SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Michael the Great was wondering yesterday what is it with Slovenes that they seem to run politicians from power for no apparent reason, case in point being Sunday’s elections. As there are some fantastically flawed analyses out there, let me try to put things in some kind of perspecitve.

Lojze Peterle and his spokesman Janez Cigler Kralj (photo: Jure Eržen, Delo)

A lot of it has to do with the fact that there are only two milion people living in Slovenia (only 1,6 eligible voters at that) and that there is little or no margin of error when performance of politicians is concerned, as discontent tends to spread fast, especially when the right buttons are pushed. In most cases “the right buttons” have to do with social equality and other welfare state issues.

Furthermore, voting preferences for electing a president are not the same as for parliamentary elections. As I noted some time ago, the role of the president is largely ceremonial, but not completely insignificant as it carries great moral significance. Which of course means that people will choose a president who will in their opinion represent their values best. So, by extension, you can measure this country’s values by looking at the president (Incumbent president Janez Drnovšek being an exception to the rule as his transformaton took place while he was in office). Or – at the very least – you can look at the runner-up to see which values are not shared by the majority.

Also – and this phenomemnon is not limited to Slovenia – people tend to remove politicians that have outlived their usefulness. The most eloquent example of this is good old Winston Churchill who was voted out of office only 78 days after winning WWII.

And lastly: Slovenes seem to be convinced that they have a god-given right to the best political leadership this planet has to offer and that exceptional politicians are thick on the ground in this country (incidentally, most of this country’s politicians think they are a brass-balled godsend). And so Slovenes wouldn’t think twice about trhowing an able (but not exceptional) politician out of office before you can say “electoral commision”.

So, politicially speaking, Slovene voters are ungreatful bunch of spoilt brats.

And so – taking all this into account, adding the fact that the government of Janez Janša has done excpetionally well in fucking up a pretty decent ecenomy (how do you come from a model euro-adopting country to a text-book example of economic and fiscal no-nos in eight months?!?), combined with a what was perceived as a dismantling of the welfare state, and you can see why any candidate even remotely connected to the current government would have a hard time getting anywhere in the vicinity of a narrow defeat. And – just to round everything up – Janeza Janša didn’t really put his back into supporting Peterle, showing that the former Prime Minister was not exactly the incumbent Prime Minister’s first choice, which of course further alienated a significant part of the right wing voters.

This year the political planets were favouring the left, and all they had to do was not to screw it up big time. They didn’t. As for the parliamentary elections, to be held in a year’s time – dr. filomena is right. The game’s afoot.

Sunday’s elections will not only be about choosing a new president. The good, the bad and the ugly will also have us vote on a referendum concerning privatisation of Triglav Insurance company, which is at the moment state owned: a good 66 % of it are owned by KAD and SOD managed – but not owned.

HQ of Triglav Insurance

Triglav Insurance Company was namely another socialist/self-management attempt at reaching past capitalist concept. It was basically a mutual insurance company, with insurees becoming owners as well. Uppon the dissolution of (and disisllusionment with) socialism, Triglav became a typical incorporated-but-government-owned company, so typical for transitional economies. But there was a catch. Noone really knew how much the company was actually worth, because noone exactly knew how much money people have put into the company in the past fourty years.

So, when privatisation began after 1990, it soon became clear that a) Triglav is a goldmine and b) the topic of its value is as explosive as a truckload of natrium soduim near a hydro-power plant. So no government wanted to touch it until it was absolutely necesary. This burden thus fell on the former government of Tone Rop, who (curiously enough) began his carrer in top governmental ranks as state secretary (underminister) in charge of privatisation. So he knew exactly that all hell will break loose eventually. And so it did. His government prepared what was then considered a half-baked attempt at privatising a portion of Triglav, but they did it so late in the game (it was just prior to elections) that noone took it seriously. Most of us even though that they’re just trying to stuff their pockets just in case they lose the elections. Which they did. Lose the 2004 elections.

The plan called for actuall transfer of government owned portion of Triglav to KAD and SOD (which until now only managed but did not own this share), the idea being that the dividends would be used to keep the pension system solvent.

The new government immediately pulled out of the plan, saying that it needed to reevaluate Triglav’s value. And sure enough, they came up with a more than double the value. The mathematics of both calculations are somewhat fuzzy, though. Anyways. The incumbent government basically came up with the exact same plan, but what it failed to include was a provision forbidding KAD and SOD to sell Triglav on.

The government obviously says that it has no intention of selling Triglav, but history teaches that if something can be done, it will be done. And selling the biggest insurance company is not a smart idea.

EDIT: Just so that there’s no misunderstanding – I don’t have a problem with KAD and SOD owning Triglav. I do, however, have a problem with selling family jewels. There is more than enough competition in the market and I strongly support the idea that Triglav’s profits should be partly used to finance the pension system. And I’m not sure that the previous government didn’t want to sell Triglav, either.

So, the second round of presidential elections is five… no… four days away and the Peterle Campaign has finally decided to hit below the belt. Namely: during Monday’s debate Lojze Peterle drew a disctinction between himself and Danilo Türk, saying that the latter was still representing Yugoslavia at UN HQ in Geneve in 1991 while he (Peterle) was among those who put their heads in a bag and went for broke during preparations for Slovene independence.

The “incriminating” document

In normal circumstances this would have been a bomb-shell… However, what Peterle and his team conveniently forgot is the fact that Slovenia was recognised by the EU on January 15th 1992 and that it became a member of the UN in June 1992.

So the fact that Türk was technically a part of Yugoslav delegation means that he was resorceful enough (and the UN permissive enough) to find a way to operate in the institution, albeit as a member of the already defunct Yugoslavia. Just to give you a comparison: foreign minister Dimitrij Rupel (whose ministry leaked the above document) attended an OSCE conference at about the same time (pre-1992) as a member of the Austrian delegation and yet I don’t see or hear anyone claiming that he – say – wanted Slovenia to become an Austrian province.

This move by Peterle carries all the trademarks of a panic-attack, not unlike the one in the final stages of municipal elections in 2006, when government of Janez Janša leaked documents supposedly damaging to the then-front-runner Zoran Janković. The documents turned out to be a load of bollocks and Janković went on to become mayor of Ljubljana with a landslide 63 percent of the vote. And those documents were much more substantial than today’s document aimed at bringing Danilo Türk down a peg or two.

While this might galvanise the nationalist element within the political right, it might blow right into Peterle’s face by getting Türk additional sympathy votes of people who don’t care about either candidate, but hate low blows. And there are a surprising number of those out there.

The second round of Slovene presidential elections will be held on Sunday and yesterday saw a first head-to-head debate between Lojze Peterle, winner of the first round and runner-up Danilo Türk. The former is supported by Social Democrats, Zares and DeSUS, while Lojze Peterle enjoys support of the ruling right-wing coalition (save DeSUS, which is actually left-wing, but we won’t go there today).

Who will be the king of Sloveve hearts? (photojob by pengovsky, animation by dr.filomena)

According to the law, last polls can be conducted a week before election day and those published on Saturday (and some published on Monday in a clear breach of the said law) showed a not-so-surprising, but nevertheless dramatic turning of tables. Namely: Danilo Türk who only barely made it to the second round, defeating Mitja Gaspari by a fraction of a percentage point, now has an enourmous lead over Peterle. While the latter is supported by some 30 percent of those polled, Türk enjoys a hefty 60 percent support.

Some are surprised, but needn’t be. Although I didn’t cover presidential elections on this blog, I always maintained that Peterle’s only chance of becoming president is winning in the first round. If it comes to the second round (as it did), Peterle stands virtually no chance at all. While he lead a marvelous campaing throughout the year, Peterle fumbled it at the end, when apparently Mitja Gaspari and Danilo Türk (with a little help from the incompetent government) mobilized enough support to chip off a huge chunk of support from Peterle. I’m not saying that these votes transferred directly to them (most likely they went to fourth-placed Zmago Jelinčič of Nationalist Party), but point is that Peterle didn’t get those votes which most likely cost him an entire election.

Because he was deemed a favourite (and failed to deliver), Peterle is now on the run, and conesquently he panicked. He changed his campaign manager Marko Pogorevc and took charge of the campaign personally. Which is of course a clear sign that he’s in deep shit. He also announced that his rhetoric will be much more resolute than in the first round, which means that he admits to making a mistake in the final stages of the campaing. But he’s making an even bigger mistake now, because yesterday he came of as a sort of a bully, jumping and snapping at Danilo Türk.

The main difference between the two candidates (besides their basic political outlook) is the fact that Peterle was always thought of as the “more presidential” of the two and has failed to deliver. Danilo Türk, however, was always considered as a “replacement candidate”, when Borut Pahor of the Social Democrats finally decided to challenge Janez Janša for the more powerful post of Prime Minster. Türk, however, thusfar delivered (contrary to many expectations, including my own) and opinion polls clearly reflect that.

I don’t think I need to explain who or why is my favourite (take a close look at this blog, if you can’t figure it out ;)), so let me just make an electoral prediction:

The way things stand now, Danilo Türk will become the next president with a majority of 55% percent of the vote. Peterle will make a run for it. It will be a valiant effort but it will be too little too late.