Author: pengovsky

For the past week or so, Slovenia has been blanketed by ice. A cold snap combined with heavy snowfall followed by nearly constant rainfall provided ideal conditions for an ice storm that defies anything within living memory. Trees feel, power lines had snapped and as much as a quarter of population were left without electricity at the peak of the storm, with blackout lasting for almost a week in some parts of the country.

The Glorious Leader cutting up firewood (source)

Transport was severely limited with motorways closed and rail services suspended, while electronic communications were disrupted occasionally. An engineer was killed while his crew were repairing a powerline in the Pohorje area near Maribor. In short, the country was plunged into a mini ice age for a couple of days, with first responders and the army doing an amazing job of protecting lives and property as well as restoring services. Special shoutout goes to the scouts (taborniki) of Postojna, one of the areas hit he hardest, who organised an emergency centre (aka hotspot) after the municipality administration failed to do so for a number of days, to dismay of many.

…meanwhile, on Planet Right…

But, as if existing in a parallel universe, an ice age of different sorts hit the Slovenian political right. For about a decade and a half, the right-wing food-chain was firmly established with Janez Janša on top, his SDS immediately below him and the SLS and the NSi competing for the role of monkey-boy. Usually, it was SLS which every now and then showed cojones and common sense, occasionally departing from the Janša line, but they always paid a price down the road. NSi, on the other hand, were the faithful bag-runners, asking “how high” whenever JJ said “jump”. Well, guess what…

That the NSi was growing a spine, did not go unnoticed by pengovsky. But this time around, the bets are apparently off as the quarrel is getting out of control, to the point of both parties claiming support from the members of the other party. The apparent casus belli was new law on archives proposed by the government and – gasp! – supported by Nova Slovenija. The thing is that ever since it got caught red-handed with “creative copying” of archive material, Janša’s party has been using a couple of pawns doing their dirty work for them. This meant that people such as Igor Omerza and Roman Leljak, self-proclaimed “history aficionados” who seem to busy themselves mostly with activities of UDBa, the former socialist secret police.

Blast from the past

A curious note: In 1988, when Janez Janša was in army prison during JBTZ trial, one Roman Leljak, officer of the Yugoslav Army Intelligence approached the Committee for Protection of Human Rights which wanted to see the four prisoners set free and offered to feed them inside info on the federal army. His contacts were Igor Bavčar (head od the committee) and – you guessed it – Igor Omerza. The two later decided Leljak couldn’t be trusted and severed contacts. Leljak went on to set up a magazine and run it into the ground and was later charged with and sentenced for fraud in two separate cases. But hey, I’m sure Igor Omerza today thinks highly of his fellow archive-gopher.

OMG, they’re EVERYWHERE!!!

Anyways, this UDBa theme was lately blatantly used to Janša’s political ends, as “exposing” became the leitmotif of his party’s politics, lately trying – via a parliamentary committee ran by SDS very own Eva Irgl –  to implicate former president Milan Kučan (after it had failed to implicate former president Danilo Türk years ago), suggesting he knew about the illegal activities of the secret service which had – according to Leljak – killed a member of Croatian Diaspora in Austria, one Stjepan Crnogorac. And while it was all a headline-grabbing, media-space-invading blitz, it soon transpired that Leljak’s was only a ploy for the SDS to assert that UDBa is in fact still running the country. As per latest blogpost by former interior (inferior?) minister and now MP for SDS Vinko Gorenak (Google translate here) who calculated that as many as thirty-seven (!) MPs siting in the parliament from 1992 onwards were UDBa agents or informants.

A quick round of maths: 90 seats in the parliament with six parliaments called until now, makes for 360 seats. According to Gorenak’s number, this would mean slightly more than 10 percent of all Slovenian MPs were/are somehow connected to UDBa. There is no indication as to how Gorenak arrived at this number. He tweeted that he had used old udba.net files, an alleged printout of UDBa database where a large portion of the population was identified by name and tagged either as an asset (operative, source), target or “not of interest”. Now, Gorenak used to be a high-ranking police officer in socialist times so he should know a thing or two about Yugoslav security services. Having held his Communist Party membership until the latter’s dying breath makes him doubly qualifies for this. Even more: having done name-by-name analysis, he could have very well told us which party has or had the most UDBa connected MPs. But he doesn’t. Something tells pengovsky not all “hits” would come from the political left.

But still, the former “member of a security apparatus of a totalitarian regime” manages to botch the whole thing up. Namely, the udba.net database was incomplete and at least partly forged. Not unlike the SDS’ “report” on president Danilo Türk, come to think of it. Anyways, point is, Gorenak is making up things as he goes, using compromised sources as he does it.

Running on empty

But it’s not really about the truth. It never was. The shenanigans are meant mostly to cover up the fact Janša is losing his mojo and is primarily concerned with his staying out of prison rather than plot his return to power. And although the not-guilty verdict for Patria officials in Finland gave Janša some breathing room (the collective orgasm of the political right upon the verdict was a sight to see), it is the Slovenian court which sentenced him to two years in prison. Janša appealed the verdict. Point is, SDS is running on empty idea-wise and in such a situation it is always cheaper and more immediately pleasing to send someone to dig through the archives and when the state wants to regulate usage of archive material (like anonimisation and pre-checking for sensitive content), to raise hell and declare anyone who doesn’t agree with you as UDBa collaborator.

Which is what more or less happened to NSi. They are now painted as turn-coats, collaborators with the communist regime, accessories to murder, even. All because they supported a government law which sets down some basic rules on arhive usage (where a free-for-all reigned before that). Now, the Christian-democratic NSi may be a great many things. And although pengovsky considers them a “natural” element of the political arena, their key positions are about as agreable as a three-day-old egg sandwich. But collaborators with the socialist regime, they are not. And yet, their move made Janša start the procedure to hold a referendum on the issue.

Call me a referendum

That’s right. Should Janša and his SDS collect 40.000 signatures, a referendum on this law must be held. All because Janez Janša doesn’t have the foggiest about what to do politically. He’s in a tight spot: he no longer runs the entire right-wing bloc, but can not afford to admit it because this would undermine his position within the party as well. Not to mention his standing with partner parties in the European People’s party. I mean, seeing PM Bratušek hit it off with Kanzlerin Merkel must have been hard enough for Janša. Now imagine Angie hooking up with Ljudmila Novak of the NSi?! With both their parties being of christian-democratic denomination, this is a viable option and Janša’s worst nightmare. Especially now, three months before European Elections.

And this is the second part of the equation. If all goes according to plan, the referendum would be held on the European election day, 25 May. This, the SDS argument goes, would mean a higher turnout of the Party faithful on the archive issue which would translate into a better result (possibly victory) in the European Elections. On a purely mechanical level, there is some merit in this line of thinking. But it also shows that neither Janša nor the SDS give a rat’s ass about UDBa or the archives unless it promotes their purely political agenda.

From SDS’s point of view the NSi was problematic in the EU elections since forever, because they always punched above their weight. But ever since the top of the Roman Catholic Church was beheaded by the Vatican (courtesy of the 800+ million gaping hole in Church’s finances plus other beauties), the SDS is no longer the party of choice for the largest religious institution in Slovenia. The latter is, apparently, now re-focusing on a more natural, albeit weaker political appendage.

Enter the SLS

Nor has the SLS remained at the sidelines. They’ve initiated a bid to derail the real-estate tax, an instrument the Bratušek administration forced down the parliament’s throat amid great pains in order to close the 2014 budget. But since the SLS is mostly farmer- and suburbia/rural oriented, where relatively large dwellings and swaths of land are not uncommon, the party has a clearly vested interest in this tax never becoming enacted. And it looks as if they will be successful in this sad enterprise (financial stability of the country be damned). But that’s a story for another time. Point is the SDS had to play catch-up and tried to hijack the anti-real-estate tax platform from the SLS. Unsuccessfully.

Which is why it came as no surprise that NSi and SLS were/are pondering a united list of candidates in the EU elections. Should idea bear fruit (which is by no means a given), a lovely irony would have taken place, since Janez Janša lobbied very hard for ChristDem SKD (precursor to NSi) and SLS be unified into a single party, only to see SLS+SKD break ranks over election system in 2000, causing a split in the newly unified party and finally, formation of NSi by several prominent SKD members including Lojze Peterle and the late Andrej Bajuk (both PMs some point). The relationship between NSi and SLS has been uneasy ever since, but it appears enough water had flown under the bridge for two parties to make at least some sort of amends. And Janša seems unable to stop that. Which is telling enough.

As a result, his options are dwindling fast and he seems to be down to re-visiting his glory days, with ever fresh interpretations of the events leading up to independence, engaging in anti-communists witch-hunts (neglecting the fact that his own party is teeming with ex-Commies), playing spy-games with dead people, accusing everyone else of being UDBa collaborator, even head of SLS Franci Bogovič, which is downright preposterous, restarting a bid to change (lengthen) the national anthem and – a classic – calling a referendum.

Fighting dead things

During the ice-storm, Janša was apparently confined to his “official residence” in Velenje. There he had a picture taken of himself, being all manly, cutting up a fallen tree with a chainsaw. The caption read “fighting the nature, cut away from the rest of the world”. Which may or may not have been an intended over-exaggeration, but the symbolism is telling.

The nominal leader of the opposition cutting up a dead tree and calling it “a fight”. This is what he’s come to.

These days one doesn’t really have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Slovenian parties are gearing up for various elections coming up in the next two years. And even if it weren’t for that, there’s been enough movement in the political arena for the established political players (i.e. the parliamentary parties) to start twitching nervously while snapping left and right.

Slovenian politics increasingly becoming like a family comedy (source)

Case in point being leader of the Social Democrats Igor Lukšič, who earlier in the week succeeded in derailing the bid of former Court of Audit chief Igor Šoltes to take over of minister of health. Now, under normal circumstances, Šoltes would have had Lukšič at “Hello!”, so to speak. But fact of the matter is that after announcing he will not seek another nine-year term at the Court of Audit, Šoltes was tipped to launch a new centre-left party. He said so himself in a short interview last summer. However, precious little has happened since. Šoltes had formed an association called Verjamem (I Believe), believed to be precursor to the party, but apparently he has some way to go before he actually forms a new political player.

Igor “Our Hands Are Clean” Lukšič

However, the prospect of a future leader of a miniscule party was enough to send Igor Lukšič to the barricades, calling the idea inappropriate, illogical and unhygienic. He flat-out accused Šoltes of attempting to promote himself via the ministerial post. In this he went head-to-head with the rest of the coalition which supported Šoltes’ bid and expected PM Bratušek to nominate him formally. This even included DeSUS which technically has the portfolio within its quota. But Lukšič would have none of it and when asked to comment on Gregor Virant‘s endorsement of Šoltes, Lukšič replied into the camera to “never mind Virant”. Which is a bit arrogant, considering Virant is interior minister, while Lukšič (albeit as a personal choice) is not a member of the Bratušek cabinet.

However, the real Top-Gun moment came Monday last when Lukšič was responding to allegations of misuse of public funds. Namely, he’s embroiled in a bit of controversy over allegedly rigging a public tender for a 1.4 million euro grant on civic education. Which may or may not be true, after all, pengovsky is told at least half of the accusations against him in an unsigned document are based on forged document. But the point is Lukšič went on the record saying SD’s “hands are clean”. Which is quite a ballsy statement coming from president of a party which bent over backwards to see the TEŠ6 Šoštanj coal power plant move forward despite warnings it will not be profitable. Warnings which are now becoming a reality.

Indeed Lukšič flashed the pair of rhetorical cojones he grew in the past few weeks more than once these days. Only a day later he took a broad swipe at everything that is left-wing and not part of the government. Specifically, this meant brow-beating their former coalition partners Zares (since ousted from the parliament), fringe-left TRS, newly formed party Solidarnost and Šoltes’ Verjamem, all in a single sentence, saying he believes “new parties will form some sort of Really Believe in Solidarty coalition, picking up a Sugar-cane worth of votes“, thus using names of the four parties in a cleverly abusive way.

Slightly off topic: it is somewhat ironic that SocDems, a party which claims political heritage of Edvard Kardelj should undermine political ambitions of Kaderlj’s grandson (that be Šoltes), but there you go 😉

Now, regardless of Lukšič’s derogatory rhetoric becoming uncomfortably similar to that of Janez Janša, there is an underlying sense of uneasiness with the SD leader. Namely, after going hard against Borut Pahor as party leader after the latter saw SD routed in the 2011 parliamentary elections, the two became remarkably amicable soon thereafter, fueling speculations Lukšič was in fact nothing more than an interim president with current minister of agriculture Dejan Židan waiting in the wings. And in this respect, the recent allegations against Lukšič may very well be a precursor to a leadership challenge.

Given the ratings SD enjoys lately, leading the public opinion polls for almost a year, such a challenge would have been next to impossible. But recently, the trend is becoming a bit less obvious and possibility of one or more new left-wing players (or old ones re-entering the match) is apparently making the SD nervous. Namely, it is more than obvious that SD is becoming a “refugee party”, with disappointed left-wing voters opting for them in absence of any meaningful alternative. But with alternatives appearing, SD as the “rational choice” is becoming less and less obvious. This, of course, does not mean SD will lose it’s alpha-party status on the left-wing. Not yet. But new parties just might chip off enough votes to preventg Igor Lukšič from achieving what he no doubt thinks is within his reach: becoming prime minister.

“I DON’T CARE, WE’LL TAKE ANYTHING!!!”

But if Lukšič and SD are panicking due to too many possible alternatives, Positive Slovenia is going all Homer Simpson over the lack of them. Namely, the lack of policy alternatives. As most of their painstakingly put together platform went right out the window with an all-out effort to avoid the (banking) bailout, the party is struggling to find firm footing, which is why they probably floated the idea od “researching the possibility of implementing universal basic income”.

Now, UBI is a radically different concept of welfare state, an overall noble idea and – strangely so – best of both socialist and neoliberal worlds. But this can not be done overnight. Probably not even in a year. But PS made an off-hand remark about how UBI should be included in the new coalition agreement as if they were talking about an insignificant little benefit. Which probably did more harm than good as everybody and his brother went ape-shit over the idea, even the wannabe neolibs who – if they were to remain true to their Friedmanesque ideas – should be all over the idea like Jeena Jameson over Peter North’s dick. Not to mention the left-wing which would rather see the welfare state of mid-70s suffer a death by a thousand cuts rather than accept the fact that an entire generation of young precariat is forming before their very noses and do something about it. As a direct result the UBI initiative is about as attractive to the general public as a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys, all thanks to PS’ frantic search for something to stand for. Sort of.

Truth be told, it seemed for a moment they were going to stand for a strict re-examination of the TEŠ6 project, but that went out the window quickly enough. So not only the SD maintains “their hands are clean”, the coalition (in this case in cahoots with most of the opposition) agrees the project is bad but will carry on with it nevertheless.

Moving on to the parliamentarian centre, Citizens’ List (DL) – rather, what’s left of it – is in a mild state of panic ever since the party tore itself down the seam and basically exists only as a figment of political imagination, barely registering in the polls. Which is probably why Gregor Virant has an opinion on every issue, sometimes even more than one. Is. Not. Helping.

Fight on the right (to party)

But if the left-wing is contemplating panic, the right-wing is moving from panic to hysteria. Well, not entirely, NSi, for example, hit the ground running and is doing the pre-EU-election legwork already. It seems that Lojze Peterle, their main man in Brussels is out of the picture and they’ve got some catching-up to do. But the Ljudmila Novak – Matej Tonin duo seems to be purring along quite nicely, possibly with Novak heading the party ballot on 25 May when Slovenians are to choose their representatives in Brussels.

The SLS is also showing signs of independence, distancing themselves from the latest political stunt by the SDS, where European People’s Party sort of got Janša’s back. SLS said they will have no truck with this, despite EPP paying lip-service to NSi and SLS as well.

With both junior right-wing parties showing increasing signs of independent cognitive abilities, the SDS is truly starting to become hysterical. The main reason for this being that ever more of their resources are being diverted to “saving private Janša” than creating a meaningful political alternative. As a result, they’re locked in re-living the glorious past, re-enacting the first mustering of Slovenian armed forced (via VSO, a “patriotic society” linked heavily with The Party) and defaming everyone who doesn’t toe the increasingly radical party line.

With a ruling of the Higher Court in the Patria case looming, the crunch-time for Janša is fast approaching. Indeed, it is a matter of political life and death for the illustrious party leader. Should the prison sentence be confirmed, even his EPP companeros might find Janša too hot a potato to handle and bail out on him. Which is why it is imperative he survives. To ensure this, no punches are being pulled.

Journalistic footwear

Case in point being Janša’s statement yesterday (carried by Party’s official Twitter account) that Jože Pučnik (the defeated candidate for first democratically president of Slovenia) in fact got more votes than the official tally showed.

.@JJansaSDS: Mislim, da je dr. Jože Pučnik na volitvah za predsednika predsedstva l. 1990 dobil bistveno več glasov, kot so mu jih našteli.

— SDS (@strankaSDS) January 20, 2014

The implication being that a) Milan Kučan, who won that and two succeeding presidential elections was in fact an impostor, b) the state electoral commission is an untrustworthy body (until now that, at least, was a no-go area of political rhetoric) and, consequentially, c) any future electoral result, unfavourable to the SDS, should be doubted as much as possible. Which is yet another step in Janša’s long-term undertaking of degrading Slovenia to a status of a banana-republic with him as the banana-in-chief. Expect calls for OSCE observers in the forthcoming election cycle. However, Janša’s immediate problems are judicial. The Patria case aside, he is embroiled in a number of smaller cases, not all of which are going well for him. He repeatedly fails to make himself available to be served with court mail (a special procedure in Slovenia, it can not be done Hollywood style over here) and was called out by the press repeatedly on this. But days ago Planet TV ran a piece on how Janša was absent yet again from a court hearing.

Authored by Gordana Stojilković, a journalist of (presumably) Serbian descent, it enraged Janša enough for him to start rapid-fire tweets about “opanke journalism”, with opanke being the traditional Serbian footwear and “Opanković” being the derogatory derivative for mayor Janković on account of his Serbian descent. The implication here being that the whole media coverage was orchestrated by journos and/or media faithful to Janković one way or another. The fact that Janković is in fact Janša’s only ally-of-opportunity in the much larger case of anti-graft report (and their efforts to show they weren’t given a chance to respond, hence the report is illegal) So, what we had here the other day was the leader of the main opposition party going on a nationalistic and xenophobic rant.

In fact, it was like Tomaž Majer all over again. Back then, pengovsky submitted that rather than being Janša’s pseudonim Tomaž Majer was/is a collective identity of like-minded individuals of nationalistic/xenophobic/supremacist/paranoid convictions. And, sure enough, almost instantly after Janša fired off the first tweet under the #opankarskižurnalisem hashtag a brigade of his followers started backing the man up with “evidence” of “opanke journalism”. It was only after the backlash became too strong, Janša started spinning the story, saying it has nothing do with nationality, but rather with unprofessional and unethical journalistic practices.

.#opankarskižurnalizem nima zveze z nacionalnostjo, pač pa z dvojnimi merili, neprofesionalnostjo in lakajstvom F571 http://t.co/y67P3WnTH7

— Janez Janša (@JJansaSDS) January 21, 2014

Which begs the question, what exactly does Serbian folk footwear have to do with it. But I guess that something only an “opanke journalist” would ask anyhow.

Point is the SDS is losing energy battling enemies real and (mostly) imagined, yielding ground to junior right-wing parties and knowing it. But other than an occasional rant in the general direction of NSi and SLS and everyone who appeals for calm and a more centrist approach, there’s little they can do.

No clue what to do next

Which is why at the moment they’re banging the drums of history, making one hell of a ruckus over an old UDBa (socialist secret police) case where allegedly Slovenian UDBa operatives killed a Croatian immigrant in early 70s, first kidnapping him in Austria and then transporting him to Slovenia, then Yugoslavian territory. The thing is that one Roman Leljak, a former Yugoslavian military intelligence operative supposedly uncovered archives claiming this was done with full knowledge of top officials of Slovenian branch of UDBa as well as (and this is the key) with full knowledge of the Slovenian communist leadership which in that time alredy included Janša’s arch-enemy Milan Kučan. Kučan himself denied allegations, citing archive documents and transcripts of Central Committee sessions.

And this is why parliamentary committee on human rights is convening for lengthy sessions these days. It’s not about murders and political executions, as disgraceful as they are. It’s about rallying the party troops and chasing ghosts in the absence of any clue what to do next politically. The only positive side to this for SDS is that time and again the political left falls for the same trick and starts playing ball, entering a shouting match and trying to prove the Party wrong.

It doesn’t matter if the party discipline in the SDS would make the real Communist party of the iron 70s proud. It doesn’t matter that some of the more fervent Communists are now SDS members (its president included). It doesn’t even matter how many times the political left (or any specific parties of that side of political spectrum) denounces activities of the UDBa. SDS will always claim “they haven’t gone far enough” and call that “their burden of historical guilt they’ve yet to deal with”.

But other than that this is just mass-hysteria, a precursor to general panic. Should be fun.

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