Author: pengovsky

Agent provocateur and an occasional scribe.

Poor Bosnia, Always Gets Fucked By A Slovenian Arms Dealer

The election campaign in Slovenia ends today. Latest polls suggest that Miro Cerar‘s SMC is still poised to take the relative majority of the vote but that Janša’s SDS is closing the gap and there are indications that an eleventh hour change at the top spot in theoretically possible.

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Former Slovenian ambassador to Australia Milan Balažic (source)

However, a fierce battle for votes down the ladder is taking place. Most notably, DeSUS‘ third spot looks slightly less secure and Karl “Funny Man” Erjavec apparently knows that as he was somewhat nervous and feisty during the last couple of TV debates.


Interactive chart of all polls averaged. Note rise of SD and SDS

Whether or not the SD is gaining against their nominal coalition partner DeSUS on the account of the latest diplomatic scandal is debatable, but what a scandal it is 🙂

I’ve got some prime swampland to sell you in Florida

Weeks ago, Erjavec in his role as foreign minister recalled Slovenian ambassador to Australia Milan Balažic for breach of protocol and “losing the trust of Slovenian diaspora in host country”. Apparently, Balažic invited to an embassy event one Nichloas Oman, a known arms dealer and an overall shady character who is a citizen of Slovenia, Australia and Liberia. Oman has served a six-year prison sentence in Australia for child-abuse in Liberia and Thailand and is on Australian sex-offenders list.

However, Balažic, upon returning to Slovenia, told a different story. In a nutshell, Oman was willing to give away a piece of land in Bosnia which was supposedly oil-rich in exchange for a Slovenian passport. Smell a rat

According to Balažic, Oman used his brother as an intermediary to contact then-leader of Social Democrats Igor Lukšič, who then emailed Balažic asking if he was willing to “investigate further”, for Oman claimed that the whole thing was worth about two billion dollars. Two billion? Email? This is starting to look like a Nigerian e-mail scam…

Furthermore, Balažic claims he was acting under instructions from entire top-level echelon of Slovenian diplomacy, saying that President Pahor, PM Bratušek and FM Erjavec were all in the loop and that Slovenian intelligence SOVA was investigating the matter as well. Not a bad start to a Robert Ludlum novel, mind you.

Obviously, there was no oil under that particular land. And even if there was, it’s hardly likely Bosnia (specifically, Republika Srpska) would grant drilling rights to a Slovenian entity. Even more, since Oman is a Slovenian citizen and – despite his child-abuse status in Australia – there is no warrant for his arrest anywhere in the EU, he could have easily obtained a Slovenian passport regardless.

But the story was apparently appealing enough for Lukšič and Balažic to fall for the classic “I’ve got some prime swampland to sell you in Florida” trick.

Dipping in the same pool of votes

Anyway, things start to fall apart rapidly from this point on. The Prez’s office categorically denies the charges, PM Bratušek says Lukšič was not a cabinet member, that the issue was never on the official agenda and that when Lukšič did bring it up, she refused to discuss it at all. It was only Karl Erjavec who said he wasn’t aware of Balažic’s activities. The implication being that Erjavec doesn’t know what’s going on in front of his nose. Which is not really a compliment for a foreign minister. Or a leader of a party which happens to be dipping in the same pool of voters as SD does.

This, of course, provided there’s more to the whole episode than just a disgraced ambassador trying to save his neck. But since Balažic also included rumours about Janša’s clinic in Australia (a popular lef-wing fiction story where Janša supposedly stuck all of his illicit earnings into a clinic down-under to be ran by his doctor-wife) one can sooner be worried about former diplomat’s health grip on reality.

But, in the end, it’s Bosnia which gets fucked by a Slovenian arms dealer. Again.

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    A Fistful of Votes*

    The election campaign entered its final week but there’s still plenty of time to fuck up. Not that there haven’t been a few notable fuck-up already. But first, ze numbers!

    20140506_ankica
    Polls normalised to 100 percent. Check below for up to date interactive chart.

    As you can see, Miro Cerar Party (SMC) maintains a strong lead over SDS which in turn maintaining an equally strong lead over everyone else. True, the last poll shows a bounce for Janša’s SDS, but it should be noted that we’re dealing with a Večer poll here, which as a rule feature a significant phase-shift to the right. And while forecasting exact numbers is a tricky business, it is more or less that barring a meltdown of epic proportions, Miro Cerar Party will come out as the relative victor on Sunday. It is also more or less a given that the SDS will come in second with DeSUS of Karl Erjavec and Social Democrats of Dejan Židan competing for third position, while NSi looks poised to take the fifth spot and be the last party that can reasonably expect making it above the 4-percent treshold.

    5k votes between heaven and hell

    Then there are a few toss-ups. SLS, PS and Alenka Bratušek Alliance (ZAAB) could make it above 4% given helpful voter turnout, vote dispersion and correct alignment of planets. Which is why PM Bratušek switched to full-attack mode in the last couple of days, reversing her government’s privatisation policies and crying foul all the way to the Vatican about Slovene Roman Catholic Church meddling with Slovene judiciary over prison sentence for SDS leader Janez Janša.

    Bratušek’s party polled between 2.21 and 5.22 percent, depending on the pollster and date of the poll. On average (and due to voting system peculiarities, this is only a broad estimate) this puts her at 3.77 percent, less than three tenths of a percent or about 5000 votes below the threshold, which is not an unachieavable goal. And this is why she is willing to do just about anything to win them, including throw away whatever credibility she had won with the international markets and commit a diplomatic faux-pas with the Holy See.

    While her letter to the Vatican is much more embarrassing, it was her decision to “freeze” further privatisation plans (in effect kicking them down the road for the new government to pick up) that sent a bit of a shock-wave internationally. Understandably so. It once again painted Slovenia as a less-than-credible country with unpredictable government policies and little-to-no guarantees of pledges being honoured. And while governments are expected to change policies which prove themselves to have negative impact, it is unacceptable for PM Bratušek to run around financial capitals of the world professing her commitment to privatisation only to (supposedly) announce a U-turn two months later.

    But on the upside, since the privatisation plan was passed by the parliament in a form of a law, any meaningful changes to it must be made as a novelation of this law and not by a government directive. But apparently, the move has had at least some effect, with highest bidders for Slovenian Telekom reportedly withdrawing their bids (which, in turn, apparently again puts Deutsche Telekom back in the game, which is probably one of the reasons Brussels-am-Berlin is still mum on the issue, election campaign notwithstanding).

    Similarly, her outrage over statements of Bishop Andrej Glavan on Patria case aftermath is, objectively speaking, more of a cause for embarrassment than cause for admiration. I mean, yes, the stuff the caretaker of Ljubljana Diocese said are unacceptable. Comparing the trial of Janez Janša to communist show-trials is obscene, especially after all the leniency Janša enjoyed during the corruption trial as well as in serving his two-year prison sentence. But the Slovenian Church is stil reeling from the financial scandal of, well, biblical proportions which is why pope Francis beheaded the leadership of Slovenian Church and has yet to name a new one. And pressing the issue of a caretaker bishop stepping out of line is surely not going to impress the Vatican in any way, shape or form.

    Now, if Bratušek really sought to express her outrage over Glavan’s comments to the Vatican, she’d have done so using back-channels. This is the sort of thing serious diplomacies appreciate. No shouting matches, no pressing against the wall. Just a gentle reminder about an unfortunate event that normally would not even bear mentioning, but since both sides care about rule of law and corruption charges…. But just as with privatisation issue, Bratušek here doesn’t really care about Bishop Glavan or what the Vatican thinks of him. But she does care about the fistful of votes this might bring her and hopefully push her above the four percent threshold. Consequences will be dealt with later on. Quite possibly by someone else.

    Someone else in this case looks more and more to take the form of Miro Cerar, the constitutional legal expert who formed a party named after himself (SMC) and stormed to the very top of the polls. In this he seems to have tapped the sweetspot, where he is to his voters what they want him to be. He achieved this by reducing his political platform to a set of slogans that are difficult not to agree with but at the same time being careful not to make any serious policy commitments.

    Looking the other way, trying not to insult anyone

    Case in point being their refusal to sign a document pushed by the LGBT community which states signatory parties agree LGBT people are entitled to full scope of rights enjoyed by their heterosexual compatriots. SMC evaded the issue for days on end, finally stating “they refuse to support human rights of only specific groups” and added that everyone is entitled to basic human rights (link in Slovenian).

    Cerar, a constitutional expert, is willing to overlook the most basic of human-rights principles, one which is enshrined in the EU basic principles as well: namely, that different personal circumstances require different approaches and that one-shoe-fits-all approach is far from appropriate especially with regard to human rights. Yes, everyone is entitled to them, but personal circumstances, be they of religious, social, sexual or whatever nature, put different people in different positions with regard to “universality” of human rights. Basics. Cerar knows that. But he chose to look the other way.

    It is painfully obvious the SMC is desperately trying to offend no-one. At the very least no-one who is likely to vote for them. And polling at 40 percent of decideds, that’s a lot of people to potentially insult. Luckily for Cerar, the LGBT issue didn’t get enough traction for left-wing or progressive parties to exploit against him, but is was a good reminder of just how non-existent his political platform is. And even more lucky for him, the campaign ends in five four days and if there is an attempt at an “October Surprise“, it most definitely won’t be policy-oriented but more likely a smear-attack. Especially, since Cerar’s (potential) electorate is said to be of fickle nature.

    Supreme truth

    Either that or the Supreme Court will rule in the Patria case before Sunday, which will additionally mobilise the SDS faithful, already in a frenzy over their glorious leader and holder of the supreme truth being behind bars. Note that the nature of the decision is irrelevant. If the Supreme Court orders a retrial, SDS will double down its efforts before election Sunday, just as it will if sentence against Janša is confirmed for the second time. That it takes the Supreme Court two weeks (gasp!) to deliber on the issue is driving them crazy.

    Howgh.

    Hat-tip re post title: @Svarun_K

    Polls Show Brutality of 4% Threshold

    Right. With snap elections in Slovenia being eighteen days away, it is high time pengovsky looks at some polls. A number of them were taken since 25 May (EU elections Sunday) and obviously their results differ. This goes both for actual percentage of support detected as well as relative differences between parties’ results. Also, different polls use different samples, ask different questions and in a different sequence which inevitably gives different results.

    20140626_blog_ankica
    Average of all polls taken to date. See note at the end of the post.

    Point is, from scientific point of view, these are not directly comparable. After all, pengovsky is no Nate Silver. But since this is, strictly speaking, not a scientific blog and since pollsters were quite off the mark in the last couple of elections (although they did marginally better predicting EU election results), let’s give it a whirl. If nothing else, trends will become more apparent as election day nears.


    Timeline of polls with numbers as reported

    A rather hefty chunk of undecideds and/or no-shows is immediately noticeable from the table below. Which makes it a bit more fun extrapolating numbers based only on decideds, where differences between the two poll leaders and the rest of the gang are much more visible. And the real story right now is in fact Stranka Mira Cerarja (Miro Cerar Party), which apparently had a good three-week run but has now dropped to second place.

    Miro Cerar is not an unknown quantity media-wise. He made his name as a top-class constitutional lawyer, serving as a consultant to the parliament for a number of years and obviously enjoying the occasional limelight. He was briefly courted to take over as PM following ousting of Janez Janša in 2012 but rejected the offer (Alenka Bratušek took over as PM in the end). Speculation about his entering the political arena hasn’t abated since and when Cerar finally formed his party on 2 June (just three weeks ago) it put him above Janša in polls. But while Cerar is (almost) a household name, he is still the new boy on the political block and has consequently little to show for but big words and a mix of populism, pseudo-philosophy and legal-speak. So far, this has served him well. After all, new parties are often focal points of voters’ wishes and projections and – provided they play the game well – can actually make their lack of a specific platform work in their favour. This is obviously the case with Miro Cerar who basically runs on thin air in this campaign.


    Poll numbers recalculated to indclude only decideds

    Now, there are quite a number of problems with various positions Miro Cerar took in this campaign, some of which might even be contradictory. But pengovsky will cover them in one of the future posts. Suffice it to say that Cerar must really wish for election Sunday to come as soon as possible. His centre-to-above-it-all position is being vigorously attacked from both left and right and as days pass, kinks in his shiny armour are ever more visible. Not that anyone else is profiting from it. Not even Janez Janša’s SDS, mind you. The reason they’re back on top is the fact that Ivan is now behind bars which is – as expected – proving to be ultimate activator for his party’s base.

    As for the rest, NSi, SD and DeSUS seem to be hanging above the 4% threshold which still takes them to the parliament, while the rest are locked in a bit of a death match. And if not earlier, fatality of the schism in Positive Slovenia is now apparent. The new party of PM Bratušek, Zavezništvo Alenke Bratušek (Alenka Bratušek Alliance, and yes, more personalisation of party names here) and Zoran Janković’s Positive Slovenia are polling roughly neck-and-neck. It is safe to say that were Zoki slightly less egotistical and vengeful, PS would have remained a player with Bratušek at the helm.

    Citizen’s List is nowhere to be seen and it is doubtful the new party president Bojan Starman can turn things around. Ditto for Verjamem of Igor Šoltes, who was European Elections’ Miro Cerar but has since seen his support vanish into thin air.

    Anyhoo… If all available polls are averaged into a single set of results (admittedly, about as unscientific method as reading tea-leaves), this is what you get. Five parties who make it above 4%.


    Average of all polls included

    Just a note: graphs in this post were made with Google SpreadSheets and will be updated as new polls come along. Which probably means the content of this post will be thrown out of sync with them graphs fairly soon. If you’re reading this days or weeks after date of posting, please take this into account.

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      Dob Prison Blues

      Among many of his accomplishments, Janez Janša can now claim to be one of the few people on this planet to have attended their own wake. This at least was the impression given last Friday, when Janša started serving his two-year prison sentence passed on him in the Patria Affair. Namely, hundreds (thousands, by some accounts) of his followers descended on Dob prison facility and staged “a spontaneous” gathering with loudspeakers and all. The event, protracted as it was, culminated with Janša arriving and addressing the faithful one last time.

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      Janša’s prison summons. (source)

      But what was no doubt meant to be the mother of all speeches turned out to be a lackluster campaign rally with Janša giving the impression of a man who finally realised the gravity of his situation. Namely, only the previous evening the SDS leader took part in an election debate and admittedly did a fair job, quite unlike a man who will not be picking up soap from the floor again until 2016. Perhaps he thought the Supreme Court would come to his rescue at the eleventh hour and suspend his serving of the sentence or even rescind the sentence altogether. No such luck. With the Constitutional Court nixing Janša earlier in the week with a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court just added insult to injury. From Janša’s point of view this was just another proof that the entire judiciary (save the three constitutional judges with their dissenting opinions) was out to get him. Under orders of a secret communist kabal headed by Milan Kučan, of course. The alternative interpretation, although admittedly boring, is that Janša simply fired his last shot and is out of legal and political ammo. Next stop: prison cell.

      The brouhaha this created was (and to an extent still is) of epic proportion. After all, it is not every day a former PM is put behind bars. Some (Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung (paywall) among them, apparently) questioned the timing, saying that putting a man in the brig three weeks before elections is fishy. Others hold that the decent thing would be a presidential pardon, since this is what self-respecting countries apparently do. Deputy chief of government’s legal service Janez Pogorelec wrote as much in the last issue of Pravna Praksa, a magazine on legal issues. And even Matevž Krivic, former judge of the constitutional court, now a tireless campaigner for the rights of the Erased says the legitimacy of the upcoming elections is compromised with Janša in prison. And last, but certainly not least, the SDS maintains the elections will neither be free nor fair.

      Now, let’s take these arguments apart, one by one. First of all, the legitimacy of these elections has nothing to do with a political being put in jail. Janša was convicted some time before elections were called. He knew this was coming. And even if he honestly expected his appeal to be upheld, he could have at least planned for a contingency. Afterall, the SDS list of candidates was announced six days after JJ got summoned to prison. It’s not as if someone issued a Nach-und-Nebel order on him and dragged him out of his flat in the middle of the night on unspecified charges (although the SDS faithful will have you believe something along those lines happened). Quite to the contrary, in fact: the SDS leader is taking part in these elections and will most likely get elected to the parliament. And while there is a legal provision terminating MPs serving more than six months’ prison sentence, no such clause exists for members of the government. Meaning that if the SDS somehow secures an absolute majority, then can actually appoint Janša Prime Minister. The scenario is highly unlikely (even the Party doesn’t have the audacity to pull a stunt like that) but possible.

      Janša in prison, therefore, does absolutely nothing for legitimacy of these elections. Yes, his incarceration will affect the outcome, but so would his remaining on the outside (especially if elections were cited as a reason). Everything we do affects the elections one way or another. Sure, Janša will not be able to attend election debates. But that is neither his right not prerogative. There can be debates without him. His two rights (to vote and run for office), however, are in no way infringed.

      Legitimacy of elections is also questioned in the sub-text of FAZ’s reporting. But it needn’t be. Would the situation be any different if Janša were to start serving a sentence six months before elections? Wouldn’t the definition of “just prior to elections” be simply adjusted for time scope? What if the court had waited (as Krivic suggested) and summoned him to prison after he had won the elections? Just how ugly would that look? No, summoning him before elections was the only sensible thing to do. Even more so since Slovenia held at least one election per year in past seven of eight years. We tend to cast our votes around quite a lot in this country. And if we waited for a “clear stretch of non-voting” to put corrupt politicos behind bars, we might find to be in for a long wait.

      Lastly, rule of law is paramount in any half-decent democracy. Granted, this sorry little excuse for a country is occasionally lacking in this respect, but this is no reason to go actively ruining what’s left of the concept. The important thing here is that a high-profile person who committed a felony is behind bars. Countries where the law applies to both rich & famous as well as the common man are more likely to have their political system seen as legitimate. This goes for the idea of presidential pardon as well. Pogorelec maintains that a presidential pardon would be a face-saving operation for Janša and the country, allowing the illustrious fighter for Slovenian independence to retire gracefully from public life.

      Which is about as naive a notion as there ever was. Just what in Bob’s name forces Janša to quit public life if president Pahor issues a pardon? A gentleman’s agreement? Between Janša and Pahor? Yes, thought so… Also, a pardon would send a message that despite all the rage that was directed against the political class a year and a half ago, there are still perks which come free of charge if you play the game long enough. A presidential pardon of a high-profile politician would mean sweeping things under the rug. In fact, only if president Pahor stays true to form and does not pardon Janša (formal request to do so had not yet been made), will the people perhaps start believing that we are indeed all equal before the law.

      And as for SDS claim about elections not being free nor fair? Well, this…

      But far more intriguing than yet another attempt to pre-emptively undermine elections are the people who are coming out making the case in Janša’s favour. A plethora or people and organisations who have been trying for years to present themselves as independent, who were obviously astroturf but still shamelessly functioned as sort of think-thanks (or, at least, PR tanks), now rush to Janša’s rescue, each denouncing the judiciary from their own angle but all of them doing so without mercy or intellectual distance. Case in point being Matej Avbelj, the young dean of one of faculties founded during Janša government 1.0. More importantly, this included former Ljubljana archbishop and now Vatican cardinal Franc Rode, giving credence to the theory that the former leadership of Slovenian Catholic Church (since beheaded by pope Francis) was in cahoots with Janša, often at the expense of the more natural political ally of the Church, the ChristDem Nova Slovenija. Whether these are spontaneous cases of trying to please the master or a concerted effort ran from party HQ to shoot down the Patria verdict (after-all, the Supreme Court still has to rule on the issue), it doesn’t really matter.

      Although his prison sentence is relatively mild (Igor Bavčar, for example, got seven), Janša out of the picture does mean great things are afoot. While the left remains in ruins and will probably be ruined some more on 13 July, the real development will be ob the right. Whoever takes over as interim leader of the SDS, will be forced to make decisions in an environment that is rapidly changing on account of Janša not being there. The SLS and NSi are growing a spine, the new party of Miro Cerar seems to be the electorate’s darling at the moment and the voters who tolerated Janša’s escapades will probably be much less keen on a person imitating Janša’s style of leadership. Doubly so if the SDS were to win the elections and appoint the PN (pengovsky still sees Romana Tomc as being earmarked for the job).

      Janez Janša got transferred to a minimum security facility today. This means that he can again use modern means of communications, probably trying to run the Party from within prison. This will probably not work. Not on the operational level, at least. Sure, he might install someone he trusts to simply stick to his agenda and not have any ideas. But the last guy to try something like that in Slovenia saw his party split down the middle.

      Archive Referendum Results: Nothing To Be Happy About, Regardless

      A few takeaways on yesterday’s archive referendum results. The turnout was a dismal 11.68 percent, with 67.32% against and 32.68% in favor of the new archive law. Since the quorum of 20% of all eligible voters against the law was not reached, the law stands as passed by the parliament.

      20140609_blog_arhivi
      Referendum results (source: dvk-rs.si, graphics via ChartGo)

      Now, the response of the petitioning party (that be Janez Janša‘s SDS) was pathetically predictable: that at least they won “a moral victory“. That the “forces of UDBa are still at work”. That the people don’t appreciate the referendum as they should (clearly a case of pot calling the kettle black).

      On the other hand, the government hailed “a referendum victory” with minister Uroš Grilc adding that Slovenia finally has a modern archive legislation. Incidentally, the last law to have survived voters’ scrutiny (albeit under the old rules) was 2005 referendum on the law on state radio and television RTVSLO. And that law, too, fell under the purview of Ministry of culture. Just so you know 😉

      Now, while the bit about a modern piece of legislation might very well be true, everything else is pure bullshit-meter-breaking material. This is not a victory for the government. It is, at best, a defeat avoided. The feeling of “victory” is relative only to the ginormous foot the Party had just inserted in its own mouth. Namely, the SDS supported changes to the referendum legislation, instituting the “quorum against” which now worked heavily against them.

      Bonus points in the fuckwit category go for Milan Zver MEP who tweeted that two-thirds of Slovenians slapped the government in the face (this by extension meaning that only people who cast their vote on Sunday are true Slovenians). That the turnout on a referendum they campaigned heavily for is comparable to the 2008 fiasco with referendums on regions only adds insult to injury. As does the fact that back then Janez Janša claimed victory as well.

      But the biggest loser here are the people. Not because the law is now enacted (that, at least, is good) but because the SDS continues, even with the “new and improved” referendum restrictions, to abuse what is left of this crucial institute of direct democracy. This was the pattern for the better part of the past two decades and due to no small fault of the Party the word “referendum” is now tarnished beyond repair.

      Under the new rules it is almost impossible for a group of concerned citizens or an NGO to challenge a piece of legislation unless they have access to a well-developed political party network which (by definition) makes them more of an astroturf group rather than a grass-roots movement. With continued abuse, the “almost impossible” will without a doubt become simply “impossible”, as ignoring referendum votes will become not only acceptable, but indeed desirable. The ultimate goal of making voters indifferent to public matters is thus well within reach. Case in point being the general approval the people met with the new referendum rules.

      Citizens’ oversight is a scarce commodity as it is. Abuse of referendum legislation, such as witnessed Sunday last, only depletes it further. Pretty soon, there will be none left.

      The Red Herring Of The Archive Referendum

      Igor Lukšič, the deposed leader of the Social Democrats, used to begin his political science class semesters by stating that “form is content”. While that may be true to an extent (and it certainly is true in case of President Borut Pahor, in large part a political product of Lukšič’s), there comes a time when form and content are both radically different and equally intriguing. Case in point being the “Archive referendum”, to be held this Sunday.

      20140529_mk_pizama01
      A Twitter exchange over archives’ redaction between Boštjan Gorenc Pižama and Ministry of Culture. Summed it up pretty nicely.

      A referendum, I hear you ask? But didn’t we just go to the polls, voting for godknowswhom in godknowwhat capacity? Well, 24 percent of us did. And it was called the EU elections, silly. But this time, the game is a wee bit different. You see, the outgoing administration of Alenka Bratušek passed a new law governing safekeeping and access to state archives. The existing law, passed in 2006 by the Janša 1.0 administration was amended and expanded on by Ministry of culture headed by Uroš Grilc, which caused the SDS to go apeshit and muster 40.000 signatures required to hold a referendum, claiming the new law prevents access to archives of UDBa, Yugoslav communist secret police. Which, as far as The Party is concerned, only goes to show that communists still run this country, that Milan Kučan is behind all of it and that you should vote SDS in the next parliamentary elections, to be held a month from now. But first, the form.

      Quorum against

      The referendum this Sunday will be the first held under the new rules. In the old days a referendum was called when the petitioner first collected 2k signatures to initiate referendum proceedings in the first place. Clearing this hurdle, they needed 40k verified signatures (i.e. your signatures on a special form, verified by a clerk) to force the parliament to call a referendum on the issue. This was, arguably, the biggest obstacle. And when the actual vote came on, a simple majority was needed to either confirm or overturn the law in question. And with referendum turnout percentage traditionally being in the low thirties, this regularly brought about situations where fewer than 20% of the electorate got to decide a publicly relevant issue.

      But now, the tables have turned. As of recent, petitioners must collect 40k verified signatures to begin with, while the referendum itself is subject to “quorum against”, meaning that to overturn a law passed by the parliament must see a) majority of all votes cast is against the law, provided that b) all votes cast against represent at least twenty percent of all eligible voters. Which, admittedly, sets the bar wee bit higher than before. Assuming a vote split down the middle, around forty percent turnout is needed to give the petitioners against the law a fighting chance. For example, the turnout at the 2012 presidential elections was just north of forty percent.

      Point being, that unlike before, when it was oftentimes enough to merely call a referendum to derail a political process (and if the vote went your way, well, hip, hip, hooray and jolly good!), today the emphasis is much more on bringing out the vote. Which brings us from form to the content.

      The content

      It seems that the crux of the matter are amendments of article 65 of the law which – according to the SDS, the petitioning party – allows for indiscriminate redaction of sensitive material, supposedly creating conditions for the government and the archive personnel (both of which are communist-controlled, obviously) to redact and remove any and all information which could shed light on UDBa and general communist mischief, the apex of which was, is and forever will be Milan Kučan. The ministry of culture, however, says that no such thing will be possible. Quite au contraire, they say, the new law prevents mishandling of the archives, allows for a broader access to more archives and only allows for redaction of personal circumstances, i.e. sexual preferences, religious beliefs, medical conditions and so on.

      The SDS, whose vitriolic anti-communism is the glue that keeps this party together (and is especially strong with members who were ardent Commies right up to the end of Socialism) is of course milking this one for all it is worth and then some. Namely, if they are correct and the government is planning to shut down access to archives, it means no more playing around with the Xerox machine. And if they are wrong and the ministry of culture is correct and the new law means broader access to archives, well, the SDS gets fucked as well, since their fooling around with the archives will be exposed much more easily. Either way they lose.

      My precious!

      It doesn’t help their case that their point men in this case are two gifted amateurs with little or no formal training in relevant scientific fields. Igor Omerza and Roman Leljak have been trawling the archives for some time now and churning out massive amounts of copy most of which was immediately picked up by the SDS. Case in point being disappearance of one Stjepan Crnogorac, a Croatian national who was allegedly kidnapped and killed by Slovenian SDV. The thing is that most of what Omerza (former Ljubljana deputy mayor) and Leljak (former Yugoslav Army intelligence officer who later did time for fraud) come up with is not independently verifiable. And when you find out that the Daring Duo has an unlimited pass to see the un-redacted archive originals and will continue to enjoy this privilege even if and when the law is passed it makes you wonder if what we’re seeing here is not some kind of jealous protection of “the ring”

      Red herring

      But there are other levels at which this law simply doesn’t work for the petitioners and they’ve nothing to do with existing UDBa archives. Namely, the keen eye of the Good Doctor spotted a teeny-tiny little detail called “Article 50a” which – in a nutshell – states that selected archive material of parliamentary political parties is to be treated as a “privately owned archive”. Translation: political party archives fall under the purview of the new law, can not be messed with at will and must be granted access to under certain conditions.

      Now, what if what we’re voting on Sunday is not really about UDBa archives being open or closed but rather a knee-jerk reaction of at least one political party to possibility of other people having a peek at their archives. It would not be the first time a red herring would have been employed in such a manner. Namely, in 2005, Janša 1.0 administration passed a new law on media which – among other things – provided for an extensive “right to reply”. Editors and journalists went apeshit, the left-wing opposition was screaming bloody murder but while half of the country was claiming government interference with the media, another and much more fundamental provision was overlooked: the new law dropped the provision banning ownership concentration of media. But since everyone was up in arms over a principle (one which ultimately didn’t matter a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys as editors often simply ignored claims to right of reply), a massive change or rules took place under the radar.

      Which is what we’re looking at here, in pengovsky’s opinion. The real fight is over the unmentionable. The SDS obviously will never admit it has a problem with granting access to its archives after clamoring for a free-for-all on state archives. The government, on the other hand, will never admit it has any interest in papers of any political party. Although granting access to their archives should be a given since parties are mostly funded by taxpayers’ money.

      Or are they? 👿

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        EU Elections: Left Man Standing

        Two years ago, shortly after clinching the leadership of the Social Democrats, Igor Lukšič observed, administrative core of the party notwithstanding, most of the party’s elected leadership are just gifted amateurs, people who have day jobs and dabble in politics a bit on the side. Today, following a rout at yesterday’s EU elections he was forced to submit his resignation to those very same gifted amateurs, putting an abrupt end to his ambitions of a higher office and maybe even his political career as such.

        20140526_luksiczidan_sarkic
        Outgoing SD leader Igor Lukšič and his politburo-sanctioned replacement Dejan Židan (photo: Denis Sarkić)

        But Lukšič was by far not the only victim of yesterday’s rout at the polls. In fact, the entire political left was beaten to a pulp, falling victim to in-fighting, clashes of egos, cross-party divisions, past grudges, lack of a meaningful agenda and an utterly uninspiring campaign. The other two high-profile victims were Gregor Virant, who quit as DL chief on election night and Pavle Gantar who threw in the towel as leader of Zares earlier today. Their parties scored 1.1 and 0.9 percent respectively. Adding to this the meager results of Positive Slovenia (6.6), soon-to-be-ex MEP Jelko Kacin (4.8) and Solidarnost (1.6) it becomes plainly obvious the voters opened a big can of whoop-ass on the political left.

        Can of whoop-ass

        Sure, not everybody is unhappy. Igor Šoltes has yet to form a party, yet he won himself an MEP spot with his 8-member candidate list. Ivo Vajgl, who switched allegiance from Zares to DeSUS surprised a lot of people by winning another term (especially after he fucked up royally during the last debate, forgetting he was with DeSUS and said he was a Zares candidate). The United Left (think Syriza Light) won an impressive 5.4 percent with their “democratic socialism” platform. Still 2.6 percent below the threshold, but a fair achievement in its own right. And, last but not least, the Social Democrats did win a single seat in the European Parliament. It’s just that it wasn’t leader of the list Lukšič who got elected but rather Tanja Fajon, who thus gets another go at the MEP job, courtesy of preferential votes, where she scored better than Lukšič.

        Now, although Virant and Gantar quitting more or less means their parties are now clinically dead which in turn means the political centre is in ever worse shape than it was a year ago, the real story are, obviously, Social Democrats. They entered this election round with two MEPs and looked to repeating the result (at the very least). They tried to sell Slovenia as a swing-state in the pan-EU battle between conservative EPP and socialist PES, leaning heavily on Martin Schultz as PES candidate for President of the European Commission and trying to rally the troops with the cry of “Europe will either be red or disintegrate”. Little good it did for them.

        From Slovenia with love

        Although EPP and PES results are fairly close, Slovenia was in nowhere near becoming the “kingmaker country”. And although there was a lot of love for Schultz on SD part, the feeling apparently wasn’t all that mutual. Not only that. Lukšič seemed to have angered a lot of people within the party by muscling his way on top of the candidate list. Moreover, the run-up to elections which coincided with disintegration of the Bratušek administration and emergence of new parties, saw Lukšič playing hardball politically and turning to cynicism in media-wise. Neither won him any friends, neither with his (potential) political allies nor with the electorate.

        Which is why Dejan Židan, the person groomed to replace Lukšič sooner or later as head of the SD, was slowly being pushed from the edge of the frame more towards the centre, finally taking over today, after he spent most of Sunday night denying he had any ambition whatsoever to lead the party. And since one is not to believe anything until it has been denied at least twice, it took Židan a bit longer to become the party regent, so to speak. It was all done in a manner of a good old-fashioned “politburo putsch” where the senior party figures conspire against their president and have him unceremoniously replaced. Predictably, Židan said he “realizes the daunting task ahead of him” and “recognizes the future of the left lies in cooperation”. Translation: “I fucking made it!”.

        Offtopic: it is possible there will be more to this story than just a change at the helm. Apparently, schemes are aplenty within the SD as a lot of people are looking to replace a lot of other people, both on political as well as administrative party positions.

        Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

        Anyways, the fun starts now. SD is about to perform an about-face vis-a-vis left-wing cooperation. Which is about a day late and a dollar short. Had they done so while the public opinion polls had them neck-and-neck with the SDS, they might have even been able to dictate terms. But as things stand now, either Igor Šoltes or PM Alenka Bratušek are best positioned to try to create some sort of momentum. With all the caveats, of course. But before that happens, the left has some serious thinking to do, mostly on what it actually stands for.

        In the last couple of years we’ve witnessed a long series of knee-jerk reactions, ad-hoc political platforms which were either a patchwork of often mutually exclusive ideas, too far out progressive to register with the voters or the usual buzz-word-heavy crap. Often all of the above at the same time. And if snap elections are indeed to be held in July, time to think just ran out.

        While we’re on the issue, pengovsky wouldn’t be surprised if the parliamentary parties which got their asses kicked on Sunday were suddenly to find a July election date “incovenient and not in the voters’ best interests”.

        But despite the left-wing rout, in pengovsky’s opinion, too little had changed. Of eight Slovenian MEPs, half got re-elected. Alongside old hands Fajon and Vajgl and newcomer Šoltes, Milan Zver of SDS and Lojze Peterle of NSi+SLS get to see the inside of the European Parliament for another five years. Joining them are leader of the SLS Franc Bogovič (for NSi+SLS) with Romana Tomc and Patricija Šulin for the SDS. And while EP veterans are expected to stay put, at least three out of four newcomers are suspected to return to national politics as soon as possible. Šoltes and Bogovič will most likely run in the parliamentary elections as well, while Romana Tomc looks ever more like she is tapped to replace Janša after he starts serving his prison sentence and become the SDS nominee for PM if the party wins that vote (as everyone expects it to).

        Thus the pace of political change, which right now needs to border on revolutionary (in terms of speed, not necessarily in terms of content), will probably be sluggish at best.

        Third-lowest turnout

        Which is probably one of the reasons only 24 percent of the voters bothered to shop up and vote. Only a handful of candidates appeared to have their hearts really in it. Others saw these elections as a trial run before the real (parliamentary) thing. And even those candidates and parties who did take the whole thing seriously, managed to make a lukewarm mess of it. Which is why the turnout more or less matched your average referendum turnout in Slovenia. More or less only political diehards voted. People who’d have cast their vote even in a referendum on the height of grass on the Stožice football pitch. Like yours truly. The other big reason for the third-lowest turnout in all of EU being the general disgust with politics, of course

        20140526_udeležba
        Votes not cast vs. votes cast for specific parties (via FB)

        Anyhoo, the right-wing won this one fair and square. As for the left, it will be the last man (or woman) standing who gets to pick up the pieces and try to start from scratch. But before we get there, more heads will roll.

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