SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Belgium Explained To Slovenes (And Whoever Else) In Ten Easy Lessons

Some of you might remeber me teasing Dr. Arf about continuation of his legendary series. He promised to do something about it and he delivered a day later. It was me who forgot to publish his post in – well – post-election frenzy. I’m trully sorry.

Here it is, Dr. Arf’s eight installment of Belgium Explained To Slovenes (And Whoever Else) In Ten Easy Lessons!!!

LESSON VIII : YOUR VERY OWN EU BANANA MONARCHY

A quick recap

When I posted last, we – that is the nation called Belgium – were on the verge of having a government that reflected the results of the national election held on June 10th, 2007. Yves Leterme, being the clear winner, and his christian democratic party CD&V’s kartel with Flemish nationalist party NV-A, up to that point had succeeded in creating a jumble of a government with Flemish and Walloon liberals (the latter sporting their own francophone nationalist kartel partner in FDF and their Maximo Lidér and political pyromaniac Olivier Maingain) and christian democrats (headed by �?Madame Non’ Joëlle Milquet). After some intestinal and political blood letting, Leterme finally succeeded in installing a formed government around Easter. And not much else. Virtually nothing else, actually.

Where are we now?

The obvious question you’re asking yourselves now is “Why?”, possibly followed by “How is this even possible [in a country that is supposed to be a shining example of peaceful coexistence of two cultures within the EU framework]?”. And you’re not wrong if you shake your head to such a blatant display of political unwillingness to actually govern the country when consumer confidence is at an all time low and economy is in serious regress. Sometimes you wish you just had a corrupt PM to deal with instead of this mess…

Remember, the main focus of the winning parties was state reform, giving more executive power to the regional governments. This would weaken the position of the national government, creating a so called confederal system. The Walloon politicians, long time beneficiaries of Flemish �?financial solidarity’ went into a panic frenzy at the mere suggestion. Consequently sabotaging any negotiations by demanding the impossible – and banking conveniently on the fact NV-A would never agree to these demands, providing them with the perfect scapegoat to keep the sabotage process going – and at the same time turning down any demands made on the Flemish side (where the same game is being played; all’s fair in war and politics), these negotiations went nowhere. State reform was put on the back burner to allow the government to at least put on its game face, pretending to actually govern the country… which it didn’t. War hawk defence minister De Crem (CD&V) sent four (yes, FOUR) F-16 jet fighters to support the U.S. peace winning effort (sic) in Afghanistan and will send logistical forces for the fighters in the form of ground troops. And the finance minister, MR’s head honcho Didier Reynders managed to downplay the rather sizable hole in the budget. And then they went on a holiday, leaving the problem of the state reform in the hands of three royally appointed negotiators.

For some reason, these negotiators were all selected from the francophone political world, up to and including the German speaking minority, represented by their PM Karl-Heinz Lambertz, who took the opportunity to step into the media limelight on behalf of his own community, but did not come up with a solution. Neither did the other Wise Men From The South. Neither gold nor incense or myrrh and certainly no definite proposals to effectively get out of the stalemate. Just rehashed statements, diametrically opposing the agreements made between the representatives on both sides of a regional task force; the next effort for a political deus ex machina to save state reform negotiations, instigated by Flemish PM Kris Peeters (CD&V). To add insult to injury, the aforementioned Didier Reynders, who also happens to be vice PM and god in the deepest of his private thoughts (not quite a stretch for a liberal politician, as you might imagine), said last Friday that a state reform negotiation wouldn’t happen anyway until after the regional election of 2009.

This hardly came as a surprise, since Reynders had made public he was starting to campaign for these elections two weeks ago, thus effectively undermining any decision making power this non-government still had between now and those elections. Not surprisingly, NV-A cried havoc over the weekend and decided by unanimous vote that they had lost their confidence in this government and any attempts at state reform negotiations at their party congress yesterday. It seems September 21st wasn’t only the official day the leaves can start falling; façades are crumbling as well. SP.A, whom so far remained dead silent, licking their wounds while their party leaders were attending the Democratic Convention in the U.S. to see Barack Obama accepting his nomination to run (a delegation of the Flemish liberals VLD were also attending), called for the only NV-A minister in the Flemish government, Geert Bourgeois, to resign, possibly opening the way for them to step from opposition back into power regionally after having suffered a severe defeat nationally last year.

And the outcome is…

Geert Bourgeois did resign today, saying that if the trust in the government isn’t there anymore, the kartel is dead as well, which sent CD&V into a tailspin. They would lose their majority hold both nationally as well as regionally, so understandably they’re saying the kartel isn’t over just yet and they’ll get together with NV-A on Tuesday to pick up the political pieces. Both Flemish and Walloon liberals are shouting out their joy about NV-A �?showing its true colours’, as are the French socialists, but is this really a day of joy? Has the main opposing factor really gone? I’m quite certain this is not the case. FDF is still putting gasoline on the fire by demanding the Flemish suburbs of Brussel to become part of the capital (read : claiming the Flemish region surrounding Brussels as francophone in principle) and not splitting up the electoral region Brussel – Halle – Vilvoorde (which means francophone politicians can’t campaign and get votes in these Flemish suburbs anymore), as mandated by the Belgian Supreme Court, since not splitting the electoral region is unconstitutional. Of course, losing such an electorate potential by splitting the region is a severe blow to the Walloon politicians, not to mention it undermines any claims for usurping the suburbs into the largely francophone Brussel. It’s a political hot potato they are willing to keep dishing up and blatantly ignoring the country’s constitution for.

To my mind, if politicians want their constituents to adhere to the law, they should lead by example. Clearly, when their political power is at stake, they’re willing to ignore that, not surprisingly. When push comes to shove, there is no respect for either the constitution or that part of the Belgian people and their territory that is not their own. So to my mind, it’s not just NV-A who’s been throwing a spanner in the works all this time, well over fifteen months now. The end result of all this political manvoeuvering is a further disintegration of the Belgian nation and constituents on both sides of the language barrier who are growing tired of it all. In the words of the late Jim Morrison : the future’s uncertain and the end is always near…

DR. ARF

Something To Chew On A Saturday Morning

(source)

ElectoralVote.com has a lovely scenario of what can happen if China wants to cash in on the American nightmare:

Asian countries, especially China, own hundreds of billions of dollars worth of treasury bills. Now suppose the Chinese government decides it wants to get into the car manufacturing business so it makes a deal with Toyota, now the world’s largest car manufacturer, to buy GM outright for a song and move its factories to China to be operated by Toyota but employing Chinese workers. All they keep is the U.S. dealer network and millions of American jobs are lost. If the next President nixes the purchase of GM, the Chinese sell their treasury bills and the dollar collapses.

Could it be that the US administration is going about nationalising most of it financial market to drive out Mid-East and Chinese capital? And could it be that it is actively twidling its thumbs while stocks tumble, to get a better price on the companies it intends to nationalise?

Just a thought….

But the way things are going, you’re soon liable to go out to buy a toaster and it’ll come with a bank….(more here)

In other news:

Outgoing PM Janez Janša filed a suit against against three people because of the Patria affair: The Finnish YLE reporter Magnus Berglund, the author of the programme which claims Janša took a bribe and two people who appeared in the programme: Bojan Potočnik, former Chief of Police (under Janša’s tenure) and former Advisor to the President, last seen running for MP on LDS ticket and Milan Švajger, CEO of Sistemska tehnika, the company that lost the tender for APCs.

About effing time, he did. Just too bad he’s probably aiming at case being dropped as soon as he leaves the office. Janša filed a suit as PM, and since he will cease being one soon enough, he will probably lose legal interest and the case will be dropped.

While he will rant on about how he was denied justice…

Something To Chew On A Tuesday Morning

Just a few lines to chew on:

The Court of Audit issued its audit of last year’s budget.. The gist of it? While the government claimed to have created a 37 million euros in surplus, the auditors discovered that they’ve created a 9 million euros in deficit. Ther reason? The government failed to declare a transfer of Telekom shares to state-fund SOD, which would (and indeed did) put the budget in red. Looks like pengovsky was right nine months ago. It just wasn’t NKBM.

The Prez decided to convene the new parliament on 15 October and gave a reception for members of the outgoing parliament and government, but PM Janša failed to attend.. So did two thirds of his cabinet and almost half of MPs. What the fuck? Your President hosts a party for you, thanking you for your service to the country and you can’t find the time? Jesus! I mean, I know defeats hurt, but this….?

Karel Erjavec of DeSUS needn’t fear for his future. If coalition talks fail, he will aparently film remakes of several H’wood classics.

P.S.: This post was initally supposed to be published on Saturday, but it somehow wasn’t.

Life Is Short. Aim High And Bite Hard! (An Appeal For Assistance)

Jean of Footnotes from a small village and her border collie Lyra came 6th in the Open Freestyle category of this year’s European Dogfrisbee Championship and all that stands between them and USDDN Disc Dog World Finals in Cartersville, Georgia is a few hundred euros that would buy tickets to the other side of the Pond. I urge you to read Jean’s appeal and help if you can. Even if you only bring this to the attention of other people who you think might be willing to help, you’ll do a lot.

Jean and Lyra were a part of our Liberation day expedition last year and needles to say they both completed it. In my book that say a lot about them. Just one thing. if you choose to help, please do so as soon as possible. Time is of the essence.

Lyra and Jean in action

Would Someone Please Finally Ban Reality Shows?

As I was making my way to The Firm™ in my very own Benzo this morning, I was skimming over the morning dose of new coalitions, old farts and worried investment bankers. However, something stood out: Namely, Maja, one of the contestants in The Farm, the second installment of a popular reality show produced by POP TV, apparently lost her unborn child as a result of stress while filming. According to a story by Dnevnik, she was promised full medical care for the duration of the filming (as most of you know, contestants live on the set until the end of the show or until they get thrown out by the viewers) and has decided to stay. Things however did not go well and as bad blood started flowing between contestants (as is usually the case in reality shows), her pregnancy took a turn for the worse and she had an abortion.

Kmetija/The Farm

Now I have a long-standing beef with reality shows. This latest incident only convinces me that reality shows are harmful, unethical and abusive both to the public and especially the contestants and should therefore not exist. At all.

Reality shows are anything but real. They are a carefuly coreographed social experiment with a predictable result: higher ratings, more advertising money and a bigger market share. Naturally, the sun always shines on TV and the viewing public is presented with a congested nothing of everyday life. Not. Since no one can make nothing look good (some politicians are excpetion to the rule), games are devised, which are designed to promote a dog-eat-dog mentality, with contestants trying to please the public but usually faling prey to their personal traits. They are chosen among tens if not hundreds of candidates which are profiled, screened, tested and checked from every possible aspect, including pyschological (in)compatibility. The aim being to create an enviroment of maximum possible conflict. Because conflict sells. And the last sentece is the only reality there is. Everything else is created, produced, crafted, coreographed, manipulated and – well – faked.

Media don’t present reality, they create it.

I should know, I work in media.

There is a difference between ordinary public, the “media consumers” if you will and “media professionals”, individuals and organisations who create media and/or live off them (celebrities, perfomers, journalists, politicians, opinion makers, etc…). The latter know the name of the game and are acutely aware of the fact that what the viewing public is presented with, is at best a close approximation of reality and take that into consideration when entering a relationship with the media. That is why you will often see two professionals nearly get into a fight on TV, but see them hapily breaking bread over a bottle of beer only hours later.

The “media consumers” have no such luxury. They can either accept what media serve them or choose to ignore them completely. They do not enjoy the privilige of a behind-the-scenes look. And naturally producers of reality shows do little to disspell the faked reality of television which is the main driving force behind people applying en masse to enter these shows.

“Wow, I’ll be on TV! Everyone I know will see me on TV and I’ll be famous! This is my big break! Maybe I’ll start a musical career, like what-was-her-name, you know Miss Slovenia!”

When “media consumers” enter reality shows they become both object of mockery and admiration, fueling the desire of other “media consumers” to be there in their place. However, when they outlive their usefulness, the TV will shun and reject them without a blinking an eye, just as it took them onboard without hesitation as soon as it became apparent they had they “have what it takes” for making the show interesting, whatever that may be.

“So, you’re pregnant, huh? Shit, and we’ve already set everything up… Look, it’s your call, but if you decide to stay, we promise to give you full medical support for as long as you’re here. Hey, mom and dad will see you every time they switch the TV on. Or even over the internet. You’ll be a big hit and since you’re pregnant everyone will like you. What could be better than that?”

If producers of the reality show had any sort of moral scruple, they would not have let Maja enter the show no matter what. Perhaps this girl would have lost her child anyway. There’s no way of knowing. But being in what can only be described as a hostile and stressful enviroment could not have helped her condition one bit.

Producers of reality shows claim to respond to public demands. Wrong. Just as with reality, media also creates demand for content, especially when they market it right. But the what they actually respond to is a drive for profit. TV producers invest respectable amounts of money in reality shows and in return get an attentive public, higher ratings, higer market share a shit load of advertising money and even bigger pile of money they made by charging for all those text messages sent and 24/7 internet access.

And what does the viewing public get in return? That there are people out there whose lives are just as miserable as theirs.

P.S.: It could be, that it was all an elaborate PR stunt, and that I’ve fallen for it. As I said, media create reality.

Having The Cake And Eating It

Now that the final results of the elections are known and Janez Janša finally sort of conceded, the time has come for Borut Pahor to go about forming a coalition. All eyes are on DeSUS at the moment and bets are being made as to what concession exactly will Karl Erjavec get from the presumptive new PM, with the former already making noises that he expects to get a greater infulence than the smallest coalition party. Katarina Kresal of LDS went apeshit in responce, saynig that members of The Trio (SD, Zares, LDS) should be given prefferential treatment, because DeSUS is a member of Janša’s existing coalition.

Katarina Kresal and Karl Erjavec (source and source respectively)

Kresal’s comment drew a lot of criticism, not in the least by St. Luka, who published an op-ed on Vest.si yesterday (unfortunately Slovene only). It’s gist is that Katarina Kresal and LDS should not receive prefferential treatment, because it was the voters who gave votes to whichever party they saw fit and that the mere fact that The Trio existed does not make its members any more entitled to ministerial posts than any other member of the coalition.

Pengovsky (who ran an op-ed in a Sunday paper, by the way. Luckily, Slovene only) begs to differ. Namely. To a cetain point KK’s statements have merit. It would be ineed somewhat foolsih if Borut Pahor didn’t recoginse the interdependency of The Trio. SD, Zares and LDS need each other. Although the left is not exactly known for the ability to stick together, the fact is that any of the three parties would be very much alone, cold and scared without the other two. They were in it together almost from the very begining (insofar as we can define a speicific point of their begining) and if DeSUS missed the party, then – well – tough luck.

On the other hand, one can understand St. Luka and – by extention – Karl Erjavec (although I assume St. Luka did not intend to defend Teflon Karl). They recevied an unprecedented amount of votes, they are the fourh largest parilamentary group and do not intend to play the part of the fifth wheel. They want to cash in on the votes they got and are acutely aware of their position. However, this is not a game of chess (not yet, anyway), but rather a case of feeding the political masses with two loafs of bread. But unlike Jesus of Nazareth, Borut Pahor does not have enough to go around and will have to dissappoint a lot of people as it is.

So the 64.000 euro question is, whether Pahor should reward Erjavec and DeSUS for being late for the party or pussyfoot around them, given the party’s importance in securing a majority in the parliament.

I think Pahor’s priority should be in forming a more or less stable core of the coalition. DeSUS will probably assume the role of an attention whore from the start, which might ultimately lead to its premature departure from the coalition. Keeping the other two coalition partners happy will go a long way in a scenario like this.

Furthermore: although Katarina Kresal is still a bit rough around the edges and does tend to talk a lot even when she should listen, she seems to be a fast learner and will very likely know the game inside out within a year. And since her party is a member of the victorious Trio, she can and should receive a status that is more than just a reflection of the vote. Without DeSUS there is no coalition (well, at the very least it becomes harder to form one). But without LDS there is no Trio. So if Borut Pahor wants to position himself as a leader of the left bloc, he better keep LDS and Katarina Kresal happy.

Obviously the same applies in case of Gregor Golobič and Zares, but somehting tells me that GG will be able to hold his own against Pahor. But just to make sure that Slovenia avoids four more years of a top-down approach in politics, where all leaders of coalition parties were also ministers, enabling the PM to boss them around, the president of the Parliament should be a member of one of the junior coalition parties, possibly its president. This would also restore the balance of power in Slovenia, which was tilted heavily in favour of the executive branch in the last four years, reducing the parliament to rubber-stamp duties.

But can Borut Pahor have the cake and eat it? Surprisingly, I think yes. Namely. He will probably have to split 14 ministerial posts and 14 state secreatries (second only to ministers) among coalition parties, where (for argument’s sake) a state secretary is “worth” half a ministerial posts. SD has 29 deputies, Zares has 9, DeSUS 7 and LDS 5, equaling 50 votes in the parliament. And to keep LDS happy, the presumptive PM might think along the lines of giving LDS and DeSUS the same number of ministers and state secretaries, making a slight dent in DeSUS stature (but not much), perhaps offsetting that by giving them one really important ministry. But not the ministry of defence. Even Karl knows better by now

Final Tally Shows No Change. What Happens Next?

So the unofficial results of Slovene elections are in, including the overseas/expat vote and in the end very little changed. NSi, the one party which was hoping for an election miralce, did get a substantial percentage of the vote (16 percent of the overseas/expat vote as opposed to 3.26 of the domestic vote) but it was too little too late, especially since only about a quarter of 40.000 eligible votes were mailed in. The only person who probably loudly laments the expat vote is Silvo Mesojedec of SDS in voting unit 6 (Novo mesto), who lost his seat to Zvonko Lah (also SDS) by a mere 0.09 percent of the vote.

The distribution of seats in the parliament is as follows:

Distribution of seats in the new parliament (source: National Electoral Commission)

The National Electoral Commission will confirm the results on Friday (SDS has already stated that it will not contest the results), which means that the Prez will convene the first session of the parliament within twenty days starting Friday, 3 October.

The first session of the parliament will be presided by the oldest member of the parliament, probably Vasja Klavora of DeSUS. During this session the parilament will confirm the mandates of all ninety MPs and elect its leadership: the president and three vice-presidents, one of which will be chosen from the ranks of opposition MPs. They also form standing committees and divide membership in these committees according to a party’s standing the new coalition (one notable exception being the commitee on intelligience agencies which is headed by a member of the oppostion). The pick for the post of the President of the Parliament (technically the second most important position in the country) will also answer the question of what kind of government can we expect. Specifically, whether all coalition party leaders will hold ministerial posts or whether their influence will be dispersed over various institutions.

More on the above some time in the next twenty days, but suffice it to say that it would be prudent that the post of the President of Parliament should go to one of the junior coalition parties. With this the focal point of coalition decision making would shift towards the parliament (both in terms of division of powers as well as geographically), which would be a welcome improvement, since both the PM and the president of parliament were members of SDS, a fact that vastly contributed to having a rubber-stamp parliament most of the time during the last four years (unless DeSUS was in its rebelious mood and SNS wasn’t on the same page).

In any case: Within thirty days of the initial session of the parliament, the President of the Republic holds consultations with leaders of parliamentary groups (including minorities) and decides on his candidate for the PM. The Prez proposes this person (usually leader of the victorious party, or anyone else of whom he is given assurance that can secure an absolute majority of forty-six votes) to the parliament, which holds a secret ballot. The candidate is empowered with the mandate to form a government if he or she wins an absolute majority (46+ votes total).

This is not the end, however.

Within fifteen days the candidate for MP must propose his cabinet, with all the ministers appearing before hearing committees where they outline their policies for the next four years. Hearing committees will hold a non-binding vote on the candidate and all of the candidates for ministerial posts will then be voted on en masse by the parliament in a plenary session. They too must win an absolute majority of votes, creating a curious situation where ministers are firstly reponsible to the parliament for their actions rather then to the PM and it is the parliament which can recall them, not the PM.

On the other hand, things can go wrong (not that I expect them to). If the Candidate for PM fails to form a functioning government – possibly because he couldn’t get an agreement on who will get which department of the government, or couldn’t win the nomination to begin with, the Prez can nominate another person to the post (or repeat the nomination, depending on the circumstances) within a fourth-night. However, at this point the plot thickens since any ten MPs can propose their own candidate, regardless of his/her ability to form a functioning government. But as I said, things will probably go more or less smoothly and Borut Pahor should become the next Prime Minister no later than the end of November.