Category: Slovenia

Yesterday I hinted at more possible arrests as elections near. You don’t actually have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out, but what it is interesting, though, is the fact that these arrests have little or no effect on public opinion polls. Or don’t they? If one looks at it from the perspective of an increase in public support for the rulling party then arrests (or more broadly speaking – the war against tycoons) have failed to deliver. But what if we are looking at it from the wrong perspective?

A sight many would love to see

Janez Janša and his SDS won the 2004 elections by a handsome majority mostly on a ticket of radical socio-economic reforms combined with good old anti-communism and xenophobia. He also promised to achieve a lot of very specific goals (one of them being the regional legislation). However, he failed to deliver on most counts. He failed to deliver to his own electorate. Pengovsky knows for a fact that a lot of his voters are down right disappointedd at today’s lack of a revolutionary fervour which Janša radiated just prior to 2004 elections. So what if Janša is not really looking for a bump in polls but is rather trying to keep his existing polls from going into a freefall? His and his people’s persitency in rounding up the usual suspects and putting them behind bars – even is only ever so briefly – suggests that these moves are yielding political results. And if no result is visible, it must be by design. War on tycoons and accompanying arrests are not meant to increase Janša’s popularity, but to prevent it from decreasing any further. This also suggests further arrests are highly likely. The question of course is – who’s next.

The obvious answer would be Laško Brewery CEO and majority stake-holder Boško Šrot. In Janša’s mind he undoubtedly has a lot to answer for, since the two got along really nice at first but it turned out that Boško was playing an angle and snatched Delo newspaper from Janša’s hands, depriving the PM of a very handy PR tool – and making 1,6 bln euros in the process while acquiring Laško Brewery.

However, Boško Šrot is only a secondary target in this case. Sure, he is worth a truckload of greenbacks and people in Slovenia generally hate other people who do better than themselves but Boško Šrot and his Laško got where they are now more or less thanks to politics and certain politicians. Janša was among them until 2007 and he knows that if pressed against the wall Boško Šrot will probably start oozing information at an accelerated speed. And secondly, if Janša has Šrot arrested, he must also have them arrest Igor Bavčar of Istrabenz. And that will never happen as he ows Bavčar big time since the latter headed the movement which eventually got Janša out of prison in 1988.

Remember, from Boštjan Penko onwards you don’t really need evidence to lock someone up. All you need is a willing police and a willing state prosecution. Both of which are availabe to the PM in large quantities. So, if not Šrot, who then?

Why, Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković. He is roundly hated by Janša’s supporters as a model tycoon, who not only made millions in supposedly dogdy deals, but also entered politics where he continually refuses to play ball. Janković is trying to position himself directly up against Janša and he is getting quite good at it. Not that he is very damaging politically to Janša at the moment, but that might change in the future. Furthermore, by locking up a sitting politician, the PM would also send a very strong message to anyone who might be thinking about jumping ship – this is what will happen if you don’t do as I say.

Locking up Zoran Janković – even if just for a night – would send Janša’s party into a mass multiple orgasm and since more arrests are inevitable, the Mayor of the City of Ljubljana is high on the lists of possible arrests. This was corroborated by another media company whose people came to the same conclusion independently, as well as (indirectly) by a source within Janša’s party.

The question is – will Janša have the balls to do it?

A lot has happened in the past week and there was no time to analyse four (yes, four) polls published in the last ten days. It is worth noting that two of them (Politbarometer, Ninamedia) were conducted prior to referendum on regions. Politbarometer poll showed a steep increase in ratings for Social Democrats, but Ninamedia poll, published only days later showed Janša’s SDS and Pahor’s SD neck-and-neck.

On the other hand, a poll by RTV Slovenia (which changed its pollster recently, BTW) was published after the results of the referendum were published and – suprisingly enough – the results more or less follow the general pattern of the other polls, at least as far as the leading two parties are concerned (Politbarometer poll being a recent exception to the rule). Furthermore, a Delo poll published yesterday confirms SD and SDS being neck-and-neck.

A detailed look reveales a lot of things. Take Politbarometer and Ninamedia polls: both were published only days appart (June 20th and 22nd respectively) but they show strikingly different results. Time again we see that it is indeed very important how you pick your sample and how do you formulate the question. Asking “which party do you feel closer to” is not the same as asking “which party would you vote for were elections held next Sunday”. Take Zmago Jelinčič’s Slovene National Party (SNS) for example: Politbarometer detects a staggering 7% support for SNS (equaling its best result since pengovsky is following polls on this blog), while Ninamedia detects only 3,7% for that same party only days later. My guess would be that Politbarometer asked questions along the lines of “who are you going to vote for”, wheread Ninamedia went for “who do you feel closer to politically” or something like that. Admittedly this is just an educated guess, but at grass-roots levels you will often hear sentences “I don’t like what Jelinčič stands for, but am going to vote for him nevertheless, as he is the only one who can talk straight”.

On the other hand, results of RTVSLO and Delo polls, suggest that referendum on regions had little or no positive effect for the government of Janez Janša. Quite the opposite in fact. Delo detects a huge boost in ratings for Zares, while RTVSLO recorded the government getting only 28 % approval rating (I’m not following ratings of the government as such – only parties – but just to give you an idea). On a larger level of things this becomes paintfully obvious if we look at combined ratings of the three left- and right-wing parties (red and yellow lines respectively):

As Slovenia ends its six-month EU presidency, prime minister Janez Janša will devote all his attention to his re-election on Septeber 21st. Referendum on regions failed to deliver, but maybe a couple of more arrests will. More on this tommorow, but as not to leave you in the dark: Ivan Zidar of “Operation Clean Shovel” was rearrested yesterday, along with (now former) state-prosecutor Boštjan Penko. The latter was on the outs with current Attorney General Barbara Brezigar (who once unsucessfully ran for President on an SDS ballot, among other things) and has resigned from his office a month ago, but effective today, while Zidar is under scrutiny for months now. Both Penko and Zidar were released withouth charges, although they will probably be filed against Penko for giving private legal advice to Zidar while still in office. It was spectatular, though. More on this tommorow, as more details become known.

Pengovsky’s projection: You can see that the three left wing parties enjoy a sold 10+ percent lead over their rightwing counterparts. This means that PM Janša has his work cut out for him. Until now he has managed to basically canibalise his “natural coalition partners”, the NSi and the SLS. But as there are only so many percentage points he can skin off of them, he has to start closing the gap on the emerging left-wing coalition. And he seems to be on his own doing that, as NSi and SLS have no votes to help him with (a Catch 22!). So we will see Janša using the big guns more and more often as he is increasingly running out of time. But he is far from being defeated. Quite the opposite, in fact. As he will now be able focus solely on Slovenian politics, you can be sure that the pace will pick up here. Political bloodshed will begin shortly.

Elections 2008 Badge: Based on the total results of the decided vote of the last poll (Delo), left wing parties get 52 percent of the decided vote, while current coalition plus the nationalist party get 46 percent of the vote. Lipa gets 2 % and is noted separately, because I’m still at a loss as to in which column to count it exactly.

*Either a prisoner or an ambassador (an old Serbian adage)

Celebrations have ended, speeches were given, nods were exchanged. The Prez gave an address on Tuesday, warning that the world around us is changing and that organisations like EU, NATO and UN have to either reinforce or reinvent themselves. He also took a pot-shot at the way the government of Janez Janša is treating the judicial branch (changing the penal code in haste, not respecting decisions of the Constitutional court), and so on. The entire text is available here, English translation pending (hopefully).

The Prez and the FM in the back. Years ago Rupel was Türk’s boss

However, fun began an hour or so before the address, as The Prez said in an interview that he will not sign demissions of several Slovene ambassadors prior to elections on 21 September. The catch is that four-year terms of a handsome number of Slovene ambassadors to capitals like London, Washington and Vienna (to name a few) have ended and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposed replacements, which – according to the constitution – must be approved by the President (one of the very few powers the President actually has).

As almost anywhere in the world, in Slovenia too ambassadorial positions are both political and diplomatic. It was more than once that a person with little diplomatic skill was named ambassador to a certain country either as a reward for something or as a punishment (in accordance with an old Serbian adage Either a prisoner or an ambassador (Ili u zatvor ili za ambasadora)) and despite the fact that we’re looking at a regular end of a cycle, naming new ambassadors raises evebrows. Because it is quite possible that high ranking politicians are seeking refuge in the face of what is increasingly looking as a change at the helm of this country. Although the foreign ministry claims that all proposed names are career diplomats, roumors have it that names like Iztok Jarc (Minsiter of Agriculture), Matjaž Šinkovec (senior ministry official and former head of the Slovene intelligence agency) and even the foreign minister himself are among the names. Granted, all of them have already served as ambassadors – with some distinction, might I add – but fact of the matter is that at the moment all three are high-ranking political figures.

The Prez, himself one of the most distinguished ambassadors this country ever had, will have none of it. Bang! He said that he will wait with naming new ambassadors until election are over with and thus slammed the door really hard on the foreign ministry and Dimitrij Rupel himself who is apparently eyeing an ambassadorial job in Vienna (possibly something to do with Benita Ferrero Waldner, former Austrian FM with whom he apparently really gets along, if you catch my drift).

Foreign ministry reacted with a two-page statement, written in a recognisible “enumeration” style which suggest that it was written by FM Rupel himself. The statement more or less goes “what the fuck do you mean you won’t name new ambassadors, you fuck, do you know who I am?”, but does it in diplomatic lingo, naturally 😀 . It is a well known fact that Rupel and Türk can’t stand each other. Apparently the former thinks of the latter as overly-ambitious, whereas the latter thinks of the former as utterly incompetent (a notion which pengovsky shares 🙂 )

Despite their personal animosity I think The Prez is right. One, naming ambassadors just prior to elections is extremely bad sport. It’s been done before by LDS government(s), but it never won a lot of friends. It is time to put a stop to bad practices (mostly done under the tenure of FM Rupel, mind you – he served under LDS as well). Secondly, the Prez can deside on ambassadors as he sees fit. Period. There are no ifs and buts to it. The Prez has spoken and the minsitry should accept it without hesitation. Instead it is issuing diplomatic notes as if The Prez is another country and the Ministry is defending Slovene international positions. You don’t really argue with your president. Especially if it is you who is up for re-election. And thirdly, it in extremely bad taste that (provided rumours are true) a foreign minister should propose himself as an ambassador.