Author: pengovsky

Just to keep you up to date with the latest development on the aftermath of Karl Erjavec’s succession: Prime Minister Borut Pahor nominated Roko Žarnić, professor at Faculty for Civil and Geodetic Engineering as candidate for minister for environment and urban planning.

Rocco… eeerrr…. Roko Žarnić, the new soon-to-be minister (source: finance.si)

Technically, Roko Žarnić was picked by DeSUS in a not-so-fierce competition with Ljubljana head of Department of Urban Development Miran Gajšek and while he will probably not have film-props made after his body parts (unlike his more popular pornstar namesake), he does have his work, eeer, cut out for him. But his first order of business will be to attend and survive the hearing in front of the relevant parliamentary committee, where he is expected to fare along the lines of political division, i.e. to get the support of coalition parties, but not much else.

But as if to prevent excessive drabness, Zmago Jelinčič of Slovene National Party said that his party will not support Žarnić because “not only is he Croatian by birth, he holds double citizenship and will serve the interests of his second or rather first [Croatian] homeland“.

And just when one thought that ethnically-related hits below the belt were coming out fashion…

On Saturday Delo daily ran yet another in the series of articles dealing with the Patria Affair and the role Janez Janša (allegedly) played in it. Written, as per usual, by the now infamous Dejan Karba, the article exposes how Austrial lobbyist Wolfgang Riedl supposedly worked with Jože Zagožen, a senior official in Janez Janša’s SDS and how the bribes were allegedly split up among Riedl, Janša’s party, Slovene lobbyist and painter of dubious fame Jure Cekuta and Walter Wolf, a Slovene-Canadian businessman. The percentages and numbers the article runs are quite specific. In fact, they are a bit too specific.

Janša, Erjavec and Pahor. A marvelous photo by Luka Cjuha/Dnevnik

But before we go on, please, consider the following:

Item: Prime Minster Borut Pahor slightly surprisingly decided to stand by finance minister Franci Križanič even after the anti-corruption commission said that his making that call was an act of corruption

Item: Despite buckets of shit thrown at him, Karl Erjavec (himself indicted over Patria Affair, albeit for dereliction of duty) is playing ball and is being awfully nice to Križanič and Pahor and is not crying double standards, even though he was technically dismissed from office for a minor infraction.

Item: Justice minister Aleš Zalar just had a severe clash with General Prosecutor Barbara Brezigar, who is widely perceived to be one of Janez Janša’s hardcore supporters as she and her group of special prosecutors killed most indictments against Janša and his collaborators, be it in the arms trafficking allegations, or the Depala Vas affair. She also ran for president on SDS ticket in 2002, losing to Janez Drnovšek in the second round.

Item: Prime Minster Borut Pahor yesterday said in no uncertain terms that Barbara Brezigar has his complete support

Item: Janez Janša is suing Delo for 1.5 million euros, because the newspaper wrote some time ago that the Patria money (at least 1.5 million euros of it) went to accounts of Janša’s SDS, who in turn financed the pre-election rags with it.

Now. Pengovsky is still deeply troubled by the nature and content of Karba’s articles. They simply don’t make sense. If Karba, a journalist with a relatively low mileage and with a distinctive right wing prefference, has access to sensitive documents, he is obviously being fed them. There is no way in hell he could have gotten hold of them by himself. Especially not repeatedly and during an ongoing investigation. The absurdity and sloppiness of Karba’s articles is also a matter of concern. Despite using unofficial sources, documents that cannot be checked for validity and quoting people who deny saying anything, Karba is continuously putting together articles with firm accusations which leave little to imagination and which are bound to attract law suits. And given the amount of conjecture in these articles, it should not be too difficult for Janša to win at least on some counts of the suit(s). Either that, or Karba has already built a watertight case against Janša, even before the police. And since the latter is probably not the case, the following question is inevitable: What if Karba is doing this on purpose? If we for a moment assume that Karba and Janša are (still) on the same team, then it is quite possible that Karba is attacking Janša knowing and indeed counting on the fact that he will win a lawsuit, thus severely damaging the credibility of the entire Patria investigation. And just as it seems that the investigation is yielding results.

Namely. It is extremely unlike Karl Erjavec not to go apeshit over a clear case of double standards. If he was officially dismissed as minister of environment for failing to set up a system of waste management, then finance minister Križanič should be immediately kicked out for trying to influence the composition of a Ph.D committee at the Faculty of Economy. PM Pahor decided not to dismiss Križanič, whereas Karl not only didn’t protest, he even supported PM’s decision. So, my guess is Pahor promised something to Erjavec in return for good behaviour. And that something might be a guaranteed mild slap on the wrist for his role in the Patria Affair. As you will remember, Erjavec was minister of defence during Janša’s government and as such the person who actually signed the contract with Patria.

Something similar might very well apply for General Prosecutor Barbara Brezigar. Minsiter of justice Aleš Zalar went right for her throat, not in the least because the prosecution went after Finnish journalist Magnus Berglund, the author of the original Finnish TV programme which sent shit hitting the fan rapidly. The whole thing was starting to become really ugly and unbecoming and then, all of a sudden, there was the PM, saying he’s got Berzigar’s back. The question is, at what price. Her outstanding liability right now is definitely her connection to Janša and SDS and it could be that Pahor got her to switch camps in return for her continuation in office.

What we’re (likely) seeing is setting up a stage for the Patria endgame, where PM Pahor is slowly but surely, one by one, taking over Janša’s support centres, quite possibly as a result of coordinated attacks on these centres by other parts of the government, whereas the PM enters the show at the last minute, playing the great saviour provided people switch allegiances. Janša is trying to fight back, mostly by trying to discredit the investigation (via feeding refutable claims to Karba for publishing), but he is also getting cornered more and more, apparently willing to sacrifice his top people in the party and, possibly, the party itsef, in order to save his own skin. The same goes for his numerous lawsuits in this affair. Apart from trying to take Delo to the cleaner’s he also filed yet another suit against Magnus Berglund which provoked outrage with the Reporters sans frontieres. The story was picked up soon even by obscurely remote media such as The Ethiopian Review (of all places! Thx Adriaan!).

This is far from over, but things will get mighty interesting come spring. It is becoming ever more clear that Janša’s call to the streets in spring time was not a coincidence (his ass might need saving yet again) as it is quite possible that it is no coincidence that minister of interior Katarina Kresal just authorised a purchase of a police-operated water cannon for crowds dispersal.

Slovene Democratic Party (SDS) and Slovene People’s Party (SLS) led by Janez Janša and Radovan Žerjav respectively today started a procedure for impeachment of President Danilo Türk. As you will remember, SDS, SLS and NSi went apeshit when The Prez decorated the last socialist interior secretary Tomaž Ertl with a medal for exceptional perfomance during Operation North

Do you wanna impeach me, punk!? Danilo Türk and Janez Janša (photo by Srdjan Zivulovic/Bobo)

Contrary to media reports this is not the first time impeachment proceeding have been initiated. In 1994 SLS tried to impeach PM Janez Drnovšek for signing the so called “Spanish compromise”, an agreement between Slovenia and Italy which enabled Slovenia to sign the Association Pact with the EU (in case you’re interested it had to do with the right of Italian and other EU nationals to buy property in Slovenia). And 1998/99 SDS tried to impeach him again, because Slovenian and Israeli security services signed a secret cooperation agreement (which may or may have not been a cover for an arms deal).

Slightly OT: Technically it is true that this is this is the first time the proceedings have been initiated against the President of the republic, but since impeachment procedure is covered in Article 109 of the Constitution and Section 8 of the parliamentary Rules And Procedures and applies to ministers, the PM as well as the President, this is yet another example of Slovenian media not doing their homework properly, since they’ve reported time and again today that this is the first case of impeachment in Slovenia’s history.

Be that as it may, the move to start impeachment proceedings can be initiated by thirty MPs (not a problem for SDS-SLS duo which have some 35 MPs between the two of them), but must be approved by an absolute majority of fourty-six MPs who voted in favour in a secret ballot (impeachment is one of the few instances where voting is not public and electronic). Should this unlikely event occur, it is then up to the Constitutional Court to vote on censuring the President. In accordance with Section 7 of the Law on the Constitutional Court The Court may find the accused guilty and can (but this is not a must) relieve him of his duty. It can also temporarily suspend him form office pending a final ruling. All decisions are taken with a two-thirds majority (six out of nine constitutional judges)

Charges against President Türk are absurd. SDS and SLS claim that Türk decorated a man who headed UDBa, the socialist secret police and is as such responsible for terrorist actions, murders and torture as well as high treason for failing to stop disarmament of Slovene army prior to 1990 democratic elections. This last one is the bee in Janša’s bonnet and there are precious few political opponents of his he did not accuse of the very same thing.

It must be said, for the sake of clarity, that UDBa was not a uniform entity but that there were actually flavours to it and that the chain of command was not at all clear. As most secret services Yugoslav UDBa went through several massive shake-ups, the last one being circa 1982 (two years before Ertl was made interior secretary), which created a mess out of it, since it created six republic braches of UDBa (one for each republic) which were answerable to federal UDBa in Belgrade. But at the same time they were also under political control of their native republics, which created a complex and often uneasy menage a trois, which was often made even more difficult (especially in case of Slovenia) when KOS, the military intelligence service, joined in on the fun and ran its own operations against any combination of the above three players (republic leadership, the local UDBa and Belgrade). As a result UDBa lost a lot of its edge, but was still – this must be said – a fully operational secret police.

So, fact remains that Matjaž Ertl was interior secretary between 1984 and 1990 which at the time meant that he controlled both regular and secret police. In today’s world this indeed doesn’t look good on one’s resume. Pengovsky said time and again that it was stupid of Türk to decorate Ertl and that the country could do without the whole brouhaha. So, it may very well have been wrong to decorate Ertl, but is it unconstitutional?

Obviously not.

It is within the Prez’s powers to decorate whomever he sees fit and he cannot be held responsible for transgressions of recipients of medals. Much less so if evidence against Ertl is circumstantial at best. Even if we accept the notion that Ertl systematically and directly violated human rights because Slovenian UDBa was under his command (a notion pengovsky is inclined to agree with), this does not mean that President Türk violated human rights because he decorated Ertl. Not to mention the fact that the latter for decorated for a specific action and not for, say, lifetime achievements.

It is also plainly obvious that impeachment proceedings will not clear even the very next hurdle. There is just no way for SDS and SLS to get the 46th vote, even if the disgruntled DeSUS votes in favour of impeachment simply to get even and vent off some steam. So what we are dealing here is a text-book case of character assassination, pure and simple. The Prez will probably come down to the parliament, reject the allegations, the parliament will vote the move down, but documents and “documents” which SDS produced (and will probably produce some more) will remain to be quoted, pasted, and waved by SDS and SLS from here to eternity (or, at the very least, to the next elections).

They even went so far as to include resolution by the European People’s Party among the “evidence” (appendix 18). A party document! A resolution they themselves has proposed and which the EPP adopted in Bonn no-questions-asked. What the fuck is this?! How on Earth can a group of intelligent individuals refer to their own political statement as grounds for impeachment?!? Who’s the Stalinist now, biyatch!? (not that pengovsky didn’t know this was bound to happen)

This has nothing to do with protecting the constitution, but has everything to do with opinion polls. Today we are witnessing the lowest and the slimiest in Slovenian politics, where shit is actually made up just to bring people down a peg or two. Character assassination is something Janša and his SDS are very good at, as we’ve seen in the case of Gregor Golobič (who, it must be said aided an abetted in that enterprise himself). But it is one thing to throw shit at a party leader only to see him shoot himself in the knee. It is quite another to try to destabilise the highest political office in the country using any means possible. And I don’t mean just abusing constitutional provisions. I have a funny feeling that the parliament might debate this just about the time Janša announced the massive out-pour of his supporters to streets of Ljubljana, exercising his version of direct democracy.

As you know by now, during yesterdays parliamentary debate on his dismissal from office Karl Erjavec walked up to the podium and announced his resignation from the post of minister for environment and urban planning. He said that he realised that the whole thing was political and that he didn’t want to see the PM suffering any more than he has to and said that “we may see each other again”

PM Pahor and minister Erjavec, side by side (source: RTVSLO)

His resignation was as much a face-saving measure as it was anything else. It seems kind of hard to believe that it was only during the debate that Erjavec put two and two together and saw that he was being cut off because he completely fell out of favour with the rest of the coalition rather than because the Court of Audit proposed that he be replaced. What is interesting, though, is the fact that Pahor seems to have started developing some teflon abilities himself. There he was, in the middle of the parliament, saying why he had no choice but to replace Erjavec while the latter was sitting next to him, as if Pahor was Erjavec’s last best hope for survival.

The amount of manipulation and political cheek necessary for this kind of humiliation shows that Pahor is nevertheless made of stronger stuff that his opponents (and some partners too) would have us believe. Pahor was wringing hands, shifting from one foot to another and used body language as if he is uncomfortable with having to dismiss Erjavec. But given their early fallout during coalition-building this seems highly unlikely.

It was, rather, a case of Pahor having others do his dirty work for him, while he – although he started the whole shebang – tried to appear above it. Pengovsky may be reaching here, but it seemed as if Pahor was trying to imitate the style of the late Janez Drnovšek. He may not have succeeded entirely, but one must concede that he looked very prime-ministerial for the first time in a while.

This leaves only three questions: 1) Will DeSUS choose to stay in the coalition, 2) what will Karl “ex-teflon” Erjavec be doing from now on and 3) who will succeed him. The answer to 1) is more or less “yes” although a formal decision is yet to be taken. The answer to 3) is slightly murkier, as we’ve seen yesterday. Pengovsky raised the possibility of Pahor taking the portfolio temporarily himself some time ago and it is said to be be greater now than ever. The answer to 2), however, could prove to be fantastically fucked up. Word has it that Pahor offered Erjavec a job of advisor to PM, not unlike when he took Dimitrij Rupel on board. Should this trully happen, Pahor’s immediate cabinet would literally prove to be a political waste-management plant.

It would, in a endlessly ironic twist of event also bring a full circle to DeSUS’ political influence. Namely, when Janez Janša won elections in 2004 he invited DeSUS into the coalition and gave its then-president Anton Rous a job as an advisor to PM. All hell broke loose within the party and the membership replaced Rous with Erjavec who then became defence minister. And now, DeSUS president is again poised to become “just” an advisor to PM. It’s just that both party president and prime minister are different now. Game, Pahor.

Slovenian parliament today debates the demission of minister for environment and urban planning Karl Erjavec. As you will remember Erjavec was rapidly losing friends within the ruling coalition (not that he was popular to begin with) and finally fell out of favour with PM Borut Pahor when the Court of Auditor ruled that Erjavec did bupkis on setting up a state-wide system of waste separation and recommended that Pahor dismiss him. Unsurprisingly Pahor grabbed the opportunity with both hands (and a leg).

Karl Erjavec and Miran Gajšek (sources: siol.net and The Firm™)

Erjavec of course thinks the Court of Audit does not have a leg to stand on. Pengovsky covered most of the dirty details here and here, but it emerged only a couple of days ago that Igor Šoltes, president of the Court of Audit let PM Pahor know in advance what their recommendation will be, which puts PM Pahor in a slightly awkward position since he insisted that he will decide on what to do with Erjavec upon receiving the Court’s recommendation. Now, technically there is nothing wrong with Šoltes letting Pahor know in advance (after all, this was just around Christmas and New Year holidays), but Pahor is sure to take some flak for apparently feigning ignorance.

Be that as it may, Erjavec was busy trying to mount some sort of resistance in the past few days. He appears to have rallied MPs of his DeSUS (pensioners party) who until a week ago were in disarray like a flock of panicked old hens (pun very much intended). However, it seems that for the first time in a while Erjavec had to make consessions to his own people, as DeSUS MP Matjaž Zanoškar refused to take Erjavec ministerial post, thus freeing a seat in the parliament for Erjavec. Indeed, it seems that regardless of Erjavec’s wishes his MPs will continue to support the coalition. The worst that can happen is that a couple from his flock switch to other parties, but that can only dent the majority Pahor’s coalition enjoys in the parliament, not sink it below the required 46 votes.

Thus speculation is rife as to who exactly will become Teflon Karl’s successor. DeSUS claims to have already picked a candidate but will not divulge his name just yet, hoping that Erjavec might somehow beat the odds and survive the vote. One of the more surprising names to have popped up yesterday was Miran Gajšek, currently Head of the Urban Planning Department in the administration of Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković. Gajšek definitely knows the field and he is only months away from wrapping up the biggest urban-planning project this city has witnessed in the last 25 years. Namely, some time in the next six months the city council will have debated and probably passed the new Spatial Plan, laying down the quidelines for Ljubljana’s development for the next two decades. In terms of achievement and knowledge of the field, PM Pahor could certainly do worse than picking Gajšek. But there’s one problem.

Eight years ago, while holding a similar position in the city of Celje, Gajšek was found guilty of abuse of power and sentenced to four months in prison with a two years suspended sentence. Apparently he issued a certificate of adhering to legal requirements to a construction company in Celje, although he knew full well that was not the case. He was tried and convicted and has already served his sentence which has also already been stricken from his record. After this had happened, Gajšek was invited by then Ljubljana mayor Danica Simšič to take the vacant post of Head of the Urban Planning Departament and he remained there even after Zoran Janković won the 2006 elections. Word has it that he is peforming his role very well.

Gajšek yesterday refused to comment on whether he would take the job, but it seems improbable that PM Pahor would consider him as a candidate given his run-in with the law. But if he were to nominate him, the amout of shit thrown both at him as well as at Gajšek would probably be beyond anything we’ve seen to date. Question of course is whether either Pahor or Gajšek can afford this at this time. Pahor’s ministers are incredibly accident prone as it is (strangely enough, this goes for his male ministers only) and he surely does not want yet another political liability, regardless of his professional expertise. And if Gajšek really wants to enter politics, he still might get his opportunity at the municipal level if vice-mayor Janez Koželj in charge of urban planning sees through his decision not to seek re-election, leaving mayor Janković a man short.

EDIT@1725 hrs: A couple of minutes ago Karl Erjavec resigned from office of minister of environment and urban planning. More on this tommorow.