Category: Ljubljana

Ljubljana Elections of 2010 (Part Four: The Round-up)

With two more days of campaign remaining, it is time for pengovsky to bring you the fourth and last instalment of 2010 local election guide-extraordinaire. For parts One, Two and Three click here, here and here respectively.


Debate of candidates for mayor of Ljubljana. Source: The Firm™

So, what to say about this campaign in Ljubljana local elections? One word comes to mind: lacklustre. In Slovene capital at least, there was no serious campaigning until the very end. As if the huge lead incumbent mayor Zoran Janković enjoyed from the start put his challengers off. To an extent that may very well be the case. However, this election season was also marked by striking similarities between platforms the candidates and their parties and lists were running on.

Platforms

Again, one word: traffic. With mayor Janković sort of delivering on most of his election promises from 2006 (although, it must be said again, things are not always as advertised), most candidates focused on problems this city has yet to solve. And traffic in Ljubljana is one big clusterfuck which will probably get much worse before it gets better. Candidates somewhat differ on approaches, but the bottom line is that some sort of railway will have to be constructed. Question is, whether Ljubljana should have a tram or a fast regional railway, which would connect Ljubljana to its airport and nearby towns (with SDS’ Zofija Mazej Kukovič and notably would-be councilman Žiga Turk opting for both). In addition, there are plans (mostly by mayor Janković) for widening main traffic arteries to allow “yellow lane” for buses and other modes of public transport. All candidates also vow to complete the network of cycling lanes. The same goes for most of other issues. Almost everyone agrees on what is needed, but they differ on how to get there.

Differences

Where there was some scuffling, it had mainly to do with challengers taking turns in criticising and attacking how incumbent mayor Zoran Janković ran the city in the past four years. The hick-ups related to Stožice sports we documented on this blog as well. But criticism also went in the general direction of his conduct during sessions of the city council, presumed arrogance, authoritarian tendencies and overspending.

Janković in turn generally replied that most of the people trying to oust him from office have one way or the other been in power for years on end (either on state or city level) and that they had ample opportunity do things their way, but instead just sat on their hands and talked too much. As for overspending, he maintains that, although higher than in previous years, the city debt is still well within legal limits and is being repaid without a problem.

How much is true?

Well, technically Janković has a point about city debt. By law a municipality can raise loans only up to a certain percentage of budget income, with the whole debt not being allowed levels which would hamper normal functioning of a municipality. This level is decided on a case-by-case basis by the ministry of finance. In case of Ljubljana this means that the current debt ceiling is set at about some 170 million euros, while the city currently runs a debt of about 124 million.

If there’s one thing one has to concede to Janković and his team is the fact that they know how to juggle numbers. As the mayor brought three of his four vice-mayors straight from the board of Mercator, financial planning is something they’re pretty good at. Although, it must be said they too sometimes find it hard to accept the peculiarities of public finances where not everything always goes according to plan. But in general Ljubljana’s finances are in order, it’s just a case of how much manoeuvring space remains should a financial emergency occur.

Secondly, Janković will apparently never forget how the government of Janez Janša took away 60 mil of spending money in 2006. After keeping quiet for most of 2010, he again brought it up with regard to Mojca Kucler Dolinar of NSi and Zofija Mazej Kukovič of SDS (his leading challengers, but both struggling in single-digit areas of polls). The mantra is naturally not as effective as it was prior to 2008 parliamentary elections, but Janković is very much an instinctive politician and his actions are rarely pre-meditated.

Which also reflects in the way he ran the city and (specifically) city council sessions. Pengovsky often said that the incumbent mayor is about as delicate as a buldozer on steroids when it came to enacting his policies. But if he was a bit rough around the edges at the beginning of the term, he got his bearings pretty soon and as a rule followed procedures. When he didn’t the city council rebelled (there was an issue of quorum) and he learned his lesson.

Approach

There are two things that work in Janković’s favour (and no, it is not media bias – a claim predictably uttered by Janez Janša a couple of hours ago). He is a text-book definition of a hands-on manager, who will go above and beyond the call of duty to oversee how things are progressing. He is also very approachable (if he wants to be) and he is known to be a great motivator, leading mostly by example. However, he is also the kind of person who loses his temper quickly if he feels people are wasting his time and can be very direct about it (to put it mildly). Case in point being a couple of outburst both in city council sessions as well as in press conferences. In one word, he is extremely charismatic.

And charisma is exactly what his opponents lack. Granted, most of them can hold their own. Some have more mileage in Ljubljana politics than it even bears thinking about. Some are in the race just for the heck of it, still others to lay groundwork for future terms (the latter case being especially Zares’ Milan Hosta).

In terms of campaign quality, the candidate that underperformed the most is in pengovsky’s opinion SDS’ very own Zofija Mazej Kukovič. Since she was deemed Janković’s main challenger, she was expected to tackle the incumbent mayor on a variety of very specific issues. But as time election day approached, it became painfully obvious that she is unable to go beyond clichés of allegations of mismanagement, corruption and dictatorial tendencies. She and her party also piggybacked on the initiative to hold a referendum on the recently passed new spatial-and-zoning plan, but failed to actively support it beyond posing for cameras while signing the petition. The deadline for collecting 11,000+ signatures to hold a referendum was yesterday and the initiative failed, in part due to lack of support from SDS, the only right wing party in Ljubljana with a power-base strong enough to make a difference.

On the other hand, the party which exceeded expectations (pengovsky’s expectations, at least) is LDS. In part still reeling from the 2004 meltdown, constantly scuffling with Zares and with its top two people (interior minister Katarina Kresal and justice minister Aleš Zalar) being almost constantly under fire, the party, which is not known for unity, closed ranks and got their shit together. Having been additionally fucked over by Zares which (contrary to expectations) ran their own candidate for mayor – thus trying to chip off votes from LDS, which supports Janković – the party went into town-hall-meeting-mode, organising events and discussions and tried to present itself as open to new ideas and approaches. We’ll see if the tactics works, but the overall impression was above average.

Projections

In the race for mayor Janković is poised to repeat his landslide victory of 2006. Pengovsky still maintains that the incumbent mayor will receive about 56 percent of the vote, but he will still leave his challengers in the dust. Ditto for the race for city council, where pengovsky projects The List of Zoran Janković winning about 20 seats and SDS about 10, while both will be followed by LDS, SD, DeSUS, Zares, The Green Party and possibly The List for Clean Drinking Water.

This concludes the Guide. Tomorrow is a you-know-what day, and pengovsky will be back with electoral results on Sunday 10 October, soon after 1900 hrs. Stay tuned! :mrgreen:

Enhanced by Zemanta

Ljubljana Elections of 2010 (Part Three: The Polls)

For the benefit of the reading public, pengovsky brings you the third instalment of yet another awesome guide. For parts One and Two click here and here respectively.

With local elections exactly a week away, some pretty important polls were ran in the last couple of days. As you will remember, Slovenia still sports this silly little legal provision prohibiting publishing – but not performing – public opinion polls a week before elections. The provision is being challenged before the Constitutional Court by Dnevnik newspaper and pengovsky hears that the court will probably strike the provision down. But be that as it may, some media are making a point of violating the law on this issue. Mladina weekly did it during the Arbitration Referendum hiatus and Dnevnik did it repeatedly, not in the least because it was the only way to actually submit a constitutional challenge (active legitimation is required to do that), but also because it makes for good copy. As in: whoops, we did something really naughty. What has the world come to, if publishing polls less than a week before elections is naughty. 🙂 It must be said, however, that some polls indeed are naugthy. Or, rather: the analysis of certain polling data is naughty and whoever did it, should be spanked.


Ljubljana. The electoral prize. (photo by pengovsky)

There were two interesting polls about Ljubljana elections this weekend, published by Žurnal24 and Delo dailies. Interesting, because they both came up with more or less the same data. The methodology seems to be a bit different, as Žurnal24 provides percentage of support at the time of the poll, whereas Delo also performs some statistical black art and provides both polling results as well as projection of the final result. Allowing for this, both polls come up with rather similar results especially in the race for the city council. However, both interpretations of polls leave – to put it mildly – a lot to be desired.

The Data

As noted, Delo’s poll provides both actual polling data as well as a projection of the final results. According to this poll incumbent mayor Zoran Janković is projected to pick up 66,5 percent of the vote, beating the shit out of, perhaps surprisingly, Mojca Kucler Dolinar of NSi with 11 percent of the vote. Third place would go to SDS’ very own Zofija Mazej Kukovič who is projected to pick up 8,1 percent, thus beating Miha Jazbinšek in the fourth place by a single percentage point. Not at all a promising prospect. Things get more funky on the City Council front. There the List of Zoran Janković is projected to pick up 33 percent of the vote, while Janez Janša‘s SDS is looking to pick up some 17 percent. They’re followed by Social Democrats (10,2 %), DeSUS (9,5%), LDS (8,3%), NSi (4,3%), Zares (3%), The Greens (2,7%), List for Clean Drinking Water (2,3%) and SLS (2%)

Žurnal24’s poll doesn’t do projections and it also deals with a lesser number of candidates, but – published a day before Delo’s poll – the results are similar. In this poll mayor Janković registers “only” 54 percent of support. He is followed by Zofija Mazej Kukovič with 15 percent of support. Third place goes to Mojca Kucler Dolinar with 9 percent and Miha Jazbinšek with 6 percent. Results for the City Council are a bit more in line with Delo’s poll. According to Žurnal24 the List of Zoran Janković enjoys a 31 percent support, followed by SDS with 15 percent and Social democrats with 6 percent.

Knowing jack shit and getting away with it

While the polling data seems to cross-corroborate, analyses in both newspapers show that people who wrote the respective articles know jack shit about the issue at hand. The author of Žurnal24 article thus writes about the possibility of a second round in Ljubljana mayoral race.

Pardon? Zoran Janković scores an ass-whooping 54 percent support, leaving his main rival in the dust with 15 percent and the paper writes about the possibility of a second round? WTF?!? I know that the guy has to pick up 50%+1 vote to win in the first round, but do your homework, goddamit! There’s a 16 percent gap in published results, which (presumably) is divided between the rest of the candidates and the “undecideds”. That’s a lot. Neglecting the fact that the paper didn’t publish the percentage of undecideds, those 16 percent should increase by one quarter (for another four percent) in order for Janković to be forced in the second round. It ain’t happening. But if Žurnal24 thinks their poll could be off by 4% in a race where one candidate has light-years of advantage, they might want to consider changing their pollster.

Speaking of polls being off, Delo doesn’t have the best of track records in Ljubljana either. Four years ago, when Janković’s List won 45% of the vote and thus won an absolute majority in the City Council, Delo’s last poll recorded a meagre 6,5 percent of support for the List of Zoran Janković, while the man himself was just short of the 40 percent mark. Now, presumably Delo’s pollsters got better in the last four years (that’s right, Delo doesn’t outsource public opinion polls, one of the few pluses this paper hasn’t wasted in the past few years) but their analysis still sucks. To their credit, Delo doesn’t have a problem with projecting Janković’s victory in the first round, but their analysis of the City Council vote is about as stupid as they come. Namely, the paper writes that it can very well happen that Janković’s list will have a hard time forming a coalition and may even end up in the opposition.

Exquiz me? Baking powder? You project one group to win a third of the vote and then you say virtually all the other groups in the council, both left and right, will refuse to cooperate and will gang up on the winner? What are you on, ferfucksake. One: do you really see SD, Zares, LDS, the Green party, DeSUS, SDS and SLS joining forces to shut out Janković’s list? And keeping the deal for the next four years? Two: what purpose would that serve? The mayor is not elected (nor can he/she be replaced) by the City Council but directly by the people. He represents the executive branch of the city and will therefore hold office regardless of the balance of power in the council. And three: Even if such a broad front were to be established, it would have no real meaning, as the mayor is not driven out of office for losing a vote, nor are most decisions in front of the council ideological or of a nature that would otherwise demand a vote along position/opposition lines.

Interpretation

Let me state for the record that pengovsky has no problem either with Janković having to go to the second round or with his list being “in the opposition”. If it happens, it happens. However, it my firm belief, based based both in my knowledge as well as experience that both of these projections are false. For the incumbent mayor to go to the second round, all the other candidates would have to receive among them at least 50% of the vote. With the runner up registering only mid-teen numbers, that is about as likely as getting wood while your bladder is still full of cheap beer. Ain’t gonna happen. Ditto for the city council.

However, results for the City Council are a bit tricky. 33 percent is a lot. But it still is some way from the 45% treshold which gave Janković an absolute majority. 12 percent ain’t peanuts and if we for the moment consider the polls as more or less accurate it will be mighty difficult for Janković’s list to make up for the difference in the five days remaining. But… (there always a butt involved)… Pengovsky noted time and again that voter turnout and vote dispersal will be crucial in the final tally.

Electoral mathematics

Out of some 270,000 Ljubljanchans, about 224,000 are eligible to vote. With an estimated voter turnout of 62 percent (as per Žurnal24 article), the number of votes against which the final results are calculated drops down to 139,000. Furthermore, the percentage needed to win one seat in the City Council historically revolves around 2 percent. Anything below that are votes counted, but lost. And this is where the fun starts. If we accept Žurnal24’s predicition of voter turnout, Delo’s prediction of election results and historical threshold data, we can conclude following:

Of 139,000 votes cast, some eight percent or 10,800 votes will get lost to lists ranking below 2 percent threshold (2 percent equalling approximately 2700 votes). This will in turn increase the number of seats won by more successful lists and parties. With the data at hand this puts the List of Zoran Janković closer to their stated goal of again winning and absolute majority, but it doesn’t take them all the way. By that same pattern we should see some gains by SDS and SD, possibly even DeSUS and LDS. The further down the list we go, the less effect this quirk in the proportional voting system has.

As things stand now, Janković’s List is poised to win some 19 seats (thus losing four), SDS is to win 9 seats (gaining one), Social Democrats have their sights on five seats (gaining one), DeSUS is looking at five seats as well (a staggering four-seat gain), whereas LDS is set lose a seat and end up with four. The remaining three seats should go to Zares, The Green Party and the List for Clean Drinking Water.

Analysis

Pengovsky thinks this will not stand. The thing that stands out like a sore thumb is a huge four seat gain by DeSUS. There’s no particular reason why this should be so other than the fact that the party is playing harball on the national level, trying to prevent a freeze on pensions. But DeSUS has had good polling results just prior to elections before (notably in 2004 and 2008) but got a bit of a cold shoulder on voting day. Pengovsky thinks this is likely to happen again.

Also, the List for Clean Drinking Water is suspect as well. True, they made their case opposing the construction of a parking lot below the Central market, but there’s a crowd at that particular issue, with SDS, NSi, SLS as well as The Green Party in the form of Miha ‘Jazby’ Jazbinšek canvasing for votes and there’s not enough to go around. SLS is also problematic, as is Jazby himself, but his ability to land on his feet is astounding.

Projection

This Sunday pengovsky projects the List of Zoran Janković the overall winner of the City Council elections, but with 21 seats they will stop just shy of an absolute majority (23 seats of 45). They will be followed by SDS with 10 seats, SD with 5, LDS with 4, DeSUS with 2 and Zares, SLS and the Green party with 1. In the mayoral race, pengovsky projects Zoran Janković winning in the first round with 56 percent of the vote (I placed a wager on this result. A friend says 65 percent).

But still, there are five days of campaign remaining. A lot can happen. A lot will happen. So watch this space. 🙂

Enhanced by Zemanta

Ljubljana Elections of 2010 (Part Two: The City Council)

For Part One click here

If the mayoral race in Ljubljana seems all but decided (although, as they say on the other side of the pond, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings), the elections for 45 seats in the Ljubljana city council are a different matter. In the landslide of 2006 Zoran “Zoki” Janković not only won 63% of the vote, but his List of Zoran Janković won 45% of the vote which (due to vote losses on account of parties and list which got the votes but didn’t make the cut) translated into an absolute majority of 23 out of 45 votes. This completely rearranged the political landscape in Ljubljana, where the mayor was usually held hostage by the power struggle within the uneasy coalition between liberal democrats (LDS) and Social democrats (SD). In 2006 the voters overwhelmingly send political parties packing and put the reins exclusively into Janković’s hands who used the powers thus vested in him to the fullest of his abilities.


Who’ll be sitting where? Ljubljana City Council (photo: The Firm™)

First he rammed through changes to Council Rules and Procedures, making the work of the city council a bit quicker and (for the most part) also more effective. And then he managed (contrary to pengovsky’s expectations) to keep members oh his list – most of them accomplished individuals, many of whom did not expect to get elected in the first place – to toe the line, be present in sufficient numbers at every vote (there was only one slip in four years) and vote according to mayor’s wishes. Janković basically ran a very tight ship and if things got too slow for his liking he was liable to bend rules of procedures a bit, just to get things going. All of the above made the rest of the political groups in the city council go mad with rage. Well, some more than others, but those who were regularly foaming at the mouth were mostly Borut Pahor‘s SD and Janez Janša‘s SDS, aided by Green Party’s very own Miha “Jazby” Jazbinšek.

Truth be told, there were quite a lot of votes where for one reason or another Janković secured more than just the slim majority of the votes. Some measures were passed even without a vote against, a fact Zoki never fails to mention when he is accused of autocratic tendencies. And to an extent he is right. There’s also the fact that his majority was a direct result of a popular vote and for better or for worse you don’t fuck with that. And to be honest, despite all their rage, the rest of the political groups in the city council understood that. They just found it hard to swallow.

Playing hardball

But playing hardball can cost you down the road. And Janković played a lot of hardball. He didn’t compromise because he didn’t have to. He also had a couple of very public fallouts with a couple of prominent city politicos, most notably with Dimitrij Kovačič of SDS (who was removed from front party lines by the new SDS Ljubljana leadership) and with Metka Tekavčič of Ljubljana SD, who now runs against him in the race for mayor (without much success for now). The spat between her and Janković is especially interesting as they had a more or less cordial relationship for the most of the term, but some time around March this year something happened and they were publicly spewing fire and sulphur at each other, to the point of Janković saying weeks ago of Tekavčič that “she would do better to shut up as she’s been in city politics for 15 years and has precious little to show for“. Playing hardball indeed.

Anyways, it seemed that all remaining political groups in the city council just sort of gritted their teeth, hoping that the term would end as soon as possible and were counting on the fact that there is no way Janković can get an absolute majority in the council for the second time, even though he is virtually unbeatable in the race for mayor. Were they right? Yes and no.

Polls and horse-trading

The Ninamedia/POP TV poll pengovsky quoted on Sunday does indeed show that the List of Zoran Janković (his 45 candidates for city council) register some 23% support, which only half as much as they got on election day four years ago. Slightly more surprising is the 19% support Social Democrats sport. It is not exactly clear where this came from. But what’s even more surprising is that all the other parties (including Janez Janša’s SDS) get only single-digit percentages.

So, what does all of this mean for the political future of everyone involved? First and foremost, this is far from over. While it is not uncommon for a party like SD to have a “proper” percentage of support and having its candidate for mayor fare miserably, it is unclear why the voters seem to have singled out Social Democrats as the party of choice. Hopefully, there’ll be another poll soon and we’ll see if this was just a fluke. Percentages scored by Jankovič’s list are much more interesting. Zoki said time and again that he will not engage in any horse-trading after elections even if he has to form a coalition government (a prospect he dreads) and should the voters deny him an absolute majority it will be interesting to see if and how he goes about that. Despite his claims it would be hard to imagine him throwing it all away just because he doesn’t like who SD (or any other coalition partner) would have put forward for a manager of this-or-that city service.

Lest we forget

Virtually all players on the Ljubljana political scene made it plain obvious that their prime goal is not defeating Janković but reining him in by means of making sure he doesn’t win an absolute majority again. Janković recognises this and is pushing the message of “Zoran Janković and his List” more aggressively. Whether or nor he will succeed remains to be seen, but before people start passing judgements, a couple of things should be remembered:

1) 27% of those likely to vote are still undecided. Granted, not all of them will go to the same camp, but they could tip the balance heavily one way or the other.

2) Voter turnout and vote dispersal are crucial. In urban municipalities a straight proportional voting system is used and if the turnout is low or a lot of votes get lost(i.e.: go to candidates who don’t make the cut), then a couple of thousands votes one way or the other can mean a big difference for the bigger players.

3) Right wing parties register unusually low scores. Despite the fact that Janez Janša while prime minister did everything in his power to alienate voters in Ljubljana, SDS, NSi and SLS should under normal circumstances fare much better.

4) On that same token, there’s no apparent reason why (in addition to Janković’s List) it should be only Social Democrats which get a substantial support on the left wing without Zares, LDS and DeSUS joining in on the fun. This too will in all likelihood play out a bit differently.

and 5) Four years ago no poll registered even the remote possibility of Janković’s List grabbing an absolute majority. A couple of polls near the end of the campaign put his list on top, but none predicted the whoopass which was election day on 22 October 2006.

Projections

None, at this time. The way things stand, this could go either way. The campaign to date has been about as lacklustre as a sex-life of a catatonic and is poised to pick up in the ten remaining days. We’ll just have to wait and see how this particular election cookie crumbles

Enhanced by Zemanta

Ljubljana Elections of 2010 (Part One: The Mayor)

With local elections fourteen days away it is high time pengovsky writes them up. Not that there’s a whole lot of interest in them in the first place. Case in point being this video featuring main contenders for mayor which drew about as much attention as a six-days-old fart (either that or it’s just that fucking bad :)). Be that as it may, fact of the matter is that as many as 770 people are running for mayors of 208 municipalities, of those sixty-nine are running for mayors of eleven urban municipalities.

If you’re a statistics buff, here’s some more for you, courtesy of the National Electoral Commission: 25,824 people are running for seats in municipal and city councils, of those 9,951 are women. There are 93 women running for mayor, while the youngest candidate is one Aljaž Verhovnik, age 19, who’s running for mayor of Ravne na Koroškem on a Social Democrats ticket. 23 incumbent mayors have no opposing candidate and are for all intents and purposes already re-elected. And, finally turning to Ljubljana, the nation’s capital sports the longest ballot as there are thirteen people running for mayor and twenty-four parties and lists which put forward 658 candidates for 45 seats in the city council.


Janković seems poised to continue to wear the mayoral chain and recieve foreign dignitaries (photo: The Firm™)

The Metropolis

Ninamedia polling agency and POP TV ran some polling results for Ljubljana ten days ago which were encouraging, Or discouraging. Or surprising. Depends on how you look at them. Pengovsky had the opportunity to look at the entire data set so my conclusions in this series will be based on more that just the sketchy report published first by POP TV and then by Finance daily.

So, where is we? Basically there’s no chance of an upset in Ljubljana mayor race. Incumbent mayor Zoran Janković has a 63% support among Ljubljana voters and is trailed a long way back by Mojca Kucler Dolinar of Nova Slovenija (NSi) who got a measly 6,2 % support. She is then followed by Zofija Mazej Kukovič of Janez Janša‘s SDS, who mustered a 5,3 % support.

Say what?

Let me run that by you again: Zoran Janković has a 63% of support to begin with. This is exactly the same level of support he won in elections four years ago. So despite all the mud that was thrown at him, despite the fact that sometimes things are not exactly as advertised, despite the fact that he has the political nuance of a bulldozer on steroids which alienated some of his political supporters and the despite the fact that he doesn’t give a shit about the “not-in-my-back-yard” syndrome, which spurred some sixty initiatives opposing many of his projects in Ljubjlana, despite all that he didn’t lose an inch of support among the electorate.

What seems to have occurred though, is that the above initiatives have generated enough support for Miha Jazbinšek (The Green Party), the lonesome cowboy of Ljubljana politics to end up in fourth place with a staggering 5,1 % of support, who constantly hovered around them, giving them advice (either solicited or unsolicited) Since Jazby, as he is popularly known runs for mayor primarily to generate enough votes for his list of city council candidates, the result is more than encouraging for him. If this goes on he might even get enough votes to not just get himself re-elected as councilman, but also to squeeze in another member of his list which would be a major achievment for the former environment minister (1990-1994) who runs a no-budget campaign.

A smack in the face

But if Jazbinšek is (percentage-wise) on a par or even better than most of the candidates save Janković, this also a smack in the face for established political parties (i.e: those which are represented in the national parliament). Namely, local elections in Ljubljana transcend the pure local nature of the phenomenon. Ljubljana has always been prime battle ground between the left and the right, even more so since Janković took power in 2006 in what was a direct “fuck you” to then-PM Janez Janša. Back then the political right united behind a single candidate and France Arhar (former governor of the Bank od Slovenia, now CEO of Slovenian branch of Unicredit) won almost 20% of the vote. Fast forward to today and candidates of the three main right wing parties, NSi, SDS and SLS, Mojca Kucler Dolinar, Zofija Mazej Kukovič and Janez Žagar can muster only 13,5 percent of support between them.

But the situation is even worse for the left wing parties. Metka Tekavčič of Social Democrats barely registers with a meagre 2,1 %, while Meta Vesel Valentinčič of DeSUS and Milan Hosta of Zares hover around 1% mark. In that respect the only party which saved itself grief it doesn’t need is LDS which openly supported Janković and did not nominate a candidate of its own. However, that may work against them. Sure enough, they will not be wasting resources on a lost battle for mayor, but as a result they may not get enough exposure for their list of candidates to make a decent result. Currently LDS holds three seats in the city council (initially it held five, but then two members switched allegiances) and anything less than that would be a bitter disappointment. And truth be said, this is probably exactly why Zares sent Hosta into the battle: to steal the limelight from LDS, chip off some more votes and come out on top in a continuous low-intensity struggle between two parties which rose from the ashed of once almighty LDS.

Also-rans

The list of would-be mayors obviously does not end there (pengovsky can, contrary to some reports, count to thirteen) thus it is only fair that we mention the rest of the poor sods who barely register on the voters’ radars: Marko Mitja Feguš, who also ran for mayor in 2006 and won an impressive tally of 69 votes (yes, sixty-nine). This year Feguš (a landscape architect) runs as a candidate for List for Clean Drinking Water and has had a stroke of luck with the floods of last weekend, where he actually sounded credible for a moment. But only for a moment. Especially since the LCDW (headed by Mihael Jarc) made local news not as much for their drive for clean tap water but much more for their opposition to erection of a mosque in Ljubljana some years ago.

Then there’s Jože “Joc” Javornik of Slovenska Unija, which (a bit of political gossip) is ran by Metka Tekavčič’s ex-husband and minister of labour Vlado Dimovski. Among also-rans we find Jože Drnovšek (presumably no relation to the late president) a candidate for Naprej, Slovenija (Forward, Slovenia), a ridiculous proto-Nazi party whose chief Blaž Svetek reportedly runs a whore-house on the outskirts of Ljubljana. Then we have another proto-Nazi who goes by the name of Miha Majc and runs as a candidate for Stranka slovenskega naroda (SSN – Party of Slovene Nation) which made its claim to five minutes of fame during the near-fuck-up on Croatian NATO entry. And last (and most likely least) we have before us Janez Lesar, a candidate for Social-Liberal party, who was ran the city services in the early 90s and was pretty powerful back then. Time’s a bitch, however, and Lesar (who seems not to be entirely with us) is running on a platform of more biomedicine for everyone.

End of Part One

Since the power in the city lies with the city council as much as with the mayor, the results of council elections will be just as interesting. Perhaps even more so. More on that on Tuesday…

Enhanced by Zemanta

Top Gun (who’s who in local elections)

Pengovsky is not covering this year’s local elections to the extent he’d like. He’s much too busy doing that very same thing for The Firm™. Also, there’s been some light rain recently and as a result blogging suffered. Hopefully this will improve in the coming weeks and to kick it off, here’s a round-up of candidates for mayor of Ljubljana in the October elections. If you remember this post, then you know what to expect 🙂

Top Gun (who’s who in Ljubljana local election) from pengovsky on Vimeo.

Note: LCWD stands for List for Clean Drinking Water (yeah, I know!) and LZJ stands for List of Zoran Janković (not very imaginative, but it does get the message across.).

EDIT: Also, please note that there are also four other candidates running. But they don’t really matter and I don’t really mind. 🙂

Parts of Ljubljana Flooded

Yesterday and today Slovenia was hit by some heavy rain which caused some serious flooding. Even in Ljubljana. Pengovsky was out and around doing work for The Firm™ and below are some pics taken during this eventful weekend which bears promise of more rain still. The hardest hit areas in Ljubljana include Vič, Murgle, Brdo, Vrhovci and Kozarje.

But as you can see, some people had fun nevertheless :mrgreen:

Not As Initially Advertised


Zoran Janković’s campaign poster (source)

In the weeks leading up to local elections incumbent mayor of Ljubljana Zoran Jankovič is not having the smooth ride he (probably) hoped for. On one hand the recently passed City Zoning Act is not yet effective as a group of citizens assisted by City Councilman and one of Janković’s opponents for mayor Miha Jazbinšek filed for a referendum on the issue and are now in the process of collecting the necessary signatures for referendum to take place. On the other hand the Administrative Court days ago rescinded Janković’s decision not to allow another referendum on construction of an underground parking lot below the Central Market. This particular referendum was filed for by Councilman Mihael Jarc (he of anti-mosque fame) and repeatedly rejected by the mayor on the grounds that it didn’t meet the legal criteria. Jarc took the case to court and – for the time being at least – won. But despite two looming referenda which threaten to overshadow the election campaign (or at the very least influence it a lot), Janković has bigger problems. Well, problem, actually: Despite initially claiming the opposite, the mayor way forced to admit that the recently completed Stožice complex will come with a price tag: 40 million euro.

During 2006 election campaign Zoki promised to build the stadium in what was widely believed to be just a pre-election PR stunt. After all, the shenanigans around the stadium have been at that time going on for seven years, about almost 20 million was already spent by previous administrations on buying a hole in the ground (at the site of today’s Stožice complex) and running a short-lived city owned company tasked with preparing everything necessary for construction of the stadium. Needless to say the company went through 5 million euro without as much as moving a muscle. So little was expected from Janković, knowing that he just hung a huge political mill-stone around his neck.

But the newly minted mayor did go about it. It soon turned out that even though the city spent 15 million buying a degraded piece of land (and doing it twice over, mind you!), some smart soul agreed to return a strip of land to its previous owners in a process of de-nationalisation (rather than just compensating them in cash) and the first order of business was to buy the new/old owners out. At a price of about 8 million. And then the city announced a tender for a public-private partnership for construction of a new sports-and-shopping complex at Stožice. The idea was that the city would chip in the land and building rights, whereas the private partner would chip in everything else in a 350 million euro project, of which 83 million was estimated value of sports infrastructure.

Fast forward to a week ago and the city has to cough up 40 million. What went wrong? Well, nothing really. Or everything, depending on your point of view. It’s not as if project got out of hand or anything, but as it was developed, additional features were decided upon, which pushed the price-tag above the 83 million mark. Things such as an auxiliary football pitch and another smaller sports hall, a skate-park and number of other features which were all lacking in the original proposal.

But be that as it may, as the project was nearing completion Janković was realising more and more that some public funds will be necessary. Originally this was estimated at around 15 million, but when it was all put together and after some tugging between the private partner and the city, the needle stopped at 38.4 million euro. Regardless of whether you feel Janković just ass-fucked everyone involved or that 40 million still ain’t that bad a price for a brand new stadium, fact of the matter is that things are not as advertised way back in 2008, even though one can’t accuse the mayor of lying or deception, as he did admit the need for public financing soon enough. It’s just that this need wasn’t there to begin with.

Thus Janković will probably have to do some damage control in the coming weeks. The fact that he has to have the city council rebalance this year’s budget in two weeks’ time, 14 days before the elections to pay the initial 16 mil out of 40, means that he’s not out of the woods yet. And since campaign period is a free-for-all with even the most stupid, outrageous and suggestive questions being perfectly acceptable (not to mention those which are actually aimed at finding stuff out), the incumbent mayor will probably take a lot of heat for this one.

Given a somewhat surprising lack of polls pengovsky’s got nothing to go on here but a hunch, but for the time being Janković seems safe in the position of the front-runner. Not just because of his record, which may not be as brilliant as he’d like, but which is still a huge improvement over the last fifteen years of this city being at a virtual stand-still, but also because his opponents in the mayoral race seem either half-witted or half-hearted. However, it will probably not be a walk in the park (nearly) everyone expected. Even if he does win in the first round.


P.S.: pengovsky skipped on blogging last week entirely so we’ll just pick up where we left and pretend nothing ever happened. Thus no MMM this week. Sorry 🙁