pengovsky | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Janković Takes The Plunge, Virant Follows Suit

It is decided. Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković will be running in parliamentary elections on 4 December. What is more, he will be doing so by forming his own party. This is the gist of his announcement yesterday. Janković set an ambitious goal of winning enough votes to clinch a nomination for the prime-ministerial position. While yesterday’s move is sure to redraw the electoral map, the actual impact of Jay-Z going national is yet to be seen.

Mayor Janković under media siege (source: The Firm™)

As of yesterday the industrious mayor of Slovenian capital is on a tight schedule. He needs to set up a party, with which – if all goes according to plan – will be catching deadlines to submit candidate lists, which also have yet to be formed. During this time, Janković must also decide whether or not he will indeed run for a parliamentary seat, as well as establish operation on the ground. Also, he should get cracking on an election platform. His record as mayor of Ljubljana will only get him so far.

Enter Gregor Virant

If Jay-Z was practically under 24/7 media surveillance, nobody saw Gregor Virant entering the race of his own accord. The (apparently former) president of Council for the Republic, a right-wing think-tank and Minister of Public Administration during Janez Janša‘s 2004-2008 government was at the outer edge or media interest lately. He did stir the pot a bit after he said that Janša’s goal of winning 50+ percent would be bad for democracy in this country, but everyone assumed that he had received a good dressing-down and he seemed to have toed the line ever since.

Gregor Virant, unnoticed in his outflanking manoeuvre (source: RTVSLO)

Which is why information of his entering the race was a bombshell. Pengovsky was all like 😯 because it seemed until Monday that the only thing that stood between Janez Janša and his complete and utter domination of the ~~dark~~ right side was a good showing on part of Radovan Žerjav and his Slovene People’s Party (SLS) which – wisely – decided to go solo and published their platform on Friday.

24 hrs after the initial shock, when they were able to come up only with “we’re unpleasantly surprised”, the SDS reacted with great vengeance and furious anger. In a formal statement, the party wrote that “Virant was sneakily forming his [candidate] list using SDS know-how and infrastructure, thus acting indecently. We deplore this and state that Slovenia will not solve its social, economic and moral crisis with sneaky actions, no matter how much shiny the rhetoric and non-partisan the appearances“.

They also point out that Virant is cousin of Jankovič’s wife and that Janša confronted Virant as late as end of September with rumours of him going solo, but the latter denied any such innuendo and even participated in a session of SDS Council on preparations for elections. SDS is basically crying treason and saying that the whole Janković-Virant thing is a set-up, possibly concocted by (naturally) Milan Kučan.

I’d be pissed too, if I were in their shoes right now 😀

Is it all just a scam?

With this being SDS and Janez Janša (of whom it was once written that he lives in a Ludlum-like world) one immediately thinks of the possibility of Virant and Janša… well… faking it. Fact of the matter is that SDS is not scoring nearly enough in the public opinion polls if it is to achieve its stated goal of 50, nay, 60+ percent. So, Virant could be just a ploy, to appeal to more moderate voters.

The former minister is appealing to the moderate right and he can fill in the obvious blank Janša is leaving behind. But he will also eat into SDS voters and the amount of venom the SDS spewed in Virant’s general direction suggests that this indeed is the real deal and not some sort of a double play. This is further supported by the anti-family-code astroturf initiative of Aleš Primc, which within hours released a statement denouncing Virant (and Janković) for accepting the compromise solution on gay adoption provided by the code.

The left clapping hands carefully

On the other hand, parties of the political left are cautiously welcoming both Janković and Virant into the game. Like Virant, Janković is also poised to eat into their electorate, but they are obviously counting on increased turnout, mostly by those voters which have voted for either of the three left-wing parties but have been disillusioned one way or another. The party which stands to lose most under this scenario are the (still somehow) ruling Social Democrats of Borut Pahor which are in danger of having to cede the leading position on the left to the newcomer from the Ljubljana City Hall. Their noticeable lack of enthusiasm is therefore understandable.

On the other hand the LDS of Katarina Kresal and Zares of Gregor Golobič tried a more cheerful approach, with the latter being especially perky when stating that what we are seeing today is a continuation of a trend of political innovation which was started and maintained only by Zares. While he may have stretched it a bit, he does have a point, especially when one considers their election platform which is a marked departure from the neoliberal rhetoric prevalent in Slovenia. Katarina Kresal, on the other hand went along the usual “more options are good for democracy” tune. Cliché, to be sure, but good enough.

Throwing the game wide open

What we saw in the past few days in Slovenia was a major shift in the political arena. Gregor Golobič is right in saying that the situation we have today was unthinkable months, even weeks ago. But just how fundamental a redrawing of the political map has indeed happened remains to be seen. Virtually all the public opinion polls that were published in the last couple of weeks can be thrown right out the window. Including the one published today and conducted by the Faculty for Applicative Social Studies which is thought to be closer to the right (not to be confused with the generally left-leaning Faculty for Social Sciences) and which – surprisingly – puts Janez Janša’s SDS at a mere 16,5 percent approval ratings.

One thing is certain, though. The 4 December elections were just thrown wide open. Anything can happen between now and then and as things stand now SDS were the only ones caught wrong-footed. They’ll probably bounce back, but after spending most of the three years undermining anything and everything the left did and preparing the terrain for a takeover of power, Janša’s SDS just got the rug pulled from under their feet.

Jay-Z And 99 Problems

For the umpteenth time, Slovene media is rife with speculation whether Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković will enter the electoral race and run against Janez Janša for the position of Prime Minister. More than one media outlet quoted “reliable sources” saying that mayor Janković is being pressed by behind-the-scenes power brokers to go head-to-head against Janša in what is being described as a last-ditch attempt to prevent the victory of SDS and its leader. Those same outlets go on to report that Janković is still considering his move and is having pollsters survey the terrain before making a final call on the issue. The general interpretation is that if Janković were to run for PM, he’d unite the parties of the political left just enough to present a viable alternative to Janša who at this time looks poised to win the elections and that – the argument goes – is the political left’s last, best chance of survival. There’s only one problem – it’s all bollocks.

Zoran Janković thinking long and hard (source: The Firm™)

Well, not the fact that Janković is being coaxed into announcing the PM bid – that is more or less true. What is ultimately flawed is the logic behind it. At the moment, the political left in Slovenia is in tatters, more or less. The general and specific animosity that has built up between leaders on the left as well as between rank-and-file party members of leftist parties all but precludes any sort of meaningful cooperation between them. There’s simply too much bad blood. If Zoran Janković were to enter the race, he’d have to mend the fences on the left first. One of the many cases in point being the Facebook status of SD‘s secretary general (and by extent the party’s top operative) Uroš Jauševec which said “The dice has been cast… Jay-Z [Janković] is entering the race… to destroy the left”. The digital Slovenia of course went ape-shit within minutes and all of a sudden it seemed as if the industrious mayor of Ljubljana did indeed make the call. Only, he didn’t.

Jay-Z

Janković is, of course, under media siege these days. Journos are following him around, looking for subtle hints and indirect signs that would point one way or the other. Or, to be more precise, they’re operating under the assumption he will enter the race and are hoping to break the story first. But Janković doesn’t do subtle. He readily admits that he is considering running for PM but that he hasn’t come to a decision yet. Even more, he said time and again that he will let all media outlets know at the same time. Which means a press conference (if he chooses to run) or a statement to the press (if he chooses not to). It’s no use chasing the man around town and trying to pick up hints.

In all honesty, the case for Janković entering the parliamentary election race is flimsy at best. OK, so perhaps Janković is the last, best hope to prevent the end of the world which – as those who urge Janković to run – would ensue if Janez Janša came to power once again. Janša’s economic policies left a lot to be desired when he was in power and those which are described in his party’s draft programme are no better (in a nutshell: lowering taxes, curbing public spending and increasing productivity at the same time. It doesn’t compute). If his track record is anything to go by, Janša in power again means a lot of meddling with the media and generally implementing pre-modern concepts of the Homeland. But does that warrant throwing everything the left has… eeer… left into the battle (and that’s not much to being with)? No.

(Ninety-)Nine problems

Janković’s political position is more than cosy. He enjoys an undisputed majority in the Ljubjana City Council and more often than not does what ever the fuck he pleases. This also enables him to pick his own team, something he would most likely want to do if he were to win national elections. Problem is, there’s no such luxury on the national level. If Jay-Z were to run, however, he’d have a plethora of problems to solve. Maybe not exactly ninety-nine problems that the well-known rapper sang about, but still.

First of all, he’d have to have leaders of the left kiss and make up. With seven weeks and counting till elections, the prospect SD, LDS and Zares playing in concert is minute. Furthermore, he has almost no organisational network on the ground. With elections this close, there is no way Janković can mount an effective operation without the support of left-wing parties which – as shown above – are more or less at each other’s throats.

Two, SD, LDS and Zares actually have to want Janković to enter the race. As things stand now, this is not the case. While positions of LDS and Zares are not entirely known (both parties seem on the fence on the issue, with LDS being in marginally better relations with the industrious mayor), SD is going positively bananas over the prospect of Janković going national. Apart from Jauševec’s Facebook status, there are attempts to implicate Janković’s sons into some shady business dealings and by extension smear Janković himself. It seems a no brainer that the leak came from the parliamentary committee investigating real-estate business in Ljubljana (but mostly targeting mayor Janković). But although this is an SDS-run comittee, chaired by Alenka Jeraj MP, the leak most likely came from the left side. The political right would have probably sat on that info until Janković entered the game for real and slammed him with it then. This brings us to problem number…

Three. It is in Janez Janša’s interest that Janković enter the race. The presumptive PM said as much in a recent interview for the Christian radio Ognjišče. And he’s right. Mayor Janković is a pain in the ass for any government. Being ridiculously popular in Ljubljana, he seems practically invincible and is making virtually every political party in the city look like fools (SD and SDS chief among them). If, however, he were to enter the national arena and lose to Janša (which in this case means scoring an unimpressive result that would put him on a par with or even below every other party), his aura of awesome would be very much shaken, possibly to the point of him losing some cool in Ljubljana as well. Which is why the PM presumptive would love nothing more than to beat the shit out of the biggest political problem he had during his 2004-2008 term.

Four, the polls. Public opinion polls do in fact put Janković on the map, but he is way behind Janez Janša, while his (presumptive) candidate list gets between one and nine precent (yes, it’s a huge margin, but remember, it’s still early in the game). But to have any kind of fighting chance of winning the nomination, Jay-Z and his candidate list would have to be scoring at least in the low 20s. They’re nowhere near that number which means that there’s a shitload of work to be done. And even if all of the above is achieved (uniting the left, establishing the network and closing the gap in the polls), Janković would still only be where Janez Janša and his SDS already are today.

Five. The electoral system is a major factor in the final result of the national elections. Eight voting units, each with eleven voting precincts and a combination of Hare quota and Droop quota can really take it out on a man. Unlike local elections, where (especially in Ljubljana) every party runs with one candidate list and then wins a proportional number of seats in the local council, national elections require a party to submit a different list for every voting unit and have candidates from the list run in different precincts. In fact it is even a bit more complicated than that, but the bottom line is that Zoran Janković can not head every list in every unit. And finally, the distribution of votes is almost as important as the actual result and while generally fair, the system can play a role, especially if there is no clear-cut victor.

Six. While not willing to rule out running for PM, Janković has categorically ruled out serving as Member of Parliament. Now, technically it is not necessary for a PM nominee to be elected as MP first, but this usually is the case, because it is considered as a kind of commitment by a party leader (or a politician in general) to his voters. If he were to run on a ticket, Janković would most likely get elected as MP. But in order to clinch a nomination for Prime Minister, his candidate list would have to win enough seats in the parliament to form a coalition (it is extremely unlikely that he’d win an absolute majority, like he did in Ljubljana elections in 2006 and 2010). Failing that, Janković could become stuck in the parliament, because being elected as MP would mean he’d have to relinquish his mayorship, due to the recently (and finally!) passed law on conflict of interests which prohibits mayors servning as MPs and vice-versa. To circumvent that, Jay-Z could choose not to run for MP and lead his candidate list from the “outside” so to speak, but then the question of commitment would immediately be raised: if he really wants to be the prime minister, why doesn’t he have the balls to face his opponents in an open contest?

Seven. If by some weird coincidence Jay-Z actually beats the odds and wins on 4 December, you can be sure that the furious Janša-led opposition will first cry foul and then work damn hard to blame Janković for just about everything that’s ever been wrong wrong in this country. And trust me, what hasn’t already, will go wrong very soon, because of…

Eight. This country is close to economic collapse. I’m not necessarily talking Greek scenario here, but fact of the matter is that there’s no more money left. The ministry of finance stopped all non-essential spending as early as the end of September, which basically means we’re running on empty. With both the US and the EU entering into the second part of the double-dip recession (via Nouriel Roubini), things don’t look good for the forseeable future. In fact, latest prognoses put recovery as late as 2016. And that’s by those same economists which said that things should be back to normal in late 2009, so you can understand how bad things really are.

Nine. Is it really worth it? With the economic and financial onslaught looming and the prospect of having to pass reform legislation which was once already thwarted, no government is likely to make it to the end of its regular term in the next couple of years. In fact, as the good doctor noted, Janez Janša worked long and hard to derail the reform attempts by the outgoing government and he should be able to reap what he sowed. Angry labour unions, disillusioned supporters, nervous money-men and wailing CEOs should be his to deal with for the next couple of years. Zoran Janković is quick to point out that he is ready to serve his country, but the truth is this country can take a couple of years of Janez Janša as PM. Sure, it will be messy, but the only way out of this mess is if the SDS leader gets a strong serving of what he helped cook in the past four years.

Make the call, dammit!

Janković is on the fence for a couple of weeks now and rumours have it that he will make the call late next week. High time he did, as the deadline for submitting candidate lists is 21 October. How he will decide, however, is still a mystery. Pengovsky believes the above clearly computes into Janković not taking the plunge. Pros are hugely outweighed by the cons. On a rational level, Janković knows most if not all of the above. However, there’s always the possibility of him taking a galactic gamble and having a go at it. If it came to that, however, anything falling short of a full commitment will turn out to be a short-cut to a political disaster of epic proportions.

Constitutional Court Nixes Tito Street

In a highly anticipated decision, Slovenian Constitutional Court declared null and void a controversial decision by the Ljubljana City Council to name a newly-built avenue running along the Stožice Stadium after Communist leader of former Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito. Plaintiffs, the Christian-democratic party Nova Slovenija, claimed that naming the street after a man led the regime which systematically trampled human rights and conducted post-war massacres goes against human dignity and is thus unconstitutional. The court went along with this argument and repealed Article 2 of the city ordnance in question.

This is no longer Tito Street (source)

Pengovsky said all along that Ljubljana could well do without Tito street, although the historic role of Josip Broz is both positive and negative and that mayor Zoran Janković was needlessly stirring the pot with this issue. While not totally unexpected, the ruling (and the logic behind it) can become extremely important, because it sets a new standard in determining what is allowed and what is not. On one hand we can expect a mass of petitions to have other streets and squares which still bear Tito’s name to be renamed (cases in point being cities of Koper and Velenje), but on the other hand this should open the doors to petitions to rename other streets named after controversial historical figures. The Pope John Paul II Street in Ljubljana comes to mind (to give an example at random).

Furthermore, the Constitutional Court is also expected to rule on whether to allow the referendum on the new Family Code, which will basically be a referendum on allowing same-sex marriage and adoptions (with certain limits). We’ll see if the court will recognise the “constitutional guarantee of respect for human dignity” when it rules on that issue.

President Türk To Call Early Elections Today

The deadline to nominate a candidate for Prime Minister has passed at 0000 hrs this morning. President Danilo Türk had until then to pick a candidate and submit his or her name to the Parliament for a confidence vote but did not do so. Equally, parliamentary groups (or ten individual MPs) did not put forward a candidate of their own, which means that the ball has dropped and early elections will be called today.

The Prez in discussion with army officers earlier today (photo by yours truly)

Truth be told, a candidate who would try to form an interim government until autumn next yeas was mulled, but these were only half-hearted attempts. First, Andrej Magajna (independent, formerly of SD) floated the idea of a grand coalition between the still ruling SD of Borut Pahor and SDS of Janez Janša, with Julijana Bizjak Mlakar, MP for SD and Prime Minister. The idea was rejected flat-out by both parties as well as Bizjak Mlakar herself. Magajna’s move was widely perceived as an attempt to extend this parliament’s term and – by extension – his own income (5k per month plus benefits ain’t peanuts). Hence, Magajna was slightly more cautions when professor of political sciences and author Gojko Stanič announced that he’s preprared to form a government given enough political backing. But since Stanič recently published a book on how to solve the economic and social crisis Slovenia is experiencing, the good doctor was probably spot-on when she tweeted that Stanič’s move was more for publicity than anything else.

But all of the above were just sideshows. The main act was with the President who consulted all parliamentary parties on Monday on how to proceed. Well, not exactly “all”. As per their custom as of late, Janez Janša’s SDS skipped their appointment, saying they hold The Prez partly responsible for the mess Slovenia is and basically said they’ve nothing to say to each other, especially since The Prez said in an interview that politics of Janez Janša should be rejected.

What SDS conveniently forgets to add is that President Türk said this in an interview for Mladina weekly, amid a scandal where SDS tried to implicate him in the 1979 Velikovec bombing in Austria and then even ~~forged~~ creatively copied archive documents to “prove” their claims. The scam was uncovered and all hell broke loose, but nowadays the issue is barely mentioned. But hey – the party that is poised to win elections doesn’t give a shit about the Office of the President (or any other elected office), unless of course, a cooperative person is in charge there. Cases in point being every President to date. This of course will not prevent Janez Janša to happily accept the nomination for PM when he presumably win the elections the Prez is about to call.

The announcement is scheduled for 1400 hrs local time but hints were already given on Twitter by former president of the parliament Pavle Gantar of Zares that elections will be held around 19 November. Given that 19th is Saturday, this was probably just an educated guess, after all, Gantar has had some experience calling elections himself -local elections in his case. But the constitution stipulates that elections must be held no later than two months after the parliament is officially dissolved (although it technically remains in power until the first session of the new parliament). Thus the window for election opens on Sunday, 30 October (a month long election campaign is expected) and closes on Sunday, 27 November. Thus it seems plausible that President Türk will go down the middle and pick either November 13th or 20th as election dates.

We’ll know in a couple of hours, ~~so watch this space~~ 🙂

EDIT @ 14.30: President called election on 4 December 2011, while dismissal of the parliament is effective on 21 October 2011. This way the shortest possible deadlines were given while the parliament was given the chance to wrap up any outstanding issues.

Game Over, Borut Pahor

The government of Borut Pahor lost a confidence vote yesterday evening. On the eve of the third anniversary of his electoral victory in 2008, Pahor (finally) submitted five candidates for ministerial spots vacated after Zares party left the coalition and Katarina Kresal resigned over corruption charges. In addition Pahor tied the result of vote on appointments to a confidence vote and after eight hours of debate lost decisively with 51 votes against and 36 in favour. Thus an extremely frustrating period in Slovene politics, which lasted at least (!) from the debacle on Super-referendum Sunday in June is brought to a close…

…sort of, anyway. With the confidence vote lost, Pahor’s government – as per constitution – assumed a caretaker role and will perform operative duties until a new government is elected or early elections are called. From this point onward, the constitution and the parliamentary rules and procedures are fairly straightforward. Upon consultations with the parliamentary groups, President Danilo Türk is to nominate a PM candidate within seven days. Should his candidate fail to win support, parliamentary groups can move in nominating candidate(s) directly. In either case, the candidate must win an absolute majority (46 votes) in the parliament. Failing that, a third round of nominations is held, where either The Prez or the parties can nominate one or more candidates, but this time only a relative majority is needed. Adding to that, the caretaker PM (in this case Borut Pahor) can demand a new confidence vote any time during those thirty days.

However, moves are being made to prevent most of the above from happening. President Türk is cutting short his visit to the UN to deal with the political situation at home (as he should be) but most parties have wowed not to propose any person to The Prez for nomination. Apparently they hope to cut the thirty days down to seven and have The Prez dissolve the parliament and declare elections ASAP. Should this scenario indeed unravel, elections could theoretically be held in late November or early December.

Head-on crash with reality

This sort of political expediency is to be expected, especially after a prolonged period of political limbo where the government was only semi-operative, bleeding both political as well as public-opinion support and facing an ever bigger heap of things that needed to be tended to, both on home and international fronts. Indeed, it was as if everyone was waiting for Borut Pahor to finally have that long-overdue head-on crash with reality. The latter is somewhat on the grim side. Political deadlock is exasperated by its economic sibling and there is little idea on how to proceed. To put it in other words: everyone agrees that things need to be done, but almost no one has any idea what needs to be done. Elections, therefore, are viewed as the obvious solution and almost everyone wants to get there as quick as possible. Really?

Not really. Pengovsky showed some time ago that Janez Janša‘s SDS had little interest in elections any time soon, because a) their electoral platform is still only in draft, b) it is politically beneficial for them to have the previous government take as much unpopular decisions as possible (it’ll be fun watching Janša try to pass pension reform) and – as of recently – c) Janez Janša spends most of his Mondays in court on trial for charges of corruption and abuse of power in the Patria Affair.

Also, a lot of other political parties or factions thereof are faced with the fact that most of their MPs stand a snowball’s chance in hell to be re-elected and have a intimate reasons for the current parliament to continue, both in terms of financial compensation and influence exerted. This is probably why MP Andrej Magajna (independent, formerly of Social Democrats) is reportedly seeking to create a national unity government comprised of Pahor’s SD and Janša’s SDS with little known MP Julijana Bizjak Mlakar of SD as Prime Minister.

Staving elections off

This is probably little more than a diversionary manoeuvre. Magajna needs 10 MPs to sign on for this but the party whips are probably making sure everyone is toeing the line at the moment. The few lose cannons that remain (such as Zmago Jelinčič’s SNS and Magajna’s independent co-travellers) probably can’t muster enough strength to pull off a stunt like that. Because that’s what it is, regardless of the fact that the move is perfectly within the constitutional bounds. Bizjak Mlakar would never stand a chance of being elected as an interim PM.

Caretaker PM Pahor already indicated that he will not seek a retake of the confidence vote, which basically leaves only President Türk as a possible game changer. Namely, nominating a PM-candidate (or not) is exclusively his domain in the first week of the caretaker period. And although he said some time ago that he’d call early elections had he the possibility to do so, he took a step back yesterday, saying that he wants to consider all options first. Granted, he’ll likely be pressured to skip nominations and go directly to early elections, but he just might want to make life more difficult for the parliamentarians.

Relax, Europe

Speaking of the parliament, there were some erroneous write-ups about how ousting Pahor’s government will gridlock the ratification of the agreement on European Financial Stability Fund (via @DrSeanHanley). This is not necessarily the case.

While the government is indeed in a caretaker role, the parliament remains fully empowered until a new one is elected. This means that the National Assembly can -among other things – freely ratify international agreements as it sees fit. Furthermore, since the deal i EFSF was hammered out while Pahor’s government still had full mandate, ratification of EFSF falls under the definition of “operational issues”. So the only problem with Slovenia’s ratification of the agreement is the general animosity towards bailing out other euro-zone members. But given the fact that just an hour or so after ousting Pahor’s government MPs approved the second tranche of monies intended for the bottomless pit that are Greek public finances, Slovenia should be the least of European worries. In this respect, at least. And if that isn’t enough for you, you should know Angie Merkel popped over in late August, no doubt telling both Pahor and Janša to make sure their political games don’t interfere with European handling of the economic crisis (which is nothing to brag about to start with)

So, how does this all play out

With options dwindling, parties will sooner rather than later be forced to show their hand and we’ll see who was bluffing all along and who had the cards to support chips on the table. Party discipline will play a major role and in this respect LDS, DeSUS and SD are most vunerable.

Social Democrats will soon face the classic problem: do they go on elections with an utterly unpopular leader (Pahor’s fall from grace of public opinon polls is probably one for the books) or do they waste time finding a new and – let’s be honest – much less charismatic face. DeSUS looks like it spent all its ammo and is failing at even basic political math (case in point being the media law, where they not only helped bring down the government proposal, but then signed on to a proposal written by some would-be media barons). The fact that party leader Karl Erjavec is not an MP only exasperates the fact, as he is missing out on the action after resigning as minister.

But at least it was the will of the people not to elect Teflon Karl to the parliament in 2008. Katarina Kresal of LDS, however, was elected to the parliament and was then elected as minister and could have returned to MP status upon resigning over corruption charges. Apparently striking a deal with LDS veteran Tone Anderlič who got in on her account as replacement MP she chose to take a pass and by that presumably secured Anderlič’s support to continue as LDS leader. Which is just about the worst move she could have made. Just as Erjavec, she’s outside the arena and possibilities of MPs making deals behind her back will increase as elections near.

These three parties look to poised to take a beating no matter what so pengovsky would not be surprised if moves to buy time would come from that direction. For some reason LDS seems especially suspect, but that’s just a hunch.

On the opposition side, however, SDS, the presumptive winners of elections have a different set of problems. We went over the abc’s of platform, Patria and pension reform at the beginning of the post, so let me just add this: given everything, Janša and his SDS should be scoring about 60 points in the public opinion polls. Instead, they’re constantly pegged in the high 20s. This means they have a long way to go if they want to achieve their declared goal of 50+. And the sooner elections are held, the less chance of them achieving the goal.

Finally, getting somewhere

Which is why it’s good that Pahor’s government was ousted and why elections must be held as soon as possible. Pengovsky said some time ago that Pahor should resign ASAP for precisely those reasons. Now that current PM was taken out legs-first, so to speak, Janša will probably move in. But after publishing a long post on Facebook on Sunday evening about how everything in Slovenia is connected and how the whole thing is just a twenty years of communist conspiracy and about how he won’t be surprised if it comes to political assassinations (implying that he is the target), one can assume that a person of such mind at the very least needs to have its power (if not his head) checked.

As a result – and somewhat surprisingly, the parties which seem most equipped to focus on elections and their agenda are Gregor Golobič‘s Zares and Radovan Žerjav‘s SLS, with SNS of Zmago Jelinčič – as always – picking up the renegade vote, which might amount to a notable result this time around. Not that if will be an easy ride for any of them (especially Zares, which continually hovers around or below the 4% treshold) but all of them seem to have gotten their shit together.

The way the cookie crumbled

Whether or not that will be enough remains to be seen as it is waaay to early to tell. A lot can happen between now and election Sunday. But one thing is certain. Whatever government will be in place in the near future, it will have a clearer mandate to do have a go at things that should have been done years if not decades ago. That, at least, is something Borut Pahor got right in his speech yesterday which in general left a lot to be desired. Yes, he got a bad hand. Much worse than anyone thought. But that’s the way the cookie crumbled and if his role in the history of this country was to wrap up loose ends, then so be it. He didn’t play it brilliantly, but he did put a couple of scoops under his hat and for that he will rightly go down in history.

Andrej Bajuk (1943 – 2011)

Former Prime Minister Andrej Bajuk passed away Monday night. He shot to prominence in spring 2000 when he was put forward as a challenger to PM Janez Drnovšek whose coalition with Slovene People’s Party (SLS) had just crumbled. The latter had just undergone what for all intents and purposes was a shotgun wedding with opposition Slovene Christian Democrats (SKD) – with leader of the opposition Janez Janša holding the shotgun. The painful merger realigned the balance of power in the parliament and and as a result PM Drnovšek called a confidence vote which he lost. A short political crisis ensued and after much political wrangling Bajuk was appointed the prime minister seven months before elections were due.

Andrej Bajuk with Slovenia’s first euro notes. Photo: Arsen Perić

A Ljubljana native he fled to Argentina with his parents in 1945 aged only two and worked his way up in life from there. He did not gain prominence in Slovene diaspora, at least not in a way that would leave a mark in his homeland prior to his entry into politics. An economist by profession, he was working for the Inter-American Development Bank before he returned to Slovenia to become the nominee for the prime ministerial position. Such was the rush, that he was reportedly unable to make proper living accommodations and was living in a hotel near the parliament for some time after returning to Slovenia.

Andrej Bajuk was to become a permanent fixture in Slovenian politics for the next decade. Things got off to a rocky start, however. Late in his ill-fated stint as PM (where he was often seen as Janez Janša’s straw man, with Janša back in the saddle as defense minister actually calling the shots) he went out on a limb in what for all intents and purposes amounted to a attempted legislative coup d’état plotted by Janša.

Summer of 2000

Just prior to that fateful summer the constitutional court finally ruled in a four-year-long case of which electoral system won in a 1996 three-way referendum (majoritarian, proposed by Janša; proportional, proposed by the National Council or a combination of the two, proposed by then-ruling coalition led by LDS of Janez Drnovšek). The court ruled that the majoritarian system won although it got only 44 percent of the vote. Three of the judges who ruled in that case went on to become ministers in Bajuk’s government which in August 2000, just months before elections took the position that Slovenia doesn’t have a legal electoral system and that elections should be postponed until a new system is passed by the parliament as per the court’s ruling.

Postponing elections is, of course, a big no-no in a parliamentary democracy, doubly so if they were to be postponed not until a given date but until a (legislative) benchmark is reached. What if it is never reached? During those few weeks Slovenia was on the brink of suspending parliamentary democracy. However, the political and legal minefields were navigated successfully, as the parliament took a position opposite that of the government and amended the constitution and wrote basics of the electoral system into it, thus circumventing the Constitutional Court as well as preventing the possibility of anyone else getting the idea of claiming that it is legally impossible to hold elections.

The schism

The rift between the parliament and the government, although both were ran by the same right-wing coalition proved to be too much for the newly-merged SLS+SKD (as the new party was unoriginally called) and late in 2000 a splinter group comprised of senior Christian Democrats established Nova Slovenija (NSi) and elected Andrej Bajuk as their leader. Contrary to some expectations the new party, although leaving much membership and infrastructure with the SLS+SKD, made it to the parliament with as much as eight percent of the vote.

From strength to strength to final defeat

Things were going just great for Bajuk and the NSi. Having spent four relatively comfortable years in the opposition and making their stand on a variety of issues, including (but not limited to) first forays into what a decade later was to become the great Family Code debate, the party scored a surprising victory in the 2004 European elections where it won most of the proportional vote. Despite the victory, the party won only two MEP seats (SDS and LDS won two as well, despite finishing second and third respectively), but for Bajuk it was killing two birds with one stone. His party made a showing that would serve it for years to come and he got ‘rid’ of Lojze Peterle, his main rival to Brussels.

Later in that year Andrej Bajuk returned to the government, this time as finance minister and leader of the junior coalition member. His record is mixed. He was in office at the time Slovenia adopted the euro and was officially the first person to withdraw common European currency from a Slovenian cash dispenser. Additionally, he did in fact run the portfolio at the height of Slovene economic expansion but it remains debatable how much of the expansion was due to his, his party’s and his government’s policies and how much was simply due to going with the flow of the pre-crash casino capitalism. Conversely – and with hindsight – he did precious little to cool down the overheated economy.

No maverick

That is not to say, however, that he did not leave a mark. Reportedly, his obstinante refusal to sell the largest state owned bank Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) resulted in Jože P. Damijan quitting as minister for development after only 91 days in office, a record that is yet to be broken. Also, Bajuk was wary of introducing flat-rate tax, a cause championed by Janša and his neo-liberal economic advisors (Damijan being among them). He formed an ad hoc group headed by Marko Kranjec (who would later become the Governor of the Bank on Slovenia) and which proposed a simplified-but-still-progressive tax system as well as reducing taxes on profits and other tweaks of the Tax Code. The final result was much closer to Kranjc’s proposal to what Damjan wanted, so Bajuk can be (co-)credited with thwarting a project which would most likely send Slovenia down the drain the moment The Great Recession finally struck.

One of his pet projects was also blowing a hole in the seemingly unbreakable bond between SLS (the other coalition partner, which by then had already reverted from SLS+SKD back to its old acronym) and DARS (state-owned motorways company). The latter was widely seen to have been SLS’ turf with people flowing almost freely between the party (more exactly, the transportation ministry the party traditionally held), DARS and several big consctruction companies, most of them now gone bust as the crisis took the construction sector with it.

However, on the whole Bajuk was not a political maverick. It was intimated to pengovsky that he more often than not saw Janša as his boss rather than a partner and acted accordingly. Obviously this did not win him a lot of friends either within the party or without and opposition within ranks was mounting. By the time 2008 elections were nearing it was plainly obvious that Janša was moving to dominate the entire right wing, mostly at the expense of SLS and NSi. The former barely escaped the trap Janša had set for them and made it to the parliament, while the NSi was not so fortunate and did not pass the 4-percent treshold. Whether Andrej Bajuk did not see what was going on or was unable to do anything about it is still a matter of some debate, but after the elections results came in on election Sunday in September 2008, Bajuk did not try to cling to his chair and bid for time but did the honourable thing and announced his resignation as party chief immediate, visibly shaken at being demoted to the status of a political has-been in a matter of minutes.

Joyful

On a more personal note and not so much in line with a would-be obit, I must say that pengovsky found Andrej Bajuk to be a generally agreeable person. True, he had his share of blunders and transgressions, one of them being his losing temper with a reporter for TV Slovenia who as a result was removed from covering business stories. But on the whole Andrej Bajuk was a joyful person and despite the fact that pengovsky did not agree with him ideologically and on many policy issues I can say that his politics was more or less consitent and that he was generally fun to be around.

Andrej Bajuk died aged 67.

Kresal Resignation Edges PM Pahor To Operational Default

Well, fuck me sideways! Turns out pengovsky overlooked a bloody important aspect of Katarina Kresal’s resignation, even though he brought the subject up some time ago: the legal provision of the government having to have two thirds of ministers appointed at any given time lest it be declared inoperative. Two thirds? More than two thirds, in fact. Which is a bit of a game changer.

Borut Pahor and Katarina Kresal (source)

Namely, with Katarina Kresal out, the government of Borut Pahor is down to ten out of fifteen full-blooded ministers (those without portfolio notwithstanding). Since Article 11 of the Law on Government stipulates the need to have more than two thirds of sitting ministers (and not “at least two thirds” as pengovsky previously thought.) Pahor’s government will be one minister short upon the parliament formally taking note of Kresal’s resignation.

Open mouth, insert foot

With this in mind, pengovsky’s yesterday assessment of political shrewdness of PM Pahor pales somewhat (talk about putting a foot in my mouth!). It all boils down to the fact that it would be easier for the prime minister to have yet another beleaguered minister than no minister at all. With the September session of the parliament being laden with heavy agenda, yet another resignation was the last thing Pahor needed. And yet, this is exactly what he will have to do. Question is, are we any closer to early elections, then?

Short answer: no. The September session of the National Assembly will indeed be crucial. First, there’s the resignation of Pavle Gantar as president of the parliament and the need to elect a new one. Then there’s the budget rebalancing act which aims to shave off 500 million euro in spending. Then there’s the fact that the three-month period during which vacant ministerial positions can be run by other ministers is fast running out. And now the resignation of Katarina Kresal which threatens to sink the government below the point of being legally defunct.

EDIT: President of the parliament Pavle Gantar tweeted that the parliament could convene in a special session to formally take note of Kresal’s resignation. Other than pushing the time-table a bit, this possibly has no effect, especially if Pahor puts forward a nominee for any of the vacant ministerial positions.

Keeping the count above ten

All of the above are critical. But in terms of short-term survival, all PM Pahor has to do is to nominate at least one new candidate for minister, keep the ministers count above ten and take it from there. The proper course of action would of course be to nominate candidates for all vacant ministerial positions but at this point in time this might prove to be a tall order even though ministers are appointed by a relative majority of votes. However, should this not happen and the PM remains with ten or less ministers, the fun starts.

Now, legal experts who like to see themselves all over the media go on and on about how this is an uncharted and legally murky territory and would like to have the above Article 11 amended to provide especially for the case of the government not having enough ministers mid-term. But fact of the matter is that the power to nominate the PM and the ministers resides with the parliament and should the government slip below 11 ministers, the procedure for electing a new PM should automatically kick in, with the president holding consultations with parliamentary groups on whom to nominate as new PM. And should no candidate get elected, the President of the republic could dissolve the parliament and call early elections. Things are really quite clear, it’s just a matter of following them through.

So, despite Pahor literally bleeding ministers we are still basically where we were two months ago. To fore early elections, one would need a behind-the-scenes agreement that the procedure to elect a new government will be “followed-to-fail”. Pengovsky just doesn’t see that happening. Janez Janša is screaming for early elections on Twitter but at the same time rules out any deal with Pahor whatsoever. This does not compute. If he really wanted early elections, he would have moved to call a confidence vote a long time ago. He doesn’t and thus he didn’t. Early elections are a non-option for SLS, DeSUS and SNS because they all risk of getting sidelined in the brouhaha that would surely ensue, whereas Zares appears to be fine with whatever happens. Their only problem is that they would like to see early elections preceded by fundamental constitutional changes, which – given the current dispersion of political power – is next to impossible.

Bottom line

Prime Minister Pahor is on the brink of “operational default”, so to speak. But he can still recover and limp towards regular elections some time in mid-2012. Odd are this is what he will elect to do. Question is, why?

On a more personal note: with all of the above in mind, my apologies for bitching about on Twitter how Radio Slovenia got its facts wrong in their morning news broadcast. Reporting was quite on the mark, but the subsequent mumbo-jumbo by legal experts was still unnecessary, as the procedures are clear enough even though they’ve never been employed.