Slovenia | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Referendum on RTV Slovenia, Part One: More Cowbell!

Slovenia is to hold yet another referendum this Sunday, this time on the recently passed law on national radio-television, RTV Slovenia. While not critical to the government of Borut Pahor (although it came with a price), the result will nevertheless be interpreted as an important benchmark for PM and his team and Sunday’s vote should therefore not be underestimated. But seriously, what is it all about? In short, it’s about turning state radio and television into public radio and television once again.

Boy with a flute, the mascot of RTVSLO by sculptor Zdenko Kalin (source)

The current law on RTVSLO (one the new law seeks to replace) was crafted in 2005 by then newly minted government of Janez Janša, passed by Janša’s coalition in the parliament and then confirmed by a very narrow margin on a referendum called by the freshly dethroned LDS, then still led by Tone Rop. The law was widely seen as a blatant attempt to subjugate the biggest and most influential public media in the country, mostly by changing the organisation and composition of Programming and Supervisory boards, making them more, shall we say, government friendly by increasing the number of seats in both bodies (thus making them ineffective in the long term) and increasing the number of government-appointed members: 21 out of 29 and 9 out of 11 for Programming and Supervisory boards respectively. In addition wages of all workers at RTVSLO including journalists were now subject to the Law on wages of civil servants, making their connection to the state even stronger. They were now in fact employees of the state, overseen by state-controlled boards.

The law was drafted almost single-handedly and vigorously defended by a prominent member of Janez Janša’s SDS Branko Grims, who later concocted an overhaul of the media legislation earning him the designation of Goebbels wannabe. But in all honesty, not everything about the law was inherently bad. One thing the law did achieve was to somewhat stabilise RTVSLO’s finances by introducing a special levy, a solution which has proven effective although highly unpopular (as levies tend to be) and object of many a mockery, mostly along the lines of “this is what I get for my 12 euro?”

So what did Slovenes get for their 12 euro per month? Well, not much. In fact, there’s a general consensus that RTVSLO programming has gone from bad to worse. Not only was political influence plentiful, now it was also government sanctioned. Not only was there less and less interesting content, ratings were being chased by actively mimicking programming approaches of privately-owned POP TV (which is anything but a public service). Thus RTVSLO willingly abandoned its role of a standard bearer in terms of keeping overall professionalism and quality content at acceptable levels. Add to that the constant tug-of-war between urban and rural Slovenia (more cowbell!) and you have one big money-guzzling clusterfuck which has just gone digital.

While Radio Slovenia – the “R” in “RTVSLO” – somehow managed to keep producing quality content and evade serious raids on its autonomy, this can not be said for TV which has provided us with some memorable epic fails, pengovsky’s favourite still being The Bomb in Studio/Big Bad Ultra double bill which was probably one of the lowest points RTVSLO hit since independence, courtesy of semi-competent journalists on a mission and a drive for ratings at all costs.

Shoddy programming was backed by shoddy management and in the end RTVSLO ended up paying shit-load of monies for various projects which either never saw the light of day or burnt cash faster than a Concorde with an engine on fire, adding precious little to either specific or overall ratings. It was as if accordion-based content was the only game in town…. Errr… In the village, that is. Because shows which included a lot of polka, dancing and accordion were a huge hit. Well, I guess almost anything you air during Friday primetime is bound to become a hit. In this case it was the accordion. There you go.

At any rate. The referendum is now on. And the latest polls suggest that a) the turnout will barely reach 20 percent and b) those who intend to vote are split almost down the middle, with those opposing the law holding the tiniest of edges. This will probably go down to the wire (again) especially since there is a lot riding on this vote politically. Which is why it is even more curious that the coalition has until now made only token efforts in promoting the “yes” vote and the opposition did similarly little in promoting the “no” vote.

WikiLeaks Slovenia: Someone Never Learned To Read

Horror! Shame! Ignominy!… no, seriously, it’s that funny..

“‘What can Slovenia do to secure a meeting between Prime Minister Pahor and President Obama”‘ asked foreign minister Samuel Žbogar, exposes WikiLeaks
Slovenia is again a topic in the exposed secret US diplomatic documents and again the issue is the desire of Slovene PM Borut Pahor to meet US President Barack Obama
According to German Spiegel, foreign minister Samuel Žbogar was inquiring with US representatives as to what conditions must be met to make such a meeting hapen.”

Hillary: “Eeer, Samuel? You remeber those meetings? There’s something you should know…” (source)

This, more or less is the lead of today’s article on RTVSLO (state radio and television) website. This comes only a day after PM Borut Pahor called a press conference and denied allegations of horse-trading with the Americans, basically saying that a) yes, he’d like to meed Obama, b) would be glad to take in a Gitmo detainee regardless and c) he never linked anything to anything else, regardless of what the cable says and when (somewhat predictably, since it’s their document which is causing all this embarrassment) the new US Ambassador to Slovenia Joseph Mussomeli issued a written statement saying basically the same thing, adding that PM Pahor is an honest and honourable man. Someone’s lying.

Or, better yet, someone can’t really read. My money’s on the latter. The infamous Spiegel article has been around for at least 72 hours. Pengovsky was first alerted to it by alcessa. I linked to it again yesterday. It was then linked to again by Žiga Turk (a prominent member of opposition SDS). In short, this shit is old by internet standards.

Even more important, this is part of the same story. Half-wits at RTVSLO – well, their web section at least – for reasons that are known only to them infer that there was a second cable (Slovenia is again a topic… and the issue again is…) which in addition to PM Pahor implicated FM Žbogar as well.

However, there is no “again” here. Not yet, anyhow. Der Spiegel, NY Times, El Pais and Guardian all worked with the same set of documents (the entire 250k+ batch) and they all saw it fit to expose Slovenia-US horse-trading. And save the sole cable posted yesterday by El Pais, none of the cables pertaining to Slovenia have been released by WikiLeaks yet. None. Zero.

Indeed it is still a mystery as to how exactly could they have arrived at such different conclusions: NYT reports US pressured Slovenia. No names are mentioned. El Pais reports Slovenia pressured the US and names PM Pahor and making no mention of FM Žbogar. And Der Spiegel reports Slovenia was horse-trading with the US but mentions Žbogar, omitting Pahor completely. But they all published their pieces on the same day, 29 November 2010 (three days ago), while the general public, which in this case includes Slovene media has yet to see anything more than a single cable from US Embassy Ljubljana. I know I’m repeating myself, but I can not stress this point enough.

To put it in the words of Al Pacino: We’re in the dark here!

Point being, web section of RTVSLO is either making things up or really has a problem reading and/or googling.

(again, many thanks to alcessa for the heads-up)

WikiLeaks Slovenia: Make Me An Offer I Can’t Refuse

Diplomatic incontinence strikes Slovenia too. Once again this sorry excuse for a country is front-and-centre on the international stage, courtesy of Julian Assange and his Wikileaks. OK, so we’re still just a comical sidekick, but there you go. Slovenia was put forward as prime example of US diplomacy bullying other countries into doing what Washington wanted. The story made the timing of my yesterday’s letter to PM Borut Pahor a bit unfortunate, as a plethora of issues was overshadowed by Cablegate – The Slovenian Edition. Well, there’s little use crying over spilled milk.. eerr… cables.

Obama: “Yo B., wassup?!” Pahor: “Make me an offer I can’t refuse” (source)

So, what’s the story (morning glory)? The esteemed New York Times (one of only a handful of media to have been granted advance access to 250k+ US State Department cables) reported that Slovenia was pressured by the current US administration to take in at least one Gitmo prisoner and that Slovenian leadership could look forward to some quality time with Barack Obama in return. The story was picked up by The Beeb and (naturally) every Slovene media. Big bad America picking on someone not even a tenth of it’s size. Not nice.

But then came the twist. Spanish El Pais, another paper with advance access to Cablegate material, posted the “problematic” cable (one of about 900 pertaining to Slovenia). Assuming that he cable is genuine, it was Slovenian PM Borut Pahor who floated the idea of Slovenia accepting a prisoner from Guantanamo in exchange for 20 minutes with President Obama.

And then, another twist. According to Der Spiegel, it was actually foreign minister Samuel Žbogar who was asking around what would the US give in return if Slovenia were to take over a Gitmo detainee. (link kindly provided by alcessa)

Wait. What!?

Yeah, I know. Embarrassing, to say the least. Naturally, all hell broke loose. Spineless begging. Sellout. Corruption. Ass-kissing. Those were prevailing reactions in Slovenia yesterday. However, there’s more to this than meets the eye. We’ll deal with differing versions of the story a bit later on, but for the sake of the argument let’s assume that the cable as published by El Pais is genuine.

The said cable was sent from US Embassy in Ljubljana on 5 January 2010 and detailed a visit by PM Pahor to the embassy on 30 December 2009, where he was hosted by Charge d’Affairs Bradley Freden, at the time the top-ranking US diplomat to Slovenia. The cable summarised the meeting (requested by Pahor) as follows:

CDA [charge d’affairs] and Pahor discussed political and economic priorities for 2010, including the relocation of Guantanamo detainees, stability and integration of the Western Balkans into the EU and NATO, and Westinghouse involvement in the planned second nuclear plant at Krsko.

At this point it should be noted that this was apparently the second such visit Pahor made to the US embassy which (obviously) did not go unnoticed by Freden and was interpreted as “the U.S.-Slovenian relationship [being] one he [Pahor] seeks to cultivate.“.

I won’t bother you with the actual cable, as you can read it here. Let us focus on analysis instead.

Borut Pahor goes shopping

In pengovsky’s opinion this cable shows (if anything) that Prime Minister Pahor, rather than spinelessly licking American ass, actually knows how to play the foreign policy game. Bear in mind that the meeting took place a little less than two months after Slovenia and Croatia signed the Arbitration Agreement on the border dispute, where apparently it was the US who manhandled Croatia into signing the paper which was decried as “high treason” on both sides of the border. Also bear in mind that Slovenia was in 2004 indeed bullied into the “Coalition of the Willing” by the Bush administration just prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq and there was plenty of (needless) embarrassment over a leaked Slovenian cable from Washington on how to handle the imminent declaration of independence of Kosovo. In short, Slovenia-US relations have not been entirely rosy, courtesy of both sides, and PM Pahor saw it fit to keep the current good streak going.

So what Pahor did, apart from going above and beyond the call of duty to show how important the US is (by visiting the embassy in person rather than having the charge d’affairs – then the top ranking US diplomat – come to see Pahor), was actually outlining how he saw US interests in Slovenia and the region. Broadly, these interests include security in the Balkans, a Westinghouse investment into Krško nuclear power plant and relocation of Guantanamo prisoners.

But things don’t just happen by themselves. To make these the above possible, Slovenia obviously wanted something in return. And rather than saying outright what Slovenia wanted, Pahor basically said: “Make me an offer I can’t refuse“. He was, in fact, shopping. With some strings attached. Case in point being Gitmo prisoner(s) where Pahor made it plain that his government was willing to consider the relocation “as long as ‘political’ and ‘financial’ obligations were considered separately“. Translation: show me the money.

The main problem, according to Slovene media was the fact that “PM gently – but unambiguously – linked success on detainee resettlement to a meeting with President Obama. He said that “a 20-minute meeting” with POTUS would allow him to frame the detainee question as an act of support for Slovenia’s most important ally and evidence of a newly-reinvigorated bilateral relationship.”

Shit. Fan. Aim. Fire

This is where the shit hit the fan. Outrage was almost unanimous, especially in the media. One of my favourites was the conclusion that for the PM and – by extension – his government “a life of a (possibly illegaly) detained Arab prisoner is worth 20 minutes with Barack Obama” (Delo, yesterday, in Slovene only)

It was as if everyone was oblivious to the fact that the cable says in no unclear terms that Pahor linked Gitmo and meeting with Obama “in a one-on-one pull-aside with CDA“. In other words, he did this after the meeting, unofficially. This was neither his not his government’s official position. He floated an idea. Hinted. Tested the waters, if you will. But he never made it a precondition.

Did Pahor make a mistake?

Yes and no. Foreign policy is a dirty business (and yes, someone’s got to do it). Most of it is trade, tit-for-tat. Taking in Gitmo prisoners is not peanuts. Not just because there is no legal grounds for Slovenia to do it (a law would have to be passed to do it), but also because a) it is a security risk and b) means a country (in this case Slovenia) is really going above and beyond the call of duty to help the US solve a human-rights disaster of their own making.

So Pahor felt he could play the table a bit against the Americans. Maybe he miscalculated. But the point is that he was trading. The trade, however, was not just “Gitmo prisoner for quality time with Obama”, but rather “Westinghouse deal, help in the Balkans and Gitmo prisoner in return for more US investments into Slovenia, (officially) recognising Slovenia as an important player in the Balkans, some plain old cash plus 20 minutes with the Big. O (the last one would help, but is optional).

However, the problem with these 20 minutes of Obama’s time is not that the idea had been floated, but how it was floated. As @DC43 said on Twitter, the other day, this is not something a PM does personally, but has someone from his cabinet talk to someone from the embassy. That way neither side loses face in case the idea is nixed, plus the whole thing is absolutely deniable in case of a leak such as this one.

More mistakes

The mistake Pahor did – and subsequent damage control he and foreign minister Žbogar are engaging in today – is more of an embarrassment than anything else. On the other hand the media, both Slovenian and international, made some serious errors.

As already noted, Slovene media were over the “Gitmo-for-time-with-Obama” thing faster than you can say WikiLeaks. But only 24 hours earlier, they were all over the “US-is-blackmailing-Slovenia” story with virtually the same gusto. While right now no-one disputes authenticity of the cable as published by El Pais, we have yet to see anyone retract their statements about “big bad US diplomacy treating everyone else like shit”. Right now it is as if the original version of the story (published by NY Times) never happened.

Three newspapers with advance access to 250k+ cables. All three of them saw it fit to point out a specific Slovenia-US cable. And every one of them came up with a significantly different interpretation of the cable. How is this possible? The cable is about as unambiguous as they come. This is what makes it interesting. And yet we have three totally different stories. Are interpretations of other cables subject to this “variation” as well? And – last but not least – are most of the cables so uninteresting that a relatively unproblematic Slovenia with its globally unimportant issues is the best they can do?

If any of the above is the case, are we to take Cablegate seriously in the first place?

A Letter To Prime Minister Borut Pahor (Yo B., Wassup!)

Dear Prime Minister!

It’s me again. I hope you don’t mind the quip in the title. It seems that these days almost everyone feels comfortable addressing you on first name basis. Not just your (former) brethren in arms but just about anyone who litters the Slovenian corner of the internets with their more or less half-witted comments. Anyways, it’s that time of the year again and I’m not talking about the December festiveness, if you catch my meaning 😉 No matter how you look at it, it’s been quite a year, hasn’t it? You’ve seen your ratings plummet, the crisis took a turn for the worse and skeletons have been falling out of closets faster than you could say “welfare state”. But, unlikely as it may seem, your second year in office earned you much higher marks in my book.

Finger-pointing PM Borut Pahor (source)

You see, in your first twelve months in office you’ve been more or less all fluff. No need to go into details (besides, you can read them up on this blog), but let’s just say that your chronic searching for common ground was beyond counter-productive. Then, all of the sudden, you seemed to have gotten your bearings, released a few carefully placed “gaffes” and transformed – it seemed as if overnight – into this decisive, no-bullshitting, finger-pointing asshole who will walk over bodies to get what he wants.

First and foremost, I congratulate you on securing, signing and winning ratification of the Arbitration Agreement between Slovenia and Croatia. I for one wholly agree with your assessment that consequences of this agreement go beyond mere here-and-now. To think that things regularly escalated almost to an armed border incident while times were good for both countries, it doesn’t bear contemplating what would happen if the border dispute were to become a convenient red herring for either country in times of economic woes and rising nationalism. Yes, I think that had the issue remained unresolved, we could have even witnessed an armed conflict. Things were that bad and with that in mind I feel that for this alone you deserve utmost praise.

Having said that I’d like to impress upon you is that this is the moment to construct your own piece of Churchilliana. Remember him? The old conservative fart with a cigar in one hand and a glass of brandy in another (brandy, not whiskey as you mistakenly claimed in your inauguration speech) whom we both appreciate? If memory serves, one of his many quotes includes “In victory – magnanimous”. This is how you should go about the arbitration agreement. Yes, you struck it, stuck to it and saw it through. But you were not entirely alone in that enterprise. The government and the coalition were behind you. The majority in the parliament was behind you. A lot of people who needn’t stick their necks out were behind you as well. Yes, if you had failed the blame would fall entirely on your shoulders. And, yes, you can claim all the success as yours. But that would be a bit short sighted, methinks. Not only because the story is not quite over yet, but also because a lot of people would feel better about it if you spread some love. Many a voter supported the deal simply because they were fed up with the whole storm in a teacup. This doesn’t mean that they’re in your bag for good. But they might support you again if you come off as magnanimous enough.

Sir!

Arbitration Agreement aside you seem to have generated some clout with your Balkans initiative which is – as I understand – now seen as a convenient fall-back for NATO and EU ever since the Butmir process more or less failed as did the Spanish initiative during their EU presidency. You were also very active in the Arab world and the much lacked economic aspect of foreign policy now finally seems to be there. Hopefully it is not too little too late. At the very least I’m sure Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković is grateful for your Lybian endeavours, since apparently moneymen from Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya will invest 30 million euros into Stožice Complex.

Foreign policy is your strong suit. Case in point being the cable by US Embassy in Ljubljana which was released by WikiLeaks and picked up by Spanish El Pais daily which detailes how you floated the idea of Slovenia accepting one Gitmo detainee and put it in the wider context of Slovene-US relations. While US charge d’Affairs apparently took the bait, the idea did not bear fruit. It does, nevertheless prove that you know how to play the game, although people whose opinion I value tell me that your performance lacked diplomatic style in this particular episode. However…

If were are to broaden the famous dictum by von Clausewitz and accept that foreign policy is only a continuation of domestic policy using different means, then, my dear Prime Minister, I fear you are on the brink of your ego issuing checks your body can’t cash.

You see, most if not all of your diplomatic exploits will not be worth a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys if you fail in your domestic policies which – as we both know – constitute a rather tall order unto themselves, doubly so in times of economic and social crisis.

Prime Minister!

While it is generally understood that (in Slovenia, at least) left-wing coalitions are fraught with bickering, divisive rhetoric, principles which sometime border on hard-headedness and a plethora of interests with almost every player, no matter how unimportant, convinced that he/she would do a far better job in your place, you must take caution as to not let this state of “organised chaos” dissolve into senseless waste of time. This can happen either by you and your government being spread thin over too many fronts or by you not keeping your coalition partners and (even more importantly) your own party in check. You seem to be going down both paths with gusto.

Challenges (to use one of your favourite buzzwords) you and your government are facing today are numerous, chief among them the upcoming pension reform where you’re bleeding too much too fast and should bring the issue to a favourable close as soon as possible. The longer it takes you to do it, the less positive outcome there will be.

You are most likely facing a referendum in pension reform in 2011. Ditto for legislation on menial work. The same quite possibly goes for the new Family Code. You’re also up for a referendum on the new law on RadioTelevision Slovenia (RTVSLO). These are battles you must win. It is only with political victories at home that you can claim clout abroad. But to win them, you desperately need to get your own house in order. The fuck-up over your former chief of staff Simona Dimic put quite a dent in your armour. Leader of one of your coalition parties is on trial for dereliction of duty in the Patria Affair and has burdened this country with an attack boat Slovenia got as compensation for the so called “clearing-debt” owed to us by Russia. True, Karl Erjavec of DeSUS had a hand in this while he was defence minister in Janez Janša’s government, but fact of the matter is that your government is taking heavy flak over it. Not to mention that it is Erjavec who is continuously giving you the short shrift over pension reform.

Not that it stops there. Your other two coalition partners, Zares and LDS are having problems of their own and I don’t mean just fighting for survival in the public opinion polls. Zares and its leader Gregor Golobič is constantly fighting off ever more silly attempts to implicate him and Ultra company in every half-baked investment in this country while LDS is possibly up for a third consecutive interpelation of one of its ministers, this time of Justice Minister Aleš Zalar (not in the least because is using Twitter, which some find irresponsible)

But all of the above is peanuts compared to the slaughterhouse that is to become your own party if you don’t kick some serious ass soon. Case in point being bloc 6 of Šoštanj Coal Powerplant (TEŠ6), an investment of a whooping 1.2 billion euro with so little oversight that it probably made even tax consultants cringe. While TEŠ6 is more of a “local v. national” rather than inter-coalition feud, fact of the matter is that some very powerful players in your party became very nervous when one of the largest investment in Slovenian history was (finally) starting to be questioned.

Dear Prime Minister!

You yourself often said that your political opponents tend to underestimate you. But you yourself must not underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. Regardless of your (probably intentionally) misleading signals over whether you will seek another term as PM, I think that – barring a disaster – you will do just that. But elections are never won, only lost. And right now you seem poised on losing them not because you’re doing the wrong thing, but because you’re doing too little of the right thing.

Put your own party in order. Roll a few heads. Kick some pensioner butt. Possibly kill TEŠ6. To quote Winston C. again: “If you’re going through hell, keep going“. And stop worrying whether Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković will run for PM in 2012. He won’t.

Oh, and while you’re at it, do make sure Slovenia hosts 2013 European Basket Championship. I know you’re just playing hard-to-get when you’re not (yet) giving it your full support, but really… We could do with a bit of good copy in this day and age.

Kind regards,
pengovsky

P.S.: If by any chance you didn’t get the joke in the title, he’re a hint 🙂

Some Rights Are More Human Than Others

Remember Petition 571? A group of journos went wailing to the international community about the media onslaught Janez Janša and his government undertook during their tenure and PM Janša was really unhappy about it, saying that allegations of political influence over the media (the said petition) and human rights abuses (the Roma family Strojan and the Erased) should be dealt with on domestic scene as not to mar Slovenia’s reputation just prior to its taking over the EU presidency.

Part of what SDS was sending around the world

While SDS and its leader went apeshit when someone was dissing the family on their watch, they were happy to do it when it was their turn to sit in the back of the classroom (i.e.: lose the 2008 elections).

And they seem to have acquired a bit of a taste for it. Either that or some rights are more human than others as far as SDS is concerned. Because in the past few days this leading opposition party made a big show of tearing apart the nomination of Branko Masleša for President of the Supreme Court (not to be confused with the Constitutional Court). SDS went after Masleša for a number or reasons and saw it fit to go international with the story. And then some. And then some more.

In case you don’t want to sift through everything SDS threw at Masleša (although I strongly urge you to do so. Is a fun read. And is in English), here’s the basic beef: Masleša is unfit for President of Supreme Court because he:

a) Was the last Slovenian judge in Slovenia to sentence someone to death.
b) Took part in secret committees which inspected shootings of defectors across Yugoslav – Italian border as late as 1989.
c) SDS suspects he was opposed to Slovenian independence and allegedly claimed Yugoslav army will run Slovenia over.

Masleša in turn responded (Slovenian only), saying that:

a) Death penalty was legal in mid 80s and that it was a case of multiple homicide and that the sentence was commuted to a 20-year-imprisonment.
b) Those committees were not secret at all and that he was required to attend them as a judge at the District court in the border town of Nova Gorica.
c) Allegations of his “lukewarmness in the cause of independence” are false.

Now, pengovsky agrees that human rights are important. No. Scratch that. They are an infinitely important element of any society which even remotely wants to call itself democratic. And if SDS has a beef with human rights record of a candidate they have a duty to voice them. But it looks as if the issue is being abused for a tangible political goal which is only remotely connected to any (if any) human rights violations.

On one hand it’s bad form according to SDS and Mr. Janša to tell the world about how media is being pressured, how Roma people are being persecuted and how more than 20k people have no legal status whatsoever, but on the other mere allegations and suspicions are reason enough to sound the international general alarm thrice over. Secondly, it is more than just slightly worrying that a revolutionary mindset is being applied two decades after independence was achieved (and achieved it was with political, legal and military means). I mean “actively opposing Slovenian independence”? What is this? A search for the “enemy within?” The KGB was mighty good at that, you know…

But what is most bothersome is that thus far these allegations were not substantiated by anything other than more allegations by some of Masleša’s fellow judges (and a constitutional judge to boot). Which is more indicative of some seriously hurt egos rather than a systemic and continuous violation of human rights, the likes of which we’ve seen in the case of the Strojan Family and the Erased.

But since the power to nominate the President of the Supreme court lies with the Minister of Justice – in this case LDS’s very own Aleš Zalar (recently of Twitter fame) – the whole thing obviously has a huge political angle. Zalar already crashed and burned with his previous nominee for this post, as Marko Šorli did not get support of the parliament, which caused quite a few waves within the coalition. Secondly, the minister is for some time now pursuing ways to replace ~~Attorney~~ Prosecutor General Barbara Brezigar which is both dividing the coalition as well as freezing blood of some top SDS people. And lastly, prior to his entry into politics, Zalar was a highly profiled president of the Ljubljana District Court and reportedly stepped on about as many toes within the judiciary as possible (and took some ego bruising himself).

Which is why it comes as no surprise that SDS today in the afternoon started making noises about calling an extraordinary session of the parliament or even submit an interpelation against minister Zalar. Which is a classic manoeuvre. First you stir enough shit, then claim the whole issue is so unclear that extraordinary measures must be applied. All the while (ab)using human rights as a pretext. This will get dirtier by the day.

Renegade MP Faces Criminal Investigation

Andrej Magajna, former MP for Social Democrats who quit the party’s parliamentary group over the new law on RTV Slovenia and registered as an independent found himself subject of a criminal investigation early this morning. According to POP TV CrimPolice showed up at his house at 6 o’clock with a warrant to search the premises and confiscated five computers.

Andrej Magajna (source)

Magajna said that the investigation had to do with suspicion of downloading illegal material but did not specify just what kind of material this might be. He did, however, share a couple of seemingly important pieces of information. He said that the investigation was in part launched based on information provided by a certain Luxembourg office, denied any knowledge that it has to do with child pornography and then added that “everyone downloads things from the internet, from children onwards…“.

Obviously everyone is hyped right now an is reading a lot into this. Magajna’s sentence about children and downloading is dubious and can be interpreted benevolently (as in “nowadays even kids download copyrighted material”) or maliciously (“everyone downloads pictures of children nowadays”). For the time being pengovsky is inclined to go with the former interpretation, not in the least because things are happening too fast for comfort.

Oops

Having said that, it should be noted that a quick search on the internet turns up LISA Stopline, Luxembourg Internet Safety Alert, which deals solely in collecting reports on child pornography, terrorism related content, racism, revisionism and similar. Magajna also said that he was under investigation because the internet connection was in his name, but that there are a number of people in his household using now confiscated computers and stressed that his parliament-issued laptop was also confiscated.

As pengovsky was writing this it transpired that as much as twenty-one raids related to child pornography were performed during the night, all based on information from Luxembourg. People who know cyber-crime say that often this is a case of high-jacking one’s internet connection therefore any conclusions are premature. However, with Magajna at the centre of the recent brouhaha over referendum on RTVSLO, coincidences may not be all that coincidental.

Conspiracy theories galore

Obviously, one immediately thinks about Magajna being punished for breaking ranks over the new law on RTVSLO. Easy-peasy. An investigation was being launched anyway, why not extend it, scare the shit out of him and have a peek in his computers while we’re at it. You know, just so he gets the message for future reference. If this were really the case, we’d be looking at a frightful case of intimidation and retaliation tactics, not to mention abuse of power and similar. To pengovsky’s best knowledge this would also be the first time police would be used (at the very least in such an open manner) as an intimidation tool. Usually this sort of tricks were monopolised by secret services and people with shady pasts serving their particular political masters. Not to mention the fact that Slovene police cab be very porous as far as sensitive information is concerned and an abuse of this magnitude would be leaked almost immediately.

Another theory is much more interesting, though. Maybe Magajna did not break ranks with the SD of his own accord, but was forced to. Not by his former party but by someone else. What if this is a simple case of political blackmail? Suppose Magajna indeed was under investigation and suppose not everything is in order. I’m not saying child porn, but maybe a shit-load of latest H’Wood releases. Tons of music. Who knows. And suppose this information was leaked beforehand to someone on the political right who then used it to coerce Magajna into supporting the referendum on RTVSLO?

But then again, it could be just a concidence. However, there are too many coincidences here. First, Magajna (of all people) voices concerns over the legal status of the RTVSLO (it is now to become a hybrid between public and private legal person). Of all the provisions of the law he finds this one so problematic that he “crosses the aisle” and sides with the opposition. Then he quits his native parliamentary group, just in time to save the SD from the embarrassment of having an MP under investigation. And then Magajna on live TV, rather than screaming bloody murder, reacts in the most calm of manners and says that he doesn’t believe there’s a political connection?

Either this is all a ploy with an already known outcome, or the guy is the next Jesus Christ.

Honey, I Shrunk The Coalition!

My, how the tables have turned! A little more than eighteen months ago Zares of Gregor Golobič floated the idea of some fundamental changes to Slovenian referendum legislation. What on the surface looked like a noble idea, had way to many drawbacks, but for purposes of this post suffice it to say that among other things this junior coalition party wanted to institute a “Referendum Day” or two where all referendum bids filed until a certain date would be voted on (Read The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions if you want to jog your memory).

The Boy with the Flute is a mascot of RTVSLO ever since it was created as RTV Ljubljana (source)

Today the government of Borut Pahor and Zares in particular are in a situation where such provisions (had they been passed in time) would most likely kill one or more key pieces of reform legislation which the coalition somehow managed to squeeze through the parliament despite copious amounts of shit being thrown at it.

Notably this goes for the famed Law on Menial Work (which was, truth be told, vetoed by the National Council hours ago and will have to be voted on again by the National Assembly) and especially for the new law on national radio and television (RTV Slovenija) which was passed last week and which (again) brings sweeping changes to the institution and (according to the Ministry of Culture) is returning the now-state-run media back into the public domain.

State vs. Public

A quick but necessary digression: Soon after Janez Janša won 2004 elections (so soon in fact that the LDS did not yet have the time to fall apart) a new law on RTVSLO was passed by the parliament which turned the former into a full-blooded state radio and television, mostly through changes in composition of supervisory and programming boards and election of its members and (further down) by altering the way Radio and TV chiefs were appointed.

The changes, however, were sold as “more quality programming for less money” since of the more debated provisions of the law was the so called RTV-fee (which was set at EUR 12) held the most tangible value. Everyone who’s ever worked in media knows that you never get more (quality) content for less money, but since RTVSLO was, is, and will be a money-guzzling-bottomless-pit and since quality of programming already at that time left a lot to be desired, it wasn’t a hard sell. And even so the law was barely confirmed on a referendum.

Honey, I shrunk the coalition!

The new law was passed on 20 October with an ordinary majority and immediately caused a bit of a rift in the largest coalition party as Andrej Magajna (leader of non-parliamentary Christian Socialist party, elected as MP on a Social Democrats‘ ticket) broke ranks and gave the crucial thirtieth signature needed by opposition Slovene Democratic Party (SDS) and Slovene National Party (SNS) to call a referendum on the freshly minted law. Furthermore Magajna left SD’s club and declared himself an indpendent.

One vote less in a squabble-prone left wing coalition is quite a price to pay for a single piece of legislation. This proves that the law, which was drafted in the ministry of culture (a portfolio held by Zares’ Majda Širca) has such a strong backing in the government and PM Pahor personally that he was willing to see his majority in the parliament reduced to 47 votes. just a vote above the single-vote majority.

Cynics will obviously say that this is a small price to pay to have RTVSLO shaped according to Zares’ and Pahor’s wishes, and to an extent that is true. The true question therefore is whether RTVSLO will truly be returned to the public domain as the coalition claims or will it be further politicised as the opposition claims. Janez Janša’s SDS crying foul on political influence over RTVSLO is of course a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, but this does not automatically mean that the law is good. But it does provide some basis for gradual comeback of quality content and serious journalism to what supposedly wants to be the Slovenian BBC. But nothing will change just because there’s a new law in place. Just sayin’

Oh, the irony!

Wait. What? Who said there’s a new law in place? The referendum bid was successful, which means that the voters will have the final say in the matter. And this is where we come full circle to the beginning of the post. It is somewhat ironic that today it is the opposition which wants to institute a “Referendum day”, mostly on the grounds that there are numerous referendums being mulled (RTVSLO, law on menial work and pension reform among others) and “since we’re at it, we might just vote on them all in one go”.

We’ll neglect the fact that this is a rather poor attempt at shooting down Pahor’s government at the expense of an overhaul this country badly needs and rather focus on the fact that Zares responded fiercely to the idea. Not just because they see the referendum as a “waste of taxpayers’ time and money” (which is the official party position) but also because holding a referendum on 17 April would a) probably sink the law by default as it would not be voted on on merit but as a protest vote against the government and b) would – if it somehow survived – come into force on 1 January 2012, more than a year from now. Which is precisely one of the drawbacks of Zares’ idea pengovsky pointed out a year-and-a-half ago.

Yes, I am feeling rather smug 😀