Slovenia was sort of in the rush when we adopted our constitution and just copy/pasted some silly German provision which haunts us every time a new government is being formed. So don’t make the same mistakes we did.

Then there’s the army. I know you guys have a long and proud military tradition and I know you want those nuclear missiles gone. But you’re not maintaining your army directly. And that’s one fucking expensive toy, I tell you. But you can’t really afford not to have an army. Sure, no-one expects Norwegian raiding parties to land on your shores, but you’re probably not want to throw away all those regiments or worse, give them to the English.

Patriotism

And trust me, there aren’t going to be any more jobs just because you got independent. Slovenia may be an extreme case since we lost about 90% of our market once Yugoslavia fell apart, but any way you look at it things are bound to go pretty bad pretty quick. And while patriotism may make you forget you’re hungry it won’t put bread on your table. Slovenians learned this the hard way. Looking back, in my opinion it was still worth it, but ours was an alternative of a Balkan carnage and/or an autocratic regime, so the choice wasn’t really hard.

As for you, Scotland, I’m in no position to judge. I just thought you might want some first hand experience from a country that gained its independence relatively recently.

Now go and do you your thing.

Neo-Nazis, Lies And A Journo Doing Her Job

Remember when Delo journalist Anuška Delić found herself at the wrong side of a criminal investigation pertaining to her alleged use of classified material when she wrote about the connection between Janez Janša‘s SDS, the Slovenian Army and the local Neo-Nazi Blood&Honour organisation? Well, things have taken a turn for the bizarre.

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Anuška Delić gets more international attention

Namely, contrary to common sense and basic decency, the prosecution did in fact press the case forward and… well, turns out SOVA (the secret service) freaked out and had Delić investigated because her articles were spot on. SOVA at the time did in fact detect a link between the Neo-Nazi element and the SDS (the party had presumably cleaned up its act since) and put together a classified report. This is where the plot thickens.

Delić claims she never broke the law, i.e. never used classified material when she was preparing her article. Whether that’s true or just a line of defence remains to be seen. Or, rather, not seen, hoping still that cooler heads will prevail and let the matter die a quiet death in the mills of judicial bureaucracy. In fact, the prosecution, too, apparently feels they lack a smoking gun since they’ve asked the court to authorise a check on Delić’s phone records. Ironically, had the case not moved forward, Delić would never have known the state wanted to see her phone call log. Apparently she only learned of that when she was delivered the details of the indictment against her. Further to that, according to as-yet-unverified info, SOVA also had prosecution indict former head of the secret service Sebastian Selan. Whether or not Selan is being investigated as a possible source of the leak is still a matter of some speculation, but it does suggest that someone wasn’t really thinking when they set about closing the leak.

Namely, dragging your former boss, the guy who knows all your secrets to court is, well, stupid. What are you going to do? Charge him with high treason? Becasue abuse of office doesn’t sound all that threatening when dealing with a former chief spook. Asking for permission to pry into a reporter’s phone log is doubly stupid, because, a) we’ve all seen All The President’s men and important info is never relayed over the phone and b) it makes the secret service look like it is chasing its own tail. Not that SOVA doesn’t occasionally indulge in this as it is, but still.

Anyhoo, the thing that makes this more serious a matter than just yet another amateur night in the Slovenian spook business is the fact that SOVA disseminated the report among top-level officials responsible for this country’s security: chief of police Janko Goršek, justice minister Aleš Zalar (who at the time served as acting interior minister), defence minister Ljubica Jelušič, PM Borut Pahor and President Danilo Türk.

Let’s take a look at this one more time, in slow motion. The very top of the security pyramid in this country was notified by the secret service that there’s an active connection between Neo-Nazis and a specific political party, extending all the way into the Slovenian Army. And no-one moved a muscle.

Well, not exactly. According to a Delo story from a couple of days ago, President Türk did, according to his statement to the said paper, alert both PM Pahor and defence minister Jelušič to the report and urged them to act upon it. Which is about as much as he could do, since his authority over the armed forces is minimal during peace-time.

And that was it. Jelušič wrote at the time that discharging soldiers due to their alleged sympathies with the extremists which they profess in their own free time would really not be kosher. She even famously added at the time that “we do not even know what sort of extremists we’re dealing with here, whether they’re illegal and whether they indulged in extremist activities in their free time or not”.

Well, it appears Jelušič, despite her writing to the contrary knew full well what she was dealing with. The fact that SOVA is going after Delić for publishing it says so. The only question is why she chose to ignore it. One can only speculate, but the fact that Slovenia was in the middle of 2011 election campaign at the time possibly played a part. Which points the finger at Jelušič’s then-boss both in the government and in the party, Borut Pahor, who has since been elected president of the republic. That his office is staying mute, speaks volumes.

The latest developments in the case were, admittedly, picked up the Guardian as well as International Press Institute. But still, at the end of the day, what we have here is a security apparatus clamping down on a journo who did her job when no-one else would, as the spooks were leaking at the seams and the people trusted to run the country made every effort to look the other way when faced with an inconvenient truth.

Maybe, just maybe, it is better the case made it this far. Now at least we know how fucked-up the matter really was. But it would be unfair to ask of Anuška Delić to see it that way. After all, it is her back up against the wall.

VOLUNTARY DISCLAIMER: Anuška Delić was in no way, shape or form contacted for the purposes of this blogpost. Whatever conjecture there is in it, it is entirely mine and made based on publicly available information

Yet Another Letter to the Prime Minister

Yo, MC Miro, huddle up! Congrats on yesterday’s PM confirmation and all that jazz, but pay attention now. 57 votes in favour is a sweet thing but keep in mind the storm is just brewing. Admittedly, pengovsky is on vacays these days and follows events at home sporadically but there seems to be a consensus that you didn’t do a particularly good job with your acceptance speech. You gotta work on that, dude.

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Prime Minister Miro Cerar addressing the National Assembly (source)

Now, I think we are both in agreement that you more or less fucked up putting your coalition together. I mean, just DeSUS and SD? What’s wrong with you, man? No, seriously, you’ve willingly put yourself in a position where Karl »I-want-a-prestigious-post-with-little-actual-work« Erjavec can grab you by the balls and swing you around every time he feels threatened.

The SocDems don’t even count. Not to mention that DeSUS and SD were once part of the same flock and have even tried to form some half-baked form of a coalition before the elections. Point being they are much more likely to conspire together against you than letting you play them one against the other. Also, let us not forget that both SD and DeSUS are teeming with veterans of the national political cess-pool and will take you to the cleaners the first chance they get.

Because that’s what’ll happen. If you think the two junior coalition partners will not seek to empower themselves and/or make up for the losses they’ve suffered on 13 July, you’ve got another thing coming.

Special interest counting to 46

Three years ago Ljudmila Novak of the NSi dropped an epic put-down to Zoran Janković in his PM bid telling him that he needs to learn to count to 46. But you seem to have taken that particular lesson way too literally. Sure, 46 is the magic number, but there are ways to get to that number and there are ways to get to that number, if you catch my drift. You really shouldn’t have given your predecessor such a cold shoulder. Alenka Bratušek and her four votes would have come in mighty handy pretty soon. To put it bluntly, you are now in a position where Karl Erjavec always (and I mean, always) holds the key to your 46 votes. The man really deserves his middle name. Victor.

And if you’re congratulating yourself on kicking out certain political forces (the word on the street is that »you weren’t going to give in to the people ran by Gregor Golobič«), stop it, while you still can. Slovenian politics is full of bogeymen. Some people hoist the banner the moment someone mentions Janša. Some people see Golobič in every shadow. Others think Milan Kučan at his advanced age still runs the show. Fuck, there are probably people who’ll swear that Edvard Kardelj is still alive and pulling the strings! But in reality, what we have here is just a succession of progressively bad moves by progressively challenged people who were elected to positions they were not fit to hold in the first place.

Really. There is no conspiracy. You need to remember this as you’ve just invited the person who invented the phrase »uncles in the shadows« into your government. You’ve also made a deal with a politician who claims to represent the largest special interest in Slovenia: the pensioners. You’ve even agreed to 40+ million EUR additional financial obligation per annum even before you’ve even picked (let alone have had confirmed) a new finance minister. And you still believe you’ve freed yourself from undue influence?

Pushing Potočnik and other shop-worn faces

While we’re on the issue: Dušan Mramor is a relatively good pick for a finance minister. You could have done a lot worse. But you could have done much better, too. In fact, I fail to see why you couldn’t break the arm of the outgoing finance minister Uroš Čufer and persuade him to stay on. We know you can play hardball, we’ve seen it with the issue of EU commissioner post.

Further to that: Janez Potočnik? Seriously? I know the man is likeable and your promoting him probably falls within the pattern of you picking colleagues from Faculty of Law and Faculty of Social Sciences. But Potočnik held his EU post for two terms now. Ten years. And he wasn’t even elected to it. I’m sorry to be the one to bring it up, but as far as I remember, ALDE (the EU political group Potočnik belongs to) said prior to EU elections it will only nominate people who were on the ballot. Potočnik famously chickened out of leading an all-ALDE ballot in Slovenia. The dude is damaged goods. And he’s only further damaging himself by acting like a fucking prima-donna (»I’m in! I’m out! No, I’m in!«). And have you ever considered that maybe Juncker wouldn’t want Potočnik on his team?

To be honest, for a leader of a new political force you sure seem to be ending up with plenty of shop-worn names in your cabinet. It is as if you’ve spent all of your ammo on insignificant issues and are going to have to settle for a sub-optimal team of ministers.

The Youth Office and other pensioner related issues

But enough about that. You’ve got a job to do. And despite the fact that mine is not the only »open letter« you’ll be receiving these days, I dare say others are of more, well, stock variety. So, the labour unions wrote you a letter. Welfare state, labour rights, yaddayaddayadda. They do that every time. But let’s cut to the chase here. Ever since they torpedoed the law on menial work (and arguably from well before that) the labour unions are nothing but a pressure group of people looking for the most favourable retirement conditions possible.

I mean, sure, the labour force is taking the brunt of this crisis. But within the labour force, the young-and-educated by far worse of than anyone else. They are the people who will, by the nature of things, have to keep the economy afloat, make the money go round and raise that GDP. There simply is no other way. Most of these people have no union representation (although the unions claim otherwise) and – more importantly – they’ve zero »official« experience to make them eligible applicants for what little jobs fitting their profile there are available. I know that the latest draft of the coalition agreement uses all the correct buzzwords about youth employment, but at the same time you dismantled the Youth Office, the only institutional representation in the (broadly speaking) government young people had and drowned that particular office in the new »Trans-generational Cooperation Office« to be headed by a person from – the pensioners’ party? Dude, c’mon!

Controlled privatisation? WTF?

On the other hand, the industry is going on and on about their usual mantra: Workforce too expensive, taxes too high, leaving the country, bada bing, bada boom. Sure, the tax-mix is less than optimal and there’s a compeling case for tax-cap, but no matter how much you cut the wages or cut taxes it ain’t gonna solve the basic problem of Slovenian industry: it just ain’t competitive, mostly because on the whole it doesn’t produce enough added value. And that’s mostly because there isn’t enough innovation (to be more exact, not enough innovation gets from the laboratories to the production floor).

While we’re on the issue: What the fuck does »controlled privatisation« mean? It sounds something like »half-pregnancy«. I mean, you make it sound as if previous privatisations were uncontrolled. Sure, those that amounted to botched-bordering-on-illegal MBOs were uncontrolled. Those few state-owned companies, however, that were actually sold to the highest bidder, we were at pains to let go as if we were selling our only daughter into slavery. You said it yourself in your acceptance speech: we have mostly ourselves blame for this crisis. And no amount of rule of law or values or pride is going to help when the industry and the mind-set that runs it is still in 1980’s.

Start taking positions, pronto

Ah, yes, values and the rule of law. You were pretty big on that in the past couple of months. But soon you’re going to have to take real positions on real issues. Because »equality and respect for all ethnical and social minorities« is not the correct answer to question of same-sex marriage. Just to give an example at random.

Do you see what I’m getting at? It’s been slightly more than a month since your sweeping election victory and already your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash.

You wrote in your draft coalition agreement conditions must be met to hold an exhaustive debate on all forms of families. But we already had that debate. More than once. And the views between supporters and detractors of same sex marriage and non-traditional forms of family are irreconcilable. This is what running a country is about. You form a policy, you form legislation, you pass it and then you enact it. Your British PM colleague was able to do it, you should be, too.

Slippery slope

And what’s that about instituting a trial term for judges? That, my dear prime minister is a marked step backwards, since judges today are sworn into a permanent term immediately. You know very well that a) a permanent term is meant to insulate judges from political meddling and that b) the only party that really makes an issue of the trial/permanent term is Janez Janša’s SDS. We both know why.

But you don’t seem to be familiar with the concept of »slippery slope issue«. You see, instituting a trial term at the beginning of a judge’s career is akin to getting a foot in the door. Sure, it looks like a small concession to the party and its leader who made a career out of conspiracy theories. But in fact this is the biggest hurdle for them to clear. Once trial term in enacted, it is only a matter of political opportunism when the trial period gets its first extension. Say, from one to three years. And once you’re there, it’s no sweat of anyone’s back if gets extended from three to five years. And pretty soon, say within ten years, you’re left with a judiciary that is more incompetent, more corrupt and more politically influenced than we ever thought possible.

Which, of course brings us to the Curious Case of the Convict MP. The fact that under existing legislation Janez Janša gets to keep his MP seat despite serving a two-year prison sentence for corruption in the Patria Affair is a major embarrassment. But, you see, legislation is not only to be observed, it can also get passed. I believe your predecessor already started legislative procedure that would solve the conundrum. Don’t be afraid to follow this through. After all, this is not a legal but rather a political question. And a political solution to this must – as usual in a democracy – become law. For this is not really about Janša. He will only take whatever advantage he can in a given situation. And you already saw that he can be stopped dead in his track by political means.

I’m referring to his bid to become a member of of the committee for intelligence services oversight, with his party chum Branko »Gizmo« Grims serving as president. Which of course means Ivan would be de facto chair of the committee. But your parliamentary group chief Simona Kustec Lipicer put the entire committee on ice pending final decision on Janša’s MP status.

(Re)Focus

But as you are about to move into your new office in two weeks, Janša’s parliamentary issues will increasingly become Kustec Lipicer’s problem. You need to focus. Or, if we are to judge by the draft coalition agreement, refocus.

After all, it is the economy, stupid.

The Tomb Of National Heroes

Following snap elections on 13 July Slovenian parliament held an inaugural session on Friday which – if one attempted to describe it in full – would be somewhere between a Monty Python act, a wake and select scenes from They Live. In fact, what we had today was people an exercise in different planes of reality converging into the same point of the time-space continuum. The results were predictably ugly.

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Pahor and Janša make it to 9gag. That’s one off the bucket-list (source)

On one hand we had Janez Janša, the jailed leader of the SDS who was granted a short leave of his prison sentence to attend the session, providing for an extraordinary situation where a convicted criminal serving a prison sentence is elected and starts serving as an MP. On the other side there were a couple of hundred protestors in front of the parliament who demanded the release of Janez Janša from prison, called him a political prisoner and a martyr. Next, there was Janša’s SDS which refused to make nominations in a key parliamentary committee, vowing to do the same for every other parliamentary body until they are given assurances new elections will be held as soon as Janša is acquitted (as the faithful believe will and protest in front of the court daily to happen). Still further, however, are the trials and tribulations of PM-presumptive Miro Cerar who is paying a heavy price for his hardball tactics in the Slovenian EU Commissioner issue. Cerar has all but spent whatever progress he had had with Karl Erjavec of DeSUS and is, for all intents and purposes back to square one in coalition negotiations. If he ever left square one at all, that is. Oh, and then there’s the reality of President Pahor quoting Churchill again and (again) admitting he didn’t know his ass-hole from his ear-hole when he handled the outbreak of crisis in 2008.

You can’t always get what you want

The ugly part is that no-one got what they wanted and yet everyone got more than what they bargained for. Case in point being Milan Brglez, the man thought to be the brains behind Miro Cerar Party (SMC) and widely tipped to be the next foreign minister (on account of his international studies tenure at the Faculty of Social Sciences), was forced to accept the nomination for the Speaker of the parliament. This brings about an unusual situation where the Speaker of the Parliament, a post usually manned by the second largest coalition party, is a member of the largest coalition party which is now poised to occupy the upper-most levels of both executive and legislative branches. That it was Miro Cerar, the legalist and a man of high democratic standard, who had to break what little democratic tradition this country has, is especially ironic.

Having said that, it is possible that – regardless of his and Cerar’s statements – Brglez as Speaker is only a temporary solution. You know, just to get the parliament up-and-running. But for Brglez to make the switch to Foreign Ministry (a.k.a. Mladika, as the building is called), a lot of things must happen, chief among them being DeSUS actually joining Cerar’s coalition and Erjavec wanting to quite as foreign minister and take over as parliament chief. Either that or becoming EU commissioner (yeah, right 🙂 ). Brglez’s chances of clinching the top foreign-affairs job would increase greatly if his party boss were to cobble a coalition sans DeSUS. And if days ago Cerar and his people were wondering why they would make their lives difficult by not inviting Erjavec to the ruling gang, they’re probably starting to see that political life with Erjavec in tow is much more difficult than without him. But, as things stand, Cerar went from setting the pace to putting out fires in a matter of days. He needs to get his act together, fast.

The person who, amazingly, did hold her act together on Friday was Marjana Kotnik Poropat, an MP for DeSUS who, by virtue of being the oldest MP, chaired the inaugural session. Poropat, obviously coached and prepared, rejected every attempt Jože Tanko, head of SDS parliamentary group, made to derail the parliament from day one. Tanko made numerous procedural demands most of which had to do with MPs confirming the election results, thus finding they do indeed hold the mandate of the people and can start their work. The SDS, however, refused to appoint their members to the relevant committee and called for the parliament legal service to form an opinion on whether these committees can be established if not all parties appoint members. Further to that Tanko demanded time to stuy the legal service’s opinion, obviously trying to extend and possibly derail the parliament even before it would even formally establish itself. Poropat would have none of that and rebuffed Tanko repeatedly, much to annoyance of SDS masters of procedure and to amazement of the interested public (i.e. the Slovenian tweetosphere which had a field day yesterday).

Prison break

Whether Tanko was following a real plan or was just buying time for his boss remains a mystery. Namely, Janez Janša got a daily pass to leave prison and attend the session of the parliament to which he was elected. This predictably precipitated all sorts of false dilemmas on whether his mandate should be confirmed or not, whether he is fit to stand as MP or not et cetera. But the issue is indeed a fairly simple one. While an MP, sentenced to a prison term of six monts or more can be stripped of office (by a majority vote of his colleagues), there is currently no law that would prohibit a convict to stand for elections. Which is precisely the case with Janša. And since he was legally elected, MPs had no choice but to confirm his mandate, leaving it for later (and probably quite soon) to navigate the legal minefield of stripping Janša of his MP status.

Because as things stand now, the leader of the opposition gets to leave the prison every time he has stuff scheduled in the parliament and gets to complain that “even the old Yugoslav regime treated him better than Slovenian authorities do”. Which is bullshit, of course, but Janša and the SDS are forced tp resort to increasingly preposterous lies in order to maintain the enthusiasm of the faithful. But still, it must have been quite a downer to see only three-hundred people, mostly well beyond retirement age, chanting his name, cursing the communist conspiracy that runs the country and demanding Janša be released from prison. Which proved for a lot bizarre scenes where Janša went to meet his supporters during a break in session and the flock shouted that he should be let out of prison while he was there. In all honesty, factually, they are correct. But in terms of space and time, well… They funny 🙂

But the scenery was even more bizzare than the content. The Janša crowd gathered in a small park on the West side of the parliament and spent hours chanting to their hero, praising him as the saviour of the nation and insisting the country will not be free until he is. But long gone are the days when tens of thousands chanted Janša’s name in front of the parliament, like in 1994 when Janša was being removed from the post of defence minister in the wake of Depala vas Affair. From 30.000 to 300 people in twenty years is a sure-fire sign that Janša’s political star is fading. In a true Freudian twist, Friday’s pro-Janša rally was held only ten metres away from the tomb of national heroes. In the end, we’re all dead. Politically or for real.

Please, stop quoting Churchill

But stupidity, she is immortal. Case in point being President Pahor’s speech which was, as per usual, high on big words but low on actual content (but, admittedly, still much better than his Lorem Ipsum speech aboard Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior days ago). In his parliament speech Pahor invoked Churchill and said that “after years of trying to solve the crisis the wrong way we now finally know what it is all about and can do it the right way”. Now, quoting Churchill is one of Pahor’s favourite political activities. And to be honest, Churchill is a quotable man with much to be quoted about. But what President Pahor was alluding to, however, was supposed Churchill statement that one can count on America to do the right thing after it had done everything else.

Now, for starters, President Pahor freely admitted that all of his 2008-2011 bravado, long-as-fuck press conferences and moving small red and green dots on a magnetic board that represented reform attempts, he didn’t know shit about tackling the crisis. You know, not even an “oops, sorry”. Just more bravado to the tune of “we finally nailed it this time.” Unfortunately, he didn’t. You see, the quote is taken out of context. What Churchill was supposedly referring to was an intervention of an outside power in what was then still a European armed conflict. Which of course is somewhat different from “we finally know what to do now”. And just to add insult to injury: Churchill never actually said that. So much for knowing how to tackle the crisis, when you can’t even pick a correct Churchill quote.But hey, as president, you can do whatever you like, I guess. Even shake hands with a convicted felon. Figure the tomb of national heroes won’t be needing an expansion any time soon after all.

Alles Klar, Frau Kommissar?

Six years ago, most of ~~the free world~~ this poor excuse for a country (pengovsky included) was aghast at foreign minister Dimitrij Rupel putting his own name forward to fill a vacant ambassador post in Vienna. While not illegal, it reeked of self-aggrandizing, cronyism and (ab)use of public office for personal gain. Back then, president Danilo Türk stopped Rupel dead in his unhealthy ambitions, forever insulting the man and his ego. Which is why speculation that outgoing PM Alenka Bratušek might put herself forward as a one of nominees for the post of European Commissioner isn’t exactly top form, if you catch my meaning.

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Now, the issue of the Slovenian nominee for the new European Commission led by Jean-Claude Juncker exploded in the past few weeks as the timetable set by Juncker made it obvious Slovenia will have to come up with a name while government of Alenka Bratušek will still be taking, well, care of business. And while this prime human resource dilemma was in the spotlight on-and-off, it really went ballistic after the winner of July 13 snap elections and PM-presumptive Miro Cerar said the outgoing government should consult him before giving Juncker what he wants.

Going south

In all honesty, it would be sporty of Bratušek to keep Cerar in the loop and even allow him to have a say in what ultimately still is a business well within the purview of the outgoing government. But that didn’t happen and things went south almost immediately. Cerar decided to play hard-ball and told junior partners in AB coalition that he expects them to toe his line and that their failure to do so will result in their weakened negotiations positions when he forms the government. SD and DeSUS fell in line almost immediately and – voila! – ideas of Alenka Bratušek jumping up quite a dew notches in the political food chain were, well, flushed down the toilet. Temporarily, it turns out.

But first, let take a moment and dissect Cerar’s harball tactics. Miro Cerar, supposedly ever the legalist, didn’t bat an eyelid when he shot way outside hi legal status in order to gain a political advantage. Namely, until tomorrow, when the new parliament is expected to convene for an inaugural session and confirm new MPs, Miro Cerar is merely a private individual. A private individual who won elections, sure, but a private individual nevertheless. And as such he has no mandate whatsoever to decide on public matters. Even more: while Cerar is indeed PM-presumptive, he does not begin to execute PM powers until his cabinet is approved, which will not happen until September at the earliest. Therefore, the veto power on the Brussels appointment which Cerar claimed for himself has no legal backing whatsoever. Period.

In fact, it seems quite probable Cerar overestimated his political clout stemming from election victory and – crucially – underestimated the political and legal clout his potential coalition partners have stemming from their current positions in Bratušek caretaker government. But Cerar realized too late that by meddling in the outgoing administration business he is way out of his comfort zone, where margin of error is close to zero. Mistake numero uno. Trying to solve this self-imposed conundrum quickly, the PM-presumptive said he wants to see current EU Commissioner for environment Janez Potočnik re-nominated for a third term. Mistake numero dos. Will he make it to number three?

Erjavec rocking the boat

Namely, what was looking like a smooth ride towards a majority coalition is turning into a leaking boat that is being rocked violently by none other than Karl Erjavec of DeSUS. The man who could bring Cerar enough votes to form a single-vote majority was tipped to be the next Speaker of the Parliament (a post traditionally manned by the second largest coalition party) but has had a change of heart yesterday saying, he will run for this particular office.

Media reports suggest Cerar and Erjavec had a deal early on that DeSUS would provide the necessary votes to get the parliament up-and-running even if the coalition deal would yet be done, whereupon Erjavec would take the Speaker job temporarily and be then nominated for the EU Commissioner post. Now, whether or not that is true is a matter of some speculation. But if true, then the SMC bailed on the deal by putting forward Potočnik, probably in light of Commission president Juncker expecting a nominee by today. This of course infuriated Erjavec, who in retaliation threw a large wrench in the delicate wheel of coalition-building.

Omnishambles

And suddenly, everyone wanted a piece of the pie and every option was back on the table, but with a twist. PM Bratušek was back as a possible nominee, with Slovenian Press Agency (STA) even quoting an “unnamed but reliable” source in Brussels that Juncker specifically asked for her and was even considering her for the position of Commission Vice-president. This, of course, is unverifiable, but people who are more intimate with the inner-workings of the EU say it is not entirely inconceivable.

On the other hand, since the issue turned shambolic, various members of the outgoing coalition wanted to make the most of it. Thus the Social Democrats wanted nominate their sole MEP Tanja Fajon. This, of course, would be a major upgrade for the former TV SLO reporter from Brussels who made her name as EP rapporteur on visa liberalisation for Western Balkans countries.

But SD putting forward Fajon has other implications as well. Should she become the new Commissioner, the interim-SD leader Dejan Židan kills two birds with one stone. Not only does he get rid of a possible leadership rival in the upcoming party congress, where he can expect to be taken apart following the rout in the 13 July parliamentary elections. Turns out Fajon’s empty seat would be filled by none other than Igor Lukšič, the man whom Židan replaced at the helm of the party following the rout the party suffered in the European elections in May. Thus Židan also gets to placate his bitter predecessor who never really came to terms with his own defeat in the EU elections (where Fajon beat him on preferential votes, mind you) let alone his responsibility for SD’s poor showing both in EU and parliamentary elections.

Going once, twice…

The plot, of course, thickens. With two possible nominees there is no reason not to add a third one. Or fourth one. And this is precisely what is going to happen. The outgoing government is apparently going to short-list three or four candidates, leaving to Jean-Claude Juncker to pick one. With Delo reporter from Brussels just tweeting that Janez Potočnik will not agree to his name being put on such a list (presumably as opposed to him being the only nominee), this probably means Juncker will be looking at a three-item list consisting of Alenka Bratušek, Tanja Fajon and Karl Erjavec.

https://twitter.com/ZerjavicDelo/status/494778374884442112

Juncker will have to take into account both gender- and party-representation when cobbling the new Commission. While Bratušek and Fajon solve his lack-of-women problem, it is Bratušek alone who solves the apparent lack of ALDE-affiliated people on Jucker’s team. True, Erjavec could possibly meet this criterion by virtue of Ivo Vajgl MEP who ran on a DeSUS ticker in EU elections joining ALDE group, but officially DeSUS is not affiliated with any EU party, which basically rules Erjavec out.

But since the game Junkcer is playing is in an entirely different league, one can not entirely rule out Fajon either. There are other EU members which have not yet put forward their nominees and in the end the Commission president might end up chosing not what he or Slovenian government would like most, but what conveniently fills the gap.

Jean-Claude Cerar

In this respect, his problems are not unlike Miro Cerar’s. The difference being that Jean-Claude is the smooth operator, while Miro is making every mistake in the book, burning assets at a surprisingly high rate. Pengovsky was quoted by the Monitor Global Outlook saying that if “Cerar drops the ball in any of the fields of policy making, coalition handling and internal party dynamics, we are looking at another elections within 18 months.“. And Cerar seems to have been caught off-guard by internal party dynamics. He needs to learn that particular lesson fast.

As for the unseemliness of the PM signing her own nomination… To be honest, it’s sad to see the escapades of Dimitrij Rupel becoming the new normal. But here we are, apparently.

Slovenian Elections: The Purge

In what can only be described as a rout, Miro Cerar won Sunday Slovenian elections in a landslide, winning 36 out of 90 seats, with two of those being reserved for Hungarian and Italian minorities. Thus, the law-professor who in August will turn 51, is the new Slovenian PM-presumptive.

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Miro Cerar, PM-presumptive (source)

Having said that, the real work begins for Cerar only now. In the election campaign he notoriously avoided taking a position on any specific issue, clearly aiming for (and achieving) a catch-all effect. Even his victory speech on Sunday night was lacklustre, to say the least. It was more of his dalai-lama-meets-law-professor-meets-soft-populist rhetoric, nothing and everything at the same time.

PM-presumptive meets the coalition

On one hand, this is understandable. Cerar won, but if Zoran Janković, winner of the last elections is anything to go by, it is very easy to squander a relative majority by closing too many doors early on. On the other hand, it was Cerar who was given a clear mandate to rule the country so he needs to start taking positions and dictate the tempo. Until now, he was mostly re-active, for example excluding a possible coalition with Janez Janša‘s SDS only after Janša shot first and excluded a possible coalition with SMC.

The main issue for Cerar therefore is to make sure he does not become a hostage to his coalition partner or partners. Most likely plural. Namely, if here were to form a two-party coalition, DeSUS is his only choice. Which means that every time a sticky issue would come up, Karl Erjavec would balk and threaten with leaving the coalition, thus forcing Cerar to give in. And Erjavec can be really persuasive. Just ask Janša, Pahor or Bratušek.

So step number one for the PM-presumptive is to leave DeSUS out. Which already limits his options. Step number two will most likely be to make sure his is more than just a single-vote majority, again, for the above reasons. This means he will have to reach both left and right. With ZL not being a viable option, Cerar’s possible coalition partners include Social Democrats, Alenka Bratušek Alliance and the NSi. And mathematics suggests he will try to form a ruling coalition will all three of them.

Such an approach would be advantageous for many reasons. Fist, it would put him at a comfortable 51 votes. Second, it would adhere to his pre-election “why can’t we all just get along” mantra. And third (and perhaps most important) it would leave enough room for manoeuvre vote-wise for any of the junior coalition partners to depart from the common line every now and then and still not endanger the 46-vote majority.

Thus, for example, the SD could oppose further privatisation plans (and keep what is left of their electorate happy) while the legislation could still be passed, without endangering either the 46-votes majority or the coalition itself.

And last, but not least, this approach would be reminiscent of the way the late Janez Drnovšek put coalitions together and it is always good to be compared to Drnovšek, even though Cerar right now doesn’t even come close to the legendary PM. However, while Cerar is mulling his next move, the exact opposite seems to be going in the SDS, as their shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach backfired badly.

The purge

That the SDS took a beating goes without saying. Sunday saw their worst performance in the last decade and only slighty better than their results in 1996 and 2000 elections. Even worse: when compared to the overall number of eligible voters, support for SDS in 2014 elections boils down to a mere ten percent of adult Slovenians. Granted, this says a lot of other parties as well, but is especially damaging for a party which promotes itself as the only one defending patriotic values and does a lot of flag-waving at every opportunity.

After Janez Janša was admitted to prison due to a confirmed guilty verdict in the Patria Case, the SDS made their glorious leader the focal point of their campaign. SDS MP and one of party vice-presidents Zvonko Černač took centre stage and demanded Janša be released at every opportunity. No longer was their election platform important, they focused solely on Janša, claiming elections are not free and fair without him.

After the results came in, Černač repeated the #freeJJ mantra and added the party will not be taking active part in parliamentary procedure. There were even reports about their elected MPs not actually taking office, but the plan was supposedly dropped as it became clear that in that case new elections would simply be called for vacant seats.

Anyhoo, after the SDS openly threatened to derail parliamentary procedure, media back-lash ensued followed by what was reported as a fierce debate in the party Executive Council. As a result, Černač backtracked on the issue, saying he was “misinterpreted”. Now, let’s take a moment and reflect on this.

What happens when the alpha-male leaves the pack

For the first time on bob-knows-how-many years, the SDS made a complete and unreserved U-turn in a little more than 24 hours. This is the first example of what pengovsky projected the moment Janša was put behind bars. The alpha-male is out of the game on a daily basis and his replacement does not carry nearly enough clout for decisions and moves to go unquestioned.

And there’s a lot of bad blood in the SDS right now. Some of their key people didn’t get elected even though they were thought of as fixtures of Slovenian politics. Cases in point being the above mentioned Zvonko Černač (which means he has even less clout in the party and his position as Janša’s point-man is in peril) as well as Jožef Jerovšek, who served as SDS MP continuously since 1996. Ditto Andrej Vizjak, who got elected for the first time in 2000 and held many posts ever since, including that of minister of economy (2004) and labour (2011).

Moving away from the SDS, Franc Pukšič, the industrious former mayor of Destrnik, who held an MP seat continuously since 1996. Pukšič started as an SDS member but switched to SLS in 2008. Since the party didn’t make it above the 4% treshold, one of the more distinctive features of the parliament is gone. Just like that. Ditto for Pukšič’s much more mild-mannered party colleague Jakob Presečnik.

Rout of the left

The purge of course wasn’t limited to the right side of the political spectrum. Lucky for them, a lot of more experienced SD members decided to retire and had evaded the voters opening a can of whop-ass on them. But the purge of the SD is going on for quite a while now. In six years they went down from thirty (2008) to mere five MPs (2014).

The purge, however, was complete for what was left of Positive Slovenia. The party of Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković didn’t make it above 4%, reducing Zoki’s aura of invincibility to, well, sundust. Janković is in a lot of trouble right now (both legally and politically) and should start getting concerned with his plans for another term as Ljubljana mayor. His opponents smell and see blood and his tenure in the city hall is all of a sudden much more insecure. The party, however, is more or less dead in the water. It might carry on, but it will remain a mere shadow of its former victorious self.

The caretaker PM Alenka Bratušek, however, fared slightly better. When her fight with Janković split PS down the middle and she and her supporters went to form their own party, her stated goal was to best PS in the polls. Which was kind of weird at the time as the consensus was they should be concerned with making it to the parliament first. But in the end, it turned to be one and the same goal. Bratušek can, in a sense, count herself as coming out victorious. But the price that was paid for her four MP mandates was extortionate. On the bright side, however, she can once again resume comparing herself to Brigitte Nyborg of Borgen 😉

Skipping over the NSi which continues to take its rightful place in the parliamentary political spectrum, even increasing their result by one MP seat, this leaves us with the real surprise of the election Sunday, the United Left (ZL).

The surprise

The party of “democratic ecological socialism” was looking to Greek Syriza for a role model and is questioning the established order of things. In the end they got 5.96 percent which translates into six seats. They sport a three-member presidency, but it was Luka Mesec, the youngest of the trio of leaders, who emerged as the most recognisable face of the party. It was his appearance on a POP TV-held debate on Thursday, three days before the elections which sent the party rocketing from around 2.5 percent way above the parliamentary threshold, in the end nearly tripling their result.

On a personal note, pengovsky got into a bit of hot water with ZL fanbase for saying that Mesec brought in votes of older women on account of him looking good and saying smart things. A rather tedious debate followed where accusations of mysoginistic statements were thrown in my general direction. But while further analysis did indeed show their voters mostly come from below-45 age group, a third of their vote still comes from 45+ age group. A third, meaning two out of six percent of votes won. Which means, 45+ age group was just as instrumental in pushing the ZL above 4% than younger voters.

Additionally, another analysis showed about 50% of ZL voters decided to pick them in the last couple of days, emphasising the importance of Mesec’s appearance and performance in the debate.

Now, anyone with any experience in campaigning will tell you that TV debates are not really about substance but rather about showmanship. You might have the best platform in the world, but if you’re not telegenic enough or if you make too many mistakes, you might as well throw in the towel. So the point pengovsky was trying to make is that while ZL platform is nothing to scoff at, it was Mesec’s TV performance (his telegenics) that made the difference. But, the fan-base insists it was the platform that brought in the entire six percent of the vote.

Shifting the discourse

Be that as it may, the ZL is in and is bound to shift the political discourse to the left. Which in itself is not a bad thing. Too many things in this society are taken for granted and thought of as set in stone, which is one of the reasons this country moves at a sluggish pace at best.

But theirs is a hard task. They will inherently be branded as far-left, even though one could make the argument they are the only “true-left”, platform wise. Secondly, their set of ideas is only one of many competing sets in the parliament, all of which are perfectly legitimate, some more appealing to one part of the society, some to another. Thirdly, they are newcomers. Pushing your agenda has to do a lot with knowing your way around rules and procedures of the parliament. Fourth, they will need to hold their nerve and not lash out against more experience MPs patronizing them or even setting procedural traps for them, supposedly to “put them in their place”. The parliament is a tough neighbourhood and while everyone is smiling and wears a tie, backstabbing is often the norm. And lastly, the ZL need to be careful not to get smug too soon.

A lot of people invested a lot of hope into them and while the some expectations are unreasonable by default, the ZL MPs were not elected to the parliament to be like other MPs but to be better than them. And that’s a benchmark others before them failed to achieve.

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