Category: Ljubljana

Pengovsky is chez les Croats enjoying a rather peaceful part of the
year in which, according to Jack Wallance in City Slickers “you city
boys think you can solve all your problems” and only occasionally do I
bother to check my mail, let alone blog. Thus the lack of skin and
meat, but I’m sure you’ve guessed that already. Also, the wi-fi screen
in pengovsky’s destination of choice classifies this blog as
“pornography” and filters it out, of which I’m especially proud 🙂

However, be that as it may, my algae-and-salt cocoon of sweet oblivion
was not to last. I’m lucky enough to have this blog visited by the few
but intelligent, who constantly rattle pengovsky’s cage of
self-importance and righteousness, which always provides good ground
for a healthy debate. The latest example being the series of posts on
Stožice stadium and arena, which irked Crni into commenting.

So far, so good. Crni rox, regardless of the fact that most of the
time we don’t see eye to eye. However, the last time around he picked
the wrong horse. He linked to an op-ed by Janez Šušteršič, Ph.D. in
Thursday’s Finance daily in which Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković’s
politics, administration and overall management both of the city and
the Stožice project are taken apart brutally and effectively.

In a text titled Ljubljana in a pork barrel Šušteršič leaves little to
imagination. He says mayor Janković is Slovenian king of pork barrel
politics, case in point being the Stožice project, which was completed
against all odds, with all kinds of government interventions, both
financial and administrative, while workers and subcontractors still
haven’t been paid. Furthermore, goes Šušteršič, Janković has cajoled
the government into passing a custom-tailored piece of legislation by
which the city of Ljubljana will get additional monies from state
budget, thus depriving less developed parts of Slovenia of much needed
cash. And as if that were not enough, Janković also raised prices of
infrastructure services as much as 50%, further lining city’s coffers
with taxpayers’ money.

Effective and very persuasive, especially if you read the original.
However, while I respect Crni’s agreeing with what Šušteršič (former
head of the Government Office of Macroeconomics analysis and
Development and currently professor with the University of Koper)
wrote, the text itself is just another proof that economist should not
be allowed to dabble in political theory. Well, as we’ve seen in the
past couple of years, they should not even be allowed to dabble in
economic theory, but that’s a different story altogether.

Šušteršič gets it wrong from the start. One can not by definition
accuse a local politician of pork barrel politics. Yes, it has a nice
ring to it, but Šušteršič would do well to do at least a basic
Wikipedia search. Or ask one of his professorial colleagues who is
more familiar with political theory and – specifically- American
political culture.

Pork barrel politics means appropriating state funds for local
projects by an elected official on state level. To put it in Slovenian
terms this translates as an MP securing funds for his/her particular
constituency, mostly for projects which are not high on government’s
priority list. There’s a lot of this going around and in this
particular parliament there are about 25-or-so people liable to be
crowned as pork-barrel kings. They are those who serve both as MPs and
mayors. And who are, incidentally, up for re-election in five weeks
time. True, so is mayor Janković, but the last time I checked he was
not an MP, nor was he serving at any other state-level position with
direct or indirect power over budget expenditure. Therefore, whatever
concessions Janković wriggled out of this government, he did nothing
more or nothing less what the rest of 180-or-so mayors who don’t serve
as MPs do for most of their time in office. But this is not
pork-barrel politics. QED.

In all honesty, the bit about Janković having the Ljubljana ring
closed to heavy vehicles prior to Stožice opening in fear of truckers’
protest over not being paid more or less stands. That particular move
was a bit over the top. Although various excuses for closure were
given by various relevant officials, it is no secret that this was
done on Janković’s behest and it is just not cricket for a public
official to do something like that.

Consequently Šušteršič’s arguments against Janković and his
re-election bid (for the ends his text with an appeal to Ljubljanchans
to vote for anyone else but Janković) turn into nothing else but a
political pamphlet without so much as a hint of theoretical background
to support it. An effective and (depending on one’s political
preferences) valid pamphlet, but a pamphlet nonetheless.

Yesterday saw the second half of the grand opening of the Stožice sports complex. Less demanding construction-wise, but incredibly more important in terms of symbolism, the new Stožice Stadium is quite probably the high-point of Zoran Janković‘s first term as mayor of Ljubljana.

The 16,000-seat stadium was understandably packed and the atmosphere wonderful. If you can’t wait, you can skip the rest of the text and go straight to the video. For the two of you remaining, a bit of context

With the opening of the stadium a sort of spell was broken. Whoever touched the issue of the new stadium in the past ten years crashed and burned politically. Not Janković. The standing ovation he received yesterday and the day before symbolises his complete victory over everyone who ever opposed the new stadium and arena, regardless of how good their arguments might have been.

As crni rightfully pointed out yesterday, this indeed was (at least to an extent) a classic case of panem et circenses. All the more so as Janković is a very populistic politician with quick reflexes and an extremely good touch for public opinon. However, he offsets the perils of politicking from one public opinion poll to another by following his vision (or, as his opponents would say, delusions) which is clearly long term-oriented.

Some say that by building Stožice complex Janković erected himself a monument. They couldn’t be more wrong and it only shows that the main difference between Janković and the rest of the political pool in this city is in the fact that Zoki thinks big. And I mean big. Whoever went about meddling with the stadium project, dealt solely with the stadium and ended up screwing everything up. Janković didn’t just want a stadium. He wanted a sports hall (two of them in fact), an auxiliary football pitch and a huge shopping centre, all with a price tag of some 360 million euro.

And the same goes for the “monument issue”. Stožice are not nearly big enough for Janković to consider them a monument befitting him. A radically changed city, now that’s a different matter. That might be just enough of a monument for our bold mayor 😀

But this self-induced aura of grandeur Janković radiates is compensated by actually getting things done. He was known to spend hours and days on Stožice construction site. Pengovsky heard of stories how he literally threw one of the principal contractors out of his office half-way through the project, almost hurling papers after him and telling him to brush up on his arithmetic since he obviously didn’t know how to calculate costs of the project correctly. I’ve no idea how much of the story is true, but it goes on to add that the entire spread-sheet was covered with cross-outs in red ink and recalculated by hand by the illustrious (and industrious) mayor.

And – politically speaking – he did it all by himself, possibly (but it is way too early to say for sure) securing himself a comfortable second term with an absolute majority in the city council.

Aside from a well-meaning but very late move by education and sports minister Igor Lukšič (who is yet to receive flak over it from the opposition), Janković got no help from the state whatsoever. Zero. Zilch. Nothing. Nada. The much-debated financial construction was perfectly sound at the start of the project. But then everything fell apart. First the government (then still led by Janez Janša) withdrew monies earmarked for the project, then the crisis struck, then Serbian Delta pulled out of the project and Janković together principal contractors ended up in an unenviable pants-down-dick-in-hand position. But rather then dropping everything they pressed on, much to dismay of ever increasing number of critics, which included the political left.

Which is why Janković didn’t lift an eyebrow, when the 12,000 strong crowd booed Prime Minister Borut Pahor, when the mayor announced him prior to Tuesday’s opening of the Arena. It was Zoki’s own private “fuck you” to the PM. His moment of vindication and gloating came moments earlies when the same crowd cheered him fanatically. And when Janković told the crowd to stand up in honour of the people who worked in the project and the people did what they were told, he probably knew what Janez Janša felt, when he during an independence day celebration in mid-90s told people (even those watching on television) to stand up in honour of those who died for independence. Just sayin’ 🙂

But be that as it may, there was a lot of standing yesterday too. Not because anyone told the crowd to stand up (no that note: Zoki’s speech was mercifully short) but because it was a good game. And you don’t sit through good games 🙂

Slovenia v Australia @ Stožice Stadium from pengovsky on Vimeo.

It has been nearly three years since this post and over two years since construction of the new Stožice football stadium and sports hall began. Yesterday we saw the first results

The (unofficially named) Arena Stožice is a thing of beauty. While 12,500 seats may not be all that much compared to other, more renowned halls out there, it can be safely said that there is not a bad seat in the house. Acoustics are awesome and the whole thing does indeed look beautiful. Both from the inside as well as outside.

Not everything went according to plan. The final permit for issued only this morning and Bob knows what would happen if the stadium and the Arena wouldn’t have been ship-shape. But truth be told, no one really doubted that the permit would be issued. After all, certain parts of the current government and civil service are bending over backwards to accommodate him. But then again, there wasn’t a project like this in Ljubljana since 1982 and it is probably right and proper that the civil service is slightly more expedient than usual.



But the final permit turned out to be the least of Janković’s worries. Just as the final deadline was looming, one of the subcontractors flipped because he was owed a serious amount of money by Grep (the principal contractor) and as a result threatened to block the entire complex by parking trucks and heavy machinery around it. The whole thing even went so far that the ministry of transport closed the northern Ljubljana ring road for heavy trucks citing safety concerns, but in reality preventing the truckers’ protest. But since there were some eighteen trucks already parked in front of the Arena, the whole thing could have turned into a real mess.

Luckily it didn’t. The principal contractor and another subcontractor found a solution to satisfy the unhappy subcontractor, the machinery was removed and four hours later Slovenia played Spain in a basketball friendly and lost 72 to 79.



Today Slovenia plays Australia in a football friendly. Photos will be forthcoming tomorrow 🙂

P.S.: Yes, this undoubtedly was a part of Janković’s re-election campaign. But we’ll deal with that in due course.

If you google terms Pavle Gantar and Douglas Adams together, you get zero relevant results. And yet it looks like president of the parliament is a huge fan of the man who gave us that wholly remarkable book with the words “Don’t panic!” written on its cover in nice, friendly letters. If that is not the case, than the probability factor of him calling local elections exactly on 42 (or, if you like on 10/10/10) are exactly two to the power of two-hundred-and-sixty-seven-thousand, seven-hundred-and-nine to one against. Well, in reality, the probability factor is slightly higher, but you get the point.

Here’s what the Guide has to say about elections:

A unique process, that exists mostly in so-called “Democratic” countries, in which several different idiots try to convince the general population of a country to put a little piece of paper with a particular idiot’s name on it into an envelope, and then stick the envelope into a big wooden box (in some countries this process has been replaced by clicking their name in a computer). Sounds silly? It will sound even sillier when you realize that this is the form of ruling in these countries. That is, instead of doing something sensible, like getting all the potential leaders into a room and having them throw mud at each other to decide who wins, they do it this way. An even more unsual factor than the elections themselves is the election “campaign”. This is where all the various idiots (a.k.a politicians) make nice colorful posters and TV commercials with catchy tunes to convince you to “vote” (put the envelope with their name in it into the wooden box) for them, or not to vote for others. In “non-democratic” countries, the process is made simpler by the fact that all the notes have only one name on them.

If anything, the above goes especially for Slovenian local elections. No wonder that the guide supplanted the Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge 🙂

But OK, enough fooling around. Yes, the president of the parliament called this year’s municipal elections on 10 October. At the moment Slovenia has 210 municipalities which means 210 mayoral and council elections. Pengovsky will leave it to you to decide on the absurdity of the situation of having one mayor per 9500 citizens and will instead focus on the most interesting part of the race: local elections in the capital Ljubljana.

President of the parliament Gantar sets election date (source: The Firm™)

Here, the situation is intriguing to say the least. Incumbent mayor Zoran Janković announced as early as December 2009 that he will seek re-election and ever since most of city political parties were preoccupied with deciding whom to run against Janković or whether to enter the mayoral race altogether.

Seven months later there are only four confirmed candidates. Janković himself, Mojca Kucler Dolinar of Christian-democratic Nova Slovenija, Meta Vesel Valentičič of DeSUS (the pensioner’s party) and Miha Jazbinšek, the lone rider of city politics, who will officially run on the Green party ticket, but is considered to be an institution unto himself. Additionally, the Liberal democrats (LDS) have apparently decided against running with their own man (or woman) and will support Janković for mayor instead. Reportedly, Zares are leaning towards that same move, although there’s no official word on it yet.

This basically leaves the Ljubljana branches of Borut Pahor’s Social democrats and Janez Janša’s SDS to pick their candidates. And this is where the fun starts. Not that there’s any particular rule to it, but traditionally local party leadership does not run for mayoral positions, but rather go for slightly less demanding and more behind-the-scenes council positions. However, both SD and SDS will probably be forced to put up their respective branch presidents against Janković which should make the Elections of 42 rather interesting, and for two reasons.

Pengovsky already wrote about the fact that little love is lost between Janković and the leadership of Ljubljana Social democrats, specifically between him and branch president Metka Tekavčič. If (or when) the two will be head to head in the debates, sparks will probably be flying all over, as Tekavčič is known for her smile-and-stab talk, which is precisely what ticks Janković off. On the other hand the incumbent mayor has a fuse the length of a closely-mowed grass and is liable to crush Tekavčič into sun dust. It will probably not be pretty, but it will be fun.

Janez Janša’s SDS has similar problems. But different. Theirs was a candidate eagerly awaited, not in the least because Janković took innumerable pot-shots against SDS and Janša, especially after Janša’s government took some 60 million euro in municipality financing away from Ljubljana (or, as they would say: redistributed the monies differently) and relations just went from bad to worse to childish. Ljubljana SDS branch was caught between a rock and a hard place as they had to defend Janša’s policies and moves which were down right insulting towards the capital city. However, rather than amend his party’s stance towards the city, Janša had the leadership of Ljubljana SDS replaced and for a while it seemed they were on a roll.

SDS presented their election platform as early as March this year and former minister of development Žiga Turk was widely speculated to be their pick for the mayoral race. But then it all fell apart. In the aftermath of Janša’s defeat on the referendum on the Arbitration agreement Turk made a Shermanesque statement about not running for mayor and SDS has been quiet on the issue ever since. And so it seems that Dragutin Mate, newly minted leader of Ljubljana SDS and Janez Janša’s war buddy will have to run and take one for the team. Because as things stand now, he has zero chances of defeating Janković.

So the main threat Janković is facing is not from the right but from the left side of the political spectrum, as Vesel Valentinčič and especially Tekavčič can (if the events unfolded unfavourably to Janković) chip off just enough votes to force a second round. In all honesty, this looks unlikely to happen at this time, but it is a possibility that can not be discounted.

Plan B, however, is much more realistic. While some parties will support Janković as mayor, every single party will run for seats in the city council with its own tickets. During this term Janković and his List (not a true party, but a political association for all intents and purposes) held an absolute majority of 23 out of 45 total votes in the council. All other parties and lists in the council aim to prevent that from happening again. But Janković, not to be outdone, is going for broke and wants to repeat the result. We’ll deal with the implications of either outcome some other time, but point is this will be the main battle of 2010 local elections in Ljubljana.

Should be fun. And sleeping will once again be for pussies.

In wee hours of Monday morning (or was it Sunday night) a group of merry Britons wandered around Ljubljana and apparently tried to indulge in age-old tradition of British tourists to bathe in the river Ljubljanica. According to POP TV one particularly adventurous 29-year-old leaped across the railing, misjudged his aim and landed on the concrete embankment.

Seriously, how the fuck do you miss that!?!

It would seem that copious amounts of alcohol softened his landing, for when the police arrived to the scene (apparently within minutes) he was told not to move as they were coming to get him. But, probably trying to prove to everyone that he’s OK, the chap reportedly tried to stand up, which only resulted in him falling into the river. Which was his initial plan, but the river, a treacherous little stream on a normal day, was swollen from two days of constant rain and he soon found himself fighting for his life. It was a one-sided fight, not unlike what France Prešeren described in his poem Povodni mož:

Boatmen only saw a swirl
where Urška danced her last twirl

Well, our fearless Briton was luckier than that spoiled bitch Urška. Coppers went right after him and caught him just as he was about to swallow his last gulp of the Ljubljanica. The three of them were then pulled ashore downstream by the rest of the police patrol and instead of literally sleeping with the fishes the would-be swimmer was only treated for hypothermia and alcohol poisoning.

The moral of the story? The good doctor put it best when she said that if they can miss an entire river, then maybe then can miss our goal on Wednesday as well 😈