Ore Exploration and Wasting Time

Monday’s special session of the parliament was an excercise in “ore exploration and wasting time” to use a phrase popularised by the Group TNT. Hours upon hours of the coalition praising the government on its swift and merciless showdown with tycoons (nevermind the fact that no charges have yet been filed) and the opposition saying that it’s all a load of bollocks and that the other side only wants cheap PR on state television (nevermind the fact that the opposition made good use of airtime as well)

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Aleš Gulič and Jožef Školč (both LDS) taking a different attitude towards the debate (photo: Matic Pivk/Delo)

But what was it all about? Technically, Monday’s session was a direct result of a resolution passed a month ago, where the parliament called upon the government to do something about these pesky tycoons and do it quick. In case you forgot, a month ago the MPs were at each others’ throats for most of the day, and then, ten minutes before closing time, when the bartender President of the Parliament called for last orders, he and the rest of the coalition were given some by PM Janša who marched into the Parliament after the opposition spent the debate time alloted and – without the fear of being rebuked – told who the bad guys were really.

This time around it was the government which requested the session, even though the parliament is officially on vacation. But that didn’t stop the PM to skip the session completely. He left the job of explaining how the sudden increase in activity of Competition Protection Office and Securities Market Agency is absolutely not connected to the fact that elections are 53… no, 52 days away to Minister of Economy Andrej Bizjak, his head of MPs Jože Tanko and Branko “Gizmo” Grims, his chief attack-dog and a Goebbels-wannabe

Although the timing of the session mimics a move made by Janša four years ago, when he lambasted the government of Tone Rop, there are not-so-subtle differences between then and now. Four years ago then leader of the opposition Janez Janša spent hours deconstructing the LDS-led government, accusing it of being too soft on corruction, crime and cronyism (the three Cs). Add to that the Erased, a wave of anti-Roma sentiments withing the more “patriotic” part of of the population and an extreme case of ruler’s fatigue in LDS and you can see why Janša won elections in ’04 and what platform he won then on.This year, however, Janez Janša is a prime minister of his own government but still blames his political opponents (who are now in the opposition) for the situation we are facing today.

So on one hand the PM is trying to pull the same stunt again, but on the other hand he needed this session badly, because – despite all the hubbub – the regulators still cannot file a single indictment. So the political aim of Monday’s session was to create a feeling that the “war against tycoons” is going well and that the final victory is at hand, so Boško Šrot my just as well turn himself in. Not that he has any plans of doing that, because this time around he wasn’t the primary target. This prestigious title was reserved for leader of Social Democrats Borut Pahor, whom the coalition MPs were trying to present as being merely a pupet for Boško Šrot and his media and political exploits.

So the goal of Monday’s session was not really about tycoons, but rather about how to frame the opposition for everything this government didn’t do in the past four years. It was a real waste of time. One might just as well start prospecting for ore.

P.S.: As of yesterday we also have a new political party in Slovenia: the Christian Democratic Party. More on that in the coming days

Nothing Kučan Says Is Not True… A Guest Post by St. Luka

Thursday’s post on Kučan vs. SDS seems to have stirred the pot a bit – and I’m not thinking people who share the nick with a certain German philosopher. What caught my eye was a brilliant post by no other than St. Luka. In his “Nothing Kučan Says Is Not True…” he constructs a brilliant argument as to what exactly was going on and what exactly was Milan Kučan saying…

Since his post is in Slovene (as is indeed his entire blog) I’ve asked St. Luka for permission to translate and repost his post and he generously agreed. Here it is – his first guest post on pengovsky.com ever.

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A: Everything Kučan says is untrue!

B: Nothing Kučan says is not untrue!

A: Everythign Kučan says is not true!

B: Nothing Kučan does not says is not true!

A: Everything Kučans does not say is true!

B: Everything Kučan says is not untrue!

A: Nothing Kučan doesn’t say is not untrue!

B: Everything Kučan doesn’t say is untrue!

A: What does Kučan actually say?

B: ???

The latest linguistic clash between Milan Kučan and Slovene Democratic Party has once again shown that the beauty of a language lies in the fact that the language by itself, words, sentences, mean nothing. That statements are neither »true« nor »untrue« based on any sort of »reality« of a particular event. Rather, their meaning must be researched on an entirely different level.

What is it all about? POP TV has reported the event, but they were happily oblivious to traps, quirks and beauties of Slovene language, therefore they reported only on SDS’s »witticisms« and Kučan’s »short memory«. In short: they’ve failed to grasp the beauty of the problem. It was – thankfully – highlighted from that side by Pengovsky. This enables us to have a go at cracking the latest linguistic nut in a case of »What did Kučan really say?«
Kučan said:

“The arrogance, the audacity that sky-rocketed during the term of this regime and the devaluation of values which negate what we craved in 1990 as we opted for our own state, is such that changes must be made«
And SDS replied:

»This is of course true because the current government is trying hard to prevent that values which negated values of the 90s (communism, Yugoslav centralism, party privileges) would not become the values of today. These actions were supported and are still supported by at least 90% of Slovenians«

Pengovsky claims that SDS simply misunderstood Milan Kučan’s complex sentence, who in this case demonstrated a superior knowledge of Slovene language. But – truth be told – Kučan’s sentence is grammatically not entirely correct. This we can’t really hold against the former president, since he did not put his statement in writing, but was giving a statement directly, off the top of his head and into a camera. Were I in his situation, I’d have troubles formulating a coherent and grammatically correct sentence. But for the sake of it, let’s take a look at the mistakes:

Aroganca in samopašnost, ki sta se razširili pod to vladavino, in razvrednotenje vrednot, ki so negacija tega, kar smo želeli leta 90, ko smo se odločili za svojo državo, so vendarle taki, da so potrebne spremembe.

»Arrogance« and »audacity« are two things, therefore the use of dual is necessary, however, adding »devaluation« makes them three, so use of plural is necessary at the end of the sentence (arrogance and audacity are in Slovene language nouns of feminine gender, while devaluation is neutral, thus in the end use of masculine gender is necessary).
The sentence is grammatically incorrect, but that doesn’t really matter. The question of its interpretation is much more interesting.

SDS claims that Kučan wanted to say something else, but in his evilness he fumbled his words and said exactly what he meant. SDS thus interprets the sentence through Freudian psychoanalysis and says that Kučan’s alleged lapse reveals his subconscious, where his desire imposed itself upon his will. In other words: Kučan’s lapse made him say exactly what he wanted to say.
On the other hand Pengovsky also claims that Kučan said exactly what he thought, it’s just that his argument is based on grammatical analysis rather than psychoanalysis.

Arrogance, audacity and devaluation of values that negate what we wanted in 1990, when we opted for our own state, are such that changes are necessary.

Therefore: Devaluation of values, arrogance and audacity. All of these negate what we wanted in 1990.
The »what we wanted in 1990« part relates to »arrogance«, »audacity« and »devaluation of values« and not just »values« and with this – according to Pengovsky – the sentence is no longer a lapse but rather a wholesome criticism of the ruling administration.

So, how do we correctly interpret this linguistic incident between Milan Kučan and SDS? We can conclude the following:

One: Milan Kučan said what he wanted to say, regardless of the interpretation.

Two: What Milan Kučan said one way or the other unsettles the SDS, regardless of the interpretation, because,

Three: whatever Milan Kučan says, he is lying and manipulating. Whenever a lapse makes him fumble his words and say something truthful, this truth is most likely even more evil than his lies are.

Thus it doesn’t matter whether you subscribe to Pengovsky’s or SDS’s interpretation of Kučan’s statement, the end result is the same: Kučan said exactly what he meant, and what he meant was that it’s time SDS stops running the country.

Language can be so fascinating!

The Art Of Speaking

Yesterday, I hinted at how PM Janša and his SDS place ever greater bets in a gamble remain in power after elections on 21 September. Now they are picking fights with former president Milan Kučan again. Just as a side-note: just as with Laško and Delo, here too Janša is proving that there are some mistakes he simply doesn’t learn from. Fights with Milan Kučan usually ended badly for Janša, but the latter would not let go, and keeps picking fights to the point of becoming silly.

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Former president Milan Kučan in a statement for POP TV (source)

This time around, Janša is acusing Kučan of putting his foot where his mouth is. Namely, in a statement for POP TV, Kučan said that “The arrogance, the audacity that sky-rocketed during the term of this regime and the devaluation of values which negate what we craved in 1990 as we opted for our own state, is such that changes must be made.”

Now, read the sentence carefully. I had to employ dr.filomena, the master translator who cracked this one. If anyone’s interested, here is the Slovenian original: “Aroganca in samopašnost, ki se je razširila pod to vladavino, in razvrednotenje vrednot, ki so negacija tega, kar smo želeli leta 90, ko smo se odločili za svojo državo, je vendarle taka, da so potrebne spremembe.”

One’s foot in one’s mouth is not a pretty sight. Especially if we’re talking about a former president whom everyone listens to, regardless of their feelings towards him. And yet the SDS saw this as a pathethic gaffe and decided to take pot shots at the ex-Prez. In a statement, the party said that “Kučan must have wanted to say something else, but his hatred towards those who do not see eye to eye with him made him fumble his words and thus he said that today’s regime is the ‘devaluation of values which negate what we craved in 1990’”

Normally, this would be brushed aside, probabbly with the addition of “everyone’s fallible” or something like that. However, things are not that simple. Milan Kučan did not fumble his words. Neither did he put his foot in his mouth. What he did, was show a superior command of Slovene language while the SDS (as per usual) heard only what it wanted to hear and took his words completely out of context.

Namely: Kučan said that changes must be made because of the audacity and the arrogace of the regime and the devalutaion of our values which we opted for in 1990s. It’s there. You just have to read it. People at SDS on the other hand don’t seem to care for the niceties of their mother-tongue. They seem to have only basic understanding of Slovene and so it is no wonder that they misread the sentence.

Sometimes just talking is not enough. One has to know how to speak. And so the debate will now shift to the question “what did Kučan really say”. And this is the sort of fight Kučan was always best at.

Flat Is The New Up

A day later than planned originally (the arrest of Radovan Karadžić is rather more important, no?), we can have a look at a new poll by Ninamedia, ran by POP TV on Sunday last. No big surpises, opposition Social democrats still hold a small lead that, with PM Janša’s SDS coming in close second, while Zares again takes the third spot, with Liberal Democrats and the nationalists around 5,5 percent.

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Results of all polls combined in a single chart

Since there are no dramatic developments in the polls, we can perhaps play with the numbers a bit. For starters, we cam have a a look at Ninamedia’s polls which were taken in the course of the last five months. It is immediately obvious that polls on 26 May and 10 July recorded a rather wide lead by Social democrats (SD) over Janša’s SDS. Mind you, it was not that SD became hugely popular at those particular moments. Spikes in the “don’t know” column tell us that it was rather Janša’s electorate that was undecided on him at that particular time. This again leads us to coclude that PM Janša is fighting very hard to stay above water and keep Borut Pahor witihn range. For Janez Janša, flat is the new up

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Seven Ninamedia polls taken in the last five months

Moving on. Since 4 February we’ve seen twenty-three polls, which pengovsky faithfuly reproduced for your viewing pleasure. What happens if we calculate the average of all results to date? Let’s take a look: Pahor’s Social democrats still remain in the vicinity of 20 %, while SDS lingers around 18 %. But this includes the undecided vote as well. Things get a lot more interesting if we recalculate the average using only pledged votes. With this we also get a better picture of which party will make it across the 4% treshold:

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Average poll results, discarding the undecided vote

Both “big” parties are still close, but differences are greater than before. If we sum up the results of possible coalitions, things get even more interesting: a coalition of SD, Zares and LDS would beat a very broad coalition of SDS, SLS, NSi, SNS and DeSUS by 0.9 percent (32.0% vs. 31.9%). If, however, a more likely coalition of SD, Zares, LDS and DeSUS were created, it would enjoy a healthy 7% lead over the rest of the parties (35.2% vs. 27.9%).

Either way, PM Janez Janša has his work cut out for him. But in his fight to stay afloat he is continously increasing the stakes. Tommorow we’ll see that he picked on former president Milan Kučan again.

Pengovsky’s projection: Things are far from over, but PM Janša will be looking for “september surprise” to make the necesary breakthrough in polls. This might mean marrying Doc Urška, arresting Zoran Janković and/or Boško Šrot or giving some additional concession to one demograhic group or the other. Or any possible combination of the aforementioned. It is becoming increasling apparent that the winner of the elections will go to any lenghts to secure a majority in the parliament and in this respect PM Janša is positioned far worse than the left bloc. Members of the latter (Zares, SD and LDS), however are afraid one of them will jump ship and join Janša in a broad coalition. That’s why rumours are spread from time to time that one the parties is mulling forming a coalition with Janša. Just as SD and Zares before it, LDS is the latest victim of these rumours. The goal, naturally, is to have LDS leadership say in the clearest possible terms that they will not band together with JJ.

Elections 2008 Badge: Reflects the latest poll results.

Data: If anyone feels like tinkering with the data, here is the complete MS Excel file.

Radovan Karadžić Arrested. Finally!

This just in: According to various news reports, Radovan Karadžić, one of Europe’s most wanted men, directly responsible for genocide of Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia-Hercegovina during the 1993-95 war was arrested in Serbia hours ago.

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Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic and their political leader Radovan Karadžić (source)

The arrest was confirmed by the office of the President of Serbia Boris Tadić, without giving details. I imagine this is a high-risk game for Serbian leadership as Karadžić and general Ratko Mladić (who remains at large) have quite a following in Serbia and Republic of Srbska in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Hopefuly Serbian President Boris Tadić will fare better than the late Zoran Djindjić.

Perhaprs, just perhaps, the wars of Yugoslavia will finally be brought to an end.

EDIT: Reactions from: Belgrade 2.0 (Serbia), Zapisi (Serbia – in cyrilic), Duh koji hoda (Bosnia), Na putu u nepoznato (Bosnia), Comments From Left Field (USA) (JBlog Central (Israel)

Cashing In On The Wrath Of Nature

A series of severe storms struck parts of Slovenia on Sunday, causing extensive damage to housing, crops and forests. It was the latest in a series of severe weather events which have – among other things – collapsed a scaffold in downtown Ljubljana the other day. In short: it’s fun, but don’t bring an umbrella. You might end up like Dorothy.

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photo: BOBO (source)

However, the real fun begins just now, when damage is being assessed all over the country. I’ve had some meagre experience covering this for various media houses and I can tell you that farmers immediately start exaggerating the numbers. The last time I was covering a natural catastrophe of similiar proportions, the numbers went from a fifty million tolars to a hundred billion in a matter of hours, which at that point meant some 12% of the country’s budget.

Today, we are observing a similar phenomenon: while the damage reports are still being compiled, numbers are increasing exponentially. In a single TV piece combined claims of up to 50 milion euros were made. I realize there was indeed some extensive damage and that people’s lives were shattered, but what I’m bothered by is the fact that everyone is paying attention to the damage in the woods and fields while almost nothing is being said about families whose houses have lost roofs and even suffered structural damage.

But they are probably insured, which cannot be said about farmers and their produce. As farmers are a special breed in Slovenia and enjoy protection not unlike their French counterparts, they expect the state to bail them out yet again. And so they beef up their damage reports, already feeling the fibre of the fabric of a fistful of euros.

And so we will see the usual Peasant Gambit: In the spring it’s usually frost. Damages are repaid. In the summer, storms and hail. Damages are repaid again. In autumn, floods. Guess what happens. And then, as the year’s end approaches, farmers are clammoring about what a quality product they have this year and that the market is being infested by low-cost produce from Albania, Macedonia, Spain and Greece and that they cannot compete with such low prices. And so the state bails them out again, buying their product off them for an above-market price. Just to keep them happy.

Hell, I’m in the wrong business…