Slovenian Elections: The Purge

In what can only be described as a rout, Miro Cerar won Sunday Slovenian elections in a landslide, winning 36 out of 90 seats, with two of those being reserved for Hungarian and Italian minorities. Thus, the law-professor who in August will turn 51, is the new Slovenian PM-presumptive.

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Miro Cerar, PM-presumptive (source)

Having said that, the real work begins for Cerar only now. In the election campaign he notoriously avoided taking a position on any specific issue, clearly aiming for (and achieving) a catch-all effect. Even his victory speech on Sunday night was lacklustre, to say the least. It was more of his dalai-lama-meets-law-professor-meets-soft-populist rhetoric, nothing and everything at the same time.

PM-presumptive meets the coalition

On one hand, this is understandable. Cerar won, but if Zoran Janković, winner of the last elections is anything to go by, it is very easy to squander a relative majority by closing too many doors early on. On the other hand, it was Cerar who was given a clear mandate to rule the country so he needs to start taking positions and dictate the tempo. Until now, he was mostly re-active, for example excluding a possible coalition with Janez Janša‘s SDS only after Janša shot first and excluded a possible coalition with SMC.

The main issue for Cerar therefore is to make sure he does not become a hostage to his coalition partner or partners. Most likely plural. Namely, if here were to form a two-party coalition, DeSUS is his only choice. Which means that every time a sticky issue would come up, Karl Erjavec would balk and threaten with leaving the coalition, thus forcing Cerar to give in. And Erjavec can be really persuasive. Just ask Janša, Pahor or Bratušek.

So step number one for the PM-presumptive is to leave DeSUS out. Which already limits his options. Step number two will most likely be to make sure his is more than just a single-vote majority, again, for the above reasons. This means he will have to reach both left and right. With ZL not being a viable option, Cerar’s possible coalition partners include Social Democrats, Alenka Bratušek Alliance and the NSi. And mathematics suggests he will try to form a ruling coalition will all three of them.

Such an approach would be advantageous for many reasons. Fist, it would put him at a comfortable 51 votes. Second, it would adhere to his pre-election “why can’t we all just get along” mantra. And third (and perhaps most important) it would leave enough room for manoeuvre vote-wise for any of the junior coalition partners to depart from the common line every now and then and still not endanger the 46-vote majority.

Thus, for example, the SD could oppose further privatisation plans (and keep what is left of their electorate happy) while the legislation could still be passed, without endangering either the 46-votes majority or the coalition itself.

And last, but not least, this approach would be reminiscent of the way the late Janez Drnovšek put coalitions together and it is always good to be compared to Drnovšek, even though Cerar right now doesn’t even come close to the legendary PM. However, while Cerar is mulling his next move, the exact opposite seems to be going in the SDS, as their shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach backfired badly.

The purge

That the SDS took a beating goes without saying. Sunday saw their worst performance in the last decade and only slighty better than their results in 1996 and 2000 elections. Even worse: when compared to the overall number of eligible voters, support for SDS in 2014 elections boils down to a mere ten percent of adult Slovenians. Granted, this says a lot of other parties as well, but is especially damaging for a party which promotes itself as the only one defending patriotic values and does a lot of flag-waving at every opportunity.

After Janez Janša was admitted to prison due to a confirmed guilty verdict in the Patria Case, the SDS made their glorious leader the focal point of their campaign. SDS MP and one of party vice-presidents Zvonko Černač took centre stage and demanded Janša be released at every opportunity. No longer was their election platform important, they focused solely on Janša, claiming elections are not free and fair without him.

After the results came in, Černač repeated the #freeJJ mantra and added the party will not be taking active part in parliamentary procedure. There were even reports about their elected MPs not actually taking office, but the plan was supposedly dropped as it became clear that in that case new elections would simply be called for vacant seats.

Anyhoo, after the SDS openly threatened to derail parliamentary procedure, media back-lash ensued followed by what was reported as a fierce debate in the party Executive Council. As a result, Černač backtracked on the issue, saying he was “misinterpreted”. Now, let’s take a moment and reflect on this.

What happens when the alpha-male leaves the pack

For the first time on bob-knows-how-many years, the SDS made a complete and unreserved U-turn in a little more than 24 hours. This is the first example of what pengovsky projected the moment Janša was put behind bars. The alpha-male is out of the game on a daily basis and his replacement does not carry nearly enough clout for decisions and moves to go unquestioned.

And there’s a lot of bad blood in the SDS right now. Some of their key people didn’t get elected even though they were thought of as fixtures of Slovenian politics. Cases in point being the above mentioned Zvonko Černač (which means he has even less clout in the party and his position as Janša’s point-man is in peril) as well as Jožef Jerovšek, who served as SDS MP continuously since 1996. Ditto Andrej Vizjak, who got elected for the first time in 2000 and held many posts ever since, including that of minister of economy (2004) and labour (2011).

Moving away from the SDS, Franc Pukšič, the industrious former mayor of Destrnik, who held an MP seat continuously since 1996. Pukšič started as an SDS member but switched to SLS in 2008. Since the party didn’t make it above the 4% treshold, one of the more distinctive features of the parliament is gone. Just like that. Ditto for Pukšič’s much more mild-mannered party colleague Jakob Presečnik.

Rout of the left

The purge of course wasn’t limited to the right side of the political spectrum. Lucky for them, a lot of more experienced SD members decided to retire and had evaded the voters opening a can of whop-ass on them. But the purge of the SD is going on for quite a while now. In six years they went down from thirty (2008) to mere five MPs (2014).

The purge, however, was complete for what was left of Positive Slovenia. The party of Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković didn’t make it above 4%, reducing Zoki’s aura of invincibility to, well, sundust. Janković is in a lot of trouble right now (both legally and politically) and should start getting concerned with his plans for another term as Ljubljana mayor. His opponents smell and see blood and his tenure in the city hall is all of a sudden much more insecure. The party, however, is more or less dead in the water. It might carry on, but it will remain a mere shadow of its former victorious self.

The caretaker PM Alenka Bratušek, however, fared slightly better. When her fight with Janković split PS down the middle and she and her supporters went to form their own party, her stated goal was to best PS in the polls. Which was kind of weird at the time as the consensus was they should be concerned with making it to the parliament first. But in the end, it turned to be one and the same goal. Bratušek can, in a sense, count herself as coming out victorious. But the price that was paid for her four MP mandates was extortionate. On the bright side, however, she can once again resume comparing herself to Brigitte Nyborg of Borgen 😉

Skipping over the NSi which continues to take its rightful place in the parliamentary political spectrum, even increasing their result by one MP seat, this leaves us with the real surprise of the election Sunday, the United Left (ZL).

The surprise

The party of “democratic ecological socialism” was looking to Greek Syriza for a role model and is questioning the established order of things. In the end they got 5.96 percent which translates into six seats. They sport a three-member presidency, but it was Luka Mesec, the youngest of the trio of leaders, who emerged as the most recognisable face of the party. It was his appearance on a POP TV-held debate on Thursday, three days before the elections which sent the party rocketing from around 2.5 percent way above the parliamentary threshold, in the end nearly tripling their result.

On a personal note, pengovsky got into a bit of hot water with ZL fanbase for saying that Mesec brought in votes of older women on account of him looking good and saying smart things. A rather tedious debate followed where accusations of mysoginistic statements were thrown in my general direction. But while further analysis did indeed show their voters mostly come from below-45 age group, a third of their vote still comes from 45+ age group. A third, meaning two out of six percent of votes won. Which means, 45+ age group was just as instrumental in pushing the ZL above 4% than younger voters.

Additionally, another analysis showed about 50% of ZL voters decided to pick them in the last couple of days, emphasising the importance of Mesec’s appearance and performance in the debate.

Now, anyone with any experience in campaigning will tell you that TV debates are not really about substance but rather about showmanship. You might have the best platform in the world, but if you’re not telegenic enough or if you make too many mistakes, you might as well throw in the towel. So the point pengovsky was trying to make is that while ZL platform is nothing to scoff at, it was Mesec’s TV performance (his telegenics) that made the difference. But, the fan-base insists it was the platform that brought in the entire six percent of the vote.

Shifting the discourse

Be that as it may, the ZL is in and is bound to shift the political discourse to the left. Which in itself is not a bad thing. Too many things in this society are taken for granted and thought of as set in stone, which is one of the reasons this country moves at a sluggish pace at best.

But theirs is a hard task. They will inherently be branded as far-left, even though one could make the argument they are the only “true-left”, platform wise. Secondly, their set of ideas is only one of many competing sets in the parliament, all of which are perfectly legitimate, some more appealing to one part of the society, some to another. Thirdly, they are newcomers. Pushing your agenda has to do a lot with knowing your way around rules and procedures of the parliament. Fourth, they will need to hold their nerve and not lash out against more experience MPs patronizing them or even setting procedural traps for them, supposedly to “put them in their place”. The parliament is a tough neighbourhood and while everyone is smiling and wears a tie, backstabbing is often the norm. And lastly, the ZL need to be careful not to get smug too soon.

A lot of people invested a lot of hope into them and while the some expectations are unreasonable by default, the ZL MPs were not elected to the parliament to be like other MPs but to be better than them. And that’s a benchmark others before them failed to achieve.

Poor Bosnia, Always Gets Fucked By A Slovenian Arms Dealer

The election campaign in Slovenia ends today. Latest polls suggest that Miro Cerar‘s SMC is still poised to take the relative majority of the vote but that Janša’s SDS is closing the gap and there are indications that an eleventh hour change at the top spot in theoretically possible.

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Former Slovenian ambassador to Australia Milan Balažic (source)

However, a fierce battle for votes down the ladder is taking place. Most notably, DeSUS‘ third spot looks slightly less secure and Karl “Funny Man” Erjavec apparently knows that as he was somewhat nervous and feisty during the last couple of TV debates.


Interactive chart of all polls averaged. Note rise of SD and SDS

Whether or not the SD is gaining against their nominal coalition partner DeSUS on the account of the latest diplomatic scandal is debatable, but what a scandal it is 🙂

I’ve got some prime swampland to sell you in Florida

Weeks ago, Erjavec in his role as foreign minister recalled Slovenian ambassador to Australia Milan Balažic for breach of protocol and “losing the trust of Slovenian diaspora in host country”. Apparently, Balažic invited to an embassy event one Nichloas Oman, a known arms dealer and an overall shady character who is a citizen of Slovenia, Australia and Liberia. Oman has served a six-year prison sentence in Australia for child-abuse in Liberia and Thailand and is on Australian sex-offenders list.

However, Balažic, upon returning to Slovenia, told a different story. In a nutshell, Oman was willing to give away a piece of land in Bosnia which was supposedly oil-rich in exchange for a Slovenian passport. Smell a rat

According to Balažic, Oman used his brother as an intermediary to contact then-leader of Social Democrats Igor Lukšič, who then emailed Balažic asking if he was willing to “investigate further”, for Oman claimed that the whole thing was worth about two billion dollars. Two billion? Email? This is starting to look like a Nigerian e-mail scam…

Furthermore, Balažic claims he was acting under instructions from entire top-level echelon of Slovenian diplomacy, saying that President Pahor, PM Bratušek and FM Erjavec were all in the loop and that Slovenian intelligence SOVA was investigating the matter as well. Not a bad start to a Robert Ludlum novel, mind you.

Obviously, there was no oil under that particular land. And even if there was, it’s hardly likely Bosnia (specifically, Republika Srpska) would grant drilling rights to a Slovenian entity. Even more, since Oman is a Slovenian citizen and – despite his child-abuse status in Australia – there is no warrant for his arrest anywhere in the EU, he could have easily obtained a Slovenian passport regardless.

But the story was apparently appealing enough for Lukšič and Balažic to fall for the classic “I’ve got some prime swampland to sell you in Florida” trick.

Dipping in the same pool of votes

Anyway, things start to fall apart rapidly from this point on. The Prez’s office categorically denies the charges, PM Bratušek says Lukšič was not a cabinet member, that the issue was never on the official agenda and that when Lukšič did bring it up, she refused to discuss it at all. It was only Karl Erjavec who said he wasn’t aware of Balažic’s activities. The implication being that Erjavec doesn’t know what’s going on in front of his nose. Which is not really a compliment for a foreign minister. Or a leader of a party which happens to be dipping in the same pool of voters as SD does.

This, of course, provided there’s more to the whole episode than just a disgraced ambassador trying to save his neck. But since Balažic also included rumours about Janša’s clinic in Australia (a popular lef-wing fiction story where Janša supposedly stuck all of his illicit earnings into a clinic down-under to be ran by his doctor-wife) one can sooner be worried about former diplomat’s health grip on reality.

But, in the end, it’s Bosnia which gets fucked by a Slovenian arms dealer. Again.

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    A Fistful of Votes*

    The election campaign entered its final week but there’s still plenty of time to fuck up. Not that there haven’t been a few notable fuck-up already. But first, ze numbers!

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    Polls normalised to 100 percent. Check below for up to date interactive chart.

    As you can see, Miro Cerar Party (SMC) maintains a strong lead over SDS which in turn maintaining an equally strong lead over everyone else. True, the last poll shows a bounce for Janša’s SDS, but it should be noted that we’re dealing with a Večer poll here, which as a rule feature a significant phase-shift to the right. And while forecasting exact numbers is a tricky business, it is more or less that barring a meltdown of epic proportions, Miro Cerar Party will come out as the relative victor on Sunday. It is also more or less a given that the SDS will come in second with DeSUS of Karl Erjavec and Social Democrats of Dejan Židan competing for third position, while NSi looks poised to take the fifth spot and be the last party that can reasonably expect making it above the 4-percent treshold.

    5k votes between heaven and hell

    Then there are a few toss-ups. SLS, PS and Alenka Bratušek Alliance (ZAAB) could make it above 4% given helpful voter turnout, vote dispersion and correct alignment of planets. Which is why PM Bratušek switched to full-attack mode in the last couple of days, reversing her government’s privatisation policies and crying foul all the way to the Vatican about Slovene Roman Catholic Church meddling with Slovene judiciary over prison sentence for SDS leader Janez Janša.

    Bratušek’s party polled between 2.21 and 5.22 percent, depending on the pollster and date of the poll. On average (and due to voting system peculiarities, this is only a broad estimate) this puts her at 3.77 percent, less than three tenths of a percent or about 5000 votes below the threshold, which is not an unachieavable goal. And this is why she is willing to do just about anything to win them, including throw away whatever credibility she had won with the international markets and commit a diplomatic faux-pas with the Holy See.

    While her letter to the Vatican is much more embarrassing, it was her decision to “freeze” further privatisation plans (in effect kicking them down the road for the new government to pick up) that sent a bit of a shock-wave internationally. Understandably so. It once again painted Slovenia as a less-than-credible country with unpredictable government policies and little-to-no guarantees of pledges being honoured. And while governments are expected to change policies which prove themselves to have negative impact, it is unacceptable for PM Bratušek to run around financial capitals of the world professing her commitment to privatisation only to (supposedly) announce a U-turn two months later.

    But on the upside, since the privatisation plan was passed by the parliament in a form of a law, any meaningful changes to it must be made as a novelation of this law and not by a government directive. But apparently, the move has had at least some effect, with highest bidders for Slovenian Telekom reportedly withdrawing their bids (which, in turn, apparently again puts Deutsche Telekom back in the game, which is probably one of the reasons Brussels-am-Berlin is still mum on the issue, election campaign notwithstanding).

    Similarly, her outrage over statements of Bishop Andrej Glavan on Patria case aftermath is, objectively speaking, more of a cause for embarrassment than cause for admiration. I mean, yes, the stuff the caretaker of Ljubljana Diocese said are unacceptable. Comparing the trial of Janez Janša to communist show-trials is obscene, especially after all the leniency Janša enjoyed during the corruption trial as well as in serving his two-year prison sentence. But the Slovenian Church is stil reeling from the financial scandal of, well, biblical proportions which is why pope Francis beheaded the leadership of Slovenian Church and has yet to name a new one. And pressing the issue of a caretaker bishop stepping out of line is surely not going to impress the Vatican in any way, shape or form.

    Now, if Bratušek really sought to express her outrage over Glavan’s comments to the Vatican, she’d have done so using back-channels. This is the sort of thing serious diplomacies appreciate. No shouting matches, no pressing against the wall. Just a gentle reminder about an unfortunate event that normally would not even bear mentioning, but since both sides care about rule of law and corruption charges…. But just as with privatisation issue, Bratušek here doesn’t really care about Bishop Glavan or what the Vatican thinks of him. But she does care about the fistful of votes this might bring her and hopefully push her above the four percent threshold. Consequences will be dealt with later on. Quite possibly by someone else.

    Someone else in this case looks more and more to take the form of Miro Cerar, the constitutional legal expert who formed a party named after himself (SMC) and stormed to the very top of the polls. In this he seems to have tapped the sweetspot, where he is to his voters what they want him to be. He achieved this by reducing his political platform to a set of slogans that are difficult not to agree with but at the same time being careful not to make any serious policy commitments.

    Looking the other way, trying not to insult anyone

    Case in point being their refusal to sign a document pushed by the LGBT community which states signatory parties agree LGBT people are entitled to full scope of rights enjoyed by their heterosexual compatriots. SMC evaded the issue for days on end, finally stating “they refuse to support human rights of only specific groups” and added that everyone is entitled to basic human rights (link in Slovenian).

    Cerar, a constitutional expert, is willing to overlook the most basic of human-rights principles, one which is enshrined in the EU basic principles as well: namely, that different personal circumstances require different approaches and that one-shoe-fits-all approach is far from appropriate especially with regard to human rights. Yes, everyone is entitled to them, but personal circumstances, be they of religious, social, sexual or whatever nature, put different people in different positions with regard to “universality” of human rights. Basics. Cerar knows that. But he chose to look the other way.

    It is painfully obvious the SMC is desperately trying to offend no-one. At the very least no-one who is likely to vote for them. And polling at 40 percent of decideds, that’s a lot of people to potentially insult. Luckily for Cerar, the LGBT issue didn’t get enough traction for left-wing or progressive parties to exploit against him, but is was a good reminder of just how non-existent his political platform is. And even more lucky for him, the campaign ends in five four days and if there is an attempt at an “October Surprise“, it most definitely won’t be policy-oriented but more likely a smear-attack. Especially, since Cerar’s (potential) electorate is said to be of fickle nature.

    Supreme truth

    Either that or the Supreme Court will rule in the Patria case before Sunday, which will additionally mobilise the SDS faithful, already in a frenzy over their glorious leader and holder of the supreme truth being behind bars. Note that the nature of the decision is irrelevant. If the Supreme Court orders a retrial, SDS will double down its efforts before election Sunday, just as it will if sentence against Janša is confirmed for the second time. That it takes the Supreme Court two weeks (gasp!) to deliber on the issue is driving them crazy.

    Howgh.

    Hat-tip re post title: @Svarun_K

    Polls Show Brutality of 4% Threshold

    Right. With snap elections in Slovenia being eighteen days away, it is high time pengovsky looks at some polls. A number of them were taken since 25 May (EU elections Sunday) and obviously their results differ. This goes both for actual percentage of support detected as well as relative differences between parties’ results. Also, different polls use different samples, ask different questions and in a different sequence which inevitably gives different results.

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    Average of all polls taken to date. See note at the end of the post.

    Point is, from scientific point of view, these are not directly comparable. After all, pengovsky is no Nate Silver. But since this is, strictly speaking, not a scientific blog and since pollsters were quite off the mark in the last couple of elections (although they did marginally better predicting EU election results), let’s give it a whirl. If nothing else, trends will become more apparent as election day nears.


    Timeline of polls with numbers as reported

    A rather hefty chunk of undecideds and/or no-shows is immediately noticeable from the table below. Which makes it a bit more fun extrapolating numbers based only on decideds, where differences between the two poll leaders and the rest of the gang are much more visible. And the real story right now is in fact Stranka Mira Cerarja (Miro Cerar Party), which apparently had a good three-week run but has now dropped to second place.

    Miro Cerar is not an unknown quantity media-wise. He made his name as a top-class constitutional lawyer, serving as a consultant to the parliament for a number of years and obviously enjoying the occasional limelight. He was briefly courted to take over as PM following ousting of Janez Janša in 2012 but rejected the offer (Alenka Bratušek took over as PM in the end). Speculation about his entering the political arena hasn’t abated since and when Cerar finally formed his party on 2 June (just three weeks ago) it put him above Janša in polls. But while Cerar is (almost) a household name, he is still the new boy on the political block and has consequently little to show for but big words and a mix of populism, pseudo-philosophy and legal-speak. So far, this has served him well. After all, new parties are often focal points of voters’ wishes and projections and – provided they play the game well – can actually make their lack of a specific platform work in their favour. This is obviously the case with Miro Cerar who basically runs on thin air in this campaign.


    Poll numbers recalculated to indclude only decideds

    Now, there are quite a number of problems with various positions Miro Cerar took in this campaign, some of which might even be contradictory. But pengovsky will cover them in one of the future posts. Suffice it to say that Cerar must really wish for election Sunday to come as soon as possible. His centre-to-above-it-all position is being vigorously attacked from both left and right and as days pass, kinks in his shiny armour are ever more visible. Not that anyone else is profiting from it. Not even Janez Janša’s SDS, mind you. The reason they’re back on top is the fact that Ivan is now behind bars which is – as expected – proving to be ultimate activator for his party’s base.

    As for the rest, NSi, SD and DeSUS seem to be hanging above the 4% threshold which still takes them to the parliament, while the rest are locked in a bit of a death match. And if not earlier, fatality of the schism in Positive Slovenia is now apparent. The new party of PM Bratušek, Zavezništvo Alenke Bratušek (Alenka Bratušek Alliance, and yes, more personalisation of party names here) and Zoran Janković’s Positive Slovenia are polling roughly neck-and-neck. It is safe to say that were Zoki slightly less egotistical and vengeful, PS would have remained a player with Bratušek at the helm.

    Citizen’s List is nowhere to be seen and it is doubtful the new party president Bojan Starman can turn things around. Ditto for Verjamem of Igor Šoltes, who was European Elections’ Miro Cerar but has since seen his support vanish into thin air.

    Anyhoo… If all available polls are averaged into a single set of results (admittedly, about as unscientific method as reading tea-leaves), this is what you get. Five parties who make it above 4%.


    Average of all polls included

    Just a note: graphs in this post were made with Google SpreadSheets and will be updated as new polls come along. Which probably means the content of this post will be thrown out of sync with them graphs fairly soon. If you’re reading this days or weeks after date of posting, please take this into account.

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      Dob Prison Blues

      Among many of his accomplishments, Janez Janša can now claim to be one of the few people on this planet to have attended their own wake. This at least was the impression given last Friday, when Janša started serving his two-year prison sentence passed on him in the Patria Affair. Namely, hundreds (thousands, by some accounts) of his followers descended on Dob prison facility and staged “a spontaneous” gathering with loudspeakers and all. The event, protracted as it was, culminated with Janša arriving and addressing the faithful one last time.

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      Janša’s prison summons. (source)

      But what was no doubt meant to be the mother of all speeches turned out to be a lackluster campaign rally with Janša giving the impression of a man who finally realised the gravity of his situation. Namely, only the previous evening the SDS leader took part in an election debate and admittedly did a fair job, quite unlike a man who will not be picking up soap from the floor again until 2016. Perhaps he thought the Supreme Court would come to his rescue at the eleventh hour and suspend his serving of the sentence or even rescind the sentence altogether. No such luck. With the Constitutional Court nixing Janša earlier in the week with a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court just added insult to injury. From Janša’s point of view this was just another proof that the entire judiciary (save the three constitutional judges with their dissenting opinions) was out to get him. Under orders of a secret communist kabal headed by Milan Kučan, of course. The alternative interpretation, although admittedly boring, is that Janša simply fired his last shot and is out of legal and political ammo. Next stop: prison cell.

      The brouhaha this created was (and to an extent still is) of epic proportion. After all, it is not every day a former PM is put behind bars. Some (Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung (paywall) among them, apparently) questioned the timing, saying that putting a man in the brig three weeks before elections is fishy. Others hold that the decent thing would be a presidential pardon, since this is what self-respecting countries apparently do. Deputy chief of government’s legal service Janez Pogorelec wrote as much in the last issue of Pravna Praksa, a magazine on legal issues. And even Matevž Krivic, former judge of the constitutional court, now a tireless campaigner for the rights of the Erased says the legitimacy of the upcoming elections is compromised with Janša in prison. And last, but certainly not least, the SDS maintains the elections will neither be free nor fair.

      Now, let’s take these arguments apart, one by one. First of all, the legitimacy of these elections has nothing to do with a political being put in jail. Janša was convicted some time before elections were called. He knew this was coming. And even if he honestly expected his appeal to be upheld, he could have at least planned for a contingency. Afterall, the SDS list of candidates was announced six days after JJ got summoned to prison. It’s not as if someone issued a Nach-und-Nebel order on him and dragged him out of his flat in the middle of the night on unspecified charges (although the SDS faithful will have you believe something along those lines happened). Quite to the contrary, in fact: the SDS leader is taking part in these elections and will most likely get elected to the parliament. And while there is a legal provision terminating MPs serving more than six months’ prison sentence, no such clause exists for members of the government. Meaning that if the SDS somehow secures an absolute majority, then can actually appoint Janša Prime Minister. The scenario is highly unlikely (even the Party doesn’t have the audacity to pull a stunt like that) but possible.

      Janša in prison, therefore, does absolutely nothing for legitimacy of these elections. Yes, his incarceration will affect the outcome, but so would his remaining on the outside (especially if elections were cited as a reason). Everything we do affects the elections one way or another. Sure, Janša will not be able to attend election debates. But that is neither his right not prerogative. There can be debates without him. His two rights (to vote and run for office), however, are in no way infringed.

      Legitimacy of elections is also questioned in the sub-text of FAZ’s reporting. But it needn’t be. Would the situation be any different if Janša were to start serving a sentence six months before elections? Wouldn’t the definition of “just prior to elections” be simply adjusted for time scope? What if the court had waited (as Krivic suggested) and summoned him to prison after he had won the elections? Just how ugly would that look? No, summoning him before elections was the only sensible thing to do. Even more so since Slovenia held at least one election per year in past seven of eight years. We tend to cast our votes around quite a lot in this country. And if we waited for a “clear stretch of non-voting” to put corrupt politicos behind bars, we might find to be in for a long wait.

      Lastly, rule of law is paramount in any half-decent democracy. Granted, this sorry little excuse for a country is occasionally lacking in this respect, but this is no reason to go actively ruining what’s left of the concept. The important thing here is that a high-profile person who committed a felony is behind bars. Countries where the law applies to both rich & famous as well as the common man are more likely to have their political system seen as legitimate. This goes for the idea of presidential pardon as well. Pogorelec maintains that a presidential pardon would be a face-saving operation for Janša and the country, allowing the illustrious fighter for Slovenian independence to retire gracefully from public life.

      Which is about as naive a notion as there ever was. Just what in Bob’s name forces Janša to quit public life if president Pahor issues a pardon? A gentleman’s agreement? Between Janša and Pahor? Yes, thought so… Also, a pardon would send a message that despite all the rage that was directed against the political class a year and a half ago, there are still perks which come free of charge if you play the game long enough. A presidential pardon of a high-profile politician would mean sweeping things under the rug. In fact, only if president Pahor stays true to form and does not pardon Janša (formal request to do so had not yet been made), will the people perhaps start believing that we are indeed all equal before the law.

      And as for SDS claim about elections not being free nor fair? Well, this…

      But far more intriguing than yet another attempt to pre-emptively undermine elections are the people who are coming out making the case in Janša’s favour. A plethora or people and organisations who have been trying for years to present themselves as independent, who were obviously astroturf but still shamelessly functioned as sort of think-thanks (or, at least, PR tanks), now rush to Janša’s rescue, each denouncing the judiciary from their own angle but all of them doing so without mercy or intellectual distance. Case in point being Matej Avbelj, the young dean of one of faculties founded during Janša government 1.0. More importantly, this included former Ljubljana archbishop and now Vatican cardinal Franc Rode, giving credence to the theory that the former leadership of Slovenian Catholic Church (since beheaded by pope Francis) was in cahoots with Janša, often at the expense of the more natural political ally of the Church, the ChristDem Nova Slovenija. Whether these are spontaneous cases of trying to please the master or a concerted effort ran from party HQ to shoot down the Patria verdict (after-all, the Supreme Court still has to rule on the issue), it doesn’t really matter.

      Although his prison sentence is relatively mild (Igor Bavčar, for example, got seven), Janša out of the picture does mean great things are afoot. While the left remains in ruins and will probably be ruined some more on 13 July, the real development will be ob the right. Whoever takes over as interim leader of the SDS, will be forced to make decisions in an environment that is rapidly changing on account of Janša not being there. The SLS and NSi are growing a spine, the new party of Miro Cerar seems to be the electorate’s darling at the moment and the voters who tolerated Janša’s escapades will probably be much less keen on a person imitating Janša’s style of leadership. Doubly so if the SDS were to win the elections and appoint the PN (pengovsky still sees Romana Tomc as being earmarked for the job).

      Janez Janša got transferred to a minimum security facility today. This means that he can again use modern means of communications, probably trying to run the Party from within prison. This will probably not work. Not on the operational level, at least. Sure, he might install someone he trusts to simply stick to his agenda and not have any ideas. But the last guy to try something like that in Slovenia saw his party split down the middle.

      Archive Referendum Results: Nothing To Be Happy About, Regardless

      A few takeaways on yesterday’s archive referendum results. The turnout was a dismal 11.68 percent, with 67.32% against and 32.68% in favor of the new archive law. Since the quorum of 20% of all eligible voters against the law was not reached, the law stands as passed by the parliament.

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      Referendum results (source: dvk-rs.si, graphics via ChartGo)

      Now, the response of the petitioning party (that be Janez Janša‘s SDS) was pathetically predictable: that at least they won “a moral victory“. That the “forces of UDBa are still at work”. That the people don’t appreciate the referendum as they should (clearly a case of pot calling the kettle black).

      On the other hand, the government hailed “a referendum victory” with minister Uroš Grilc adding that Slovenia finally has a modern archive legislation. Incidentally, the last law to have survived voters’ scrutiny (albeit under the old rules) was 2005 referendum on the law on state radio and television RTVSLO. And that law, too, fell under the purview of Ministry of culture. Just so you know 😉

      Now, while the bit about a modern piece of legislation might very well be true, everything else is pure bullshit-meter-breaking material. This is not a victory for the government. It is, at best, a defeat avoided. The feeling of “victory” is relative only to the ginormous foot the Party had just inserted in its own mouth. Namely, the SDS supported changes to the referendum legislation, instituting the “quorum against” which now worked heavily against them.

      Bonus points in the fuckwit category go for Milan Zver MEP who tweeted that two-thirds of Slovenians slapped the government in the face (this by extension meaning that only people who cast their vote on Sunday are true Slovenians). That the turnout on a referendum they campaigned heavily for is comparable to the 2008 fiasco with referendums on regions only adds insult to injury. As does the fact that back then Janez Janša claimed victory as well.

      But the biggest loser here are the people. Not because the law is now enacted (that, at least, is good) but because the SDS continues, even with the “new and improved” referendum restrictions, to abuse what is left of this crucial institute of direct democracy. This was the pattern for the better part of the past two decades and due to no small fault of the Party the word “referendum” is now tarnished beyond repair.

      Under the new rules it is almost impossible for a group of concerned citizens or an NGO to challenge a piece of legislation unless they have access to a well-developed political party network which (by definition) makes them more of an astroturf group rather than a grass-roots movement. With continued abuse, the “almost impossible” will without a doubt become simply “impossible”, as ignoring referendum votes will become not only acceptable, but indeed desirable. The ultimate goal of making voters indifferent to public matters is thus well within reach. Case in point being the general approval the people met with the new referendum rules.

      Citizens’ oversight is a scarce commodity as it is. Abuse of referendum legislation, such as witnessed Sunday last, only depletes it further. Pretty soon, there will be none left.

      The Red Herring Of The Archive Referendum

      Igor Lukšič, the deposed leader of the Social Democrats, used to begin his political science class semesters by stating that “form is content”. While that may be true to an extent (and it certainly is true in case of President Borut Pahor, in large part a political product of Lukšič’s), there comes a time when form and content are both radically different and equally intriguing. Case in point being the “Archive referendum”, to be held this Sunday.

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      A Twitter exchange over archives’ redaction between Boštjan Gorenc Pižama and Ministry of Culture. Summed it up pretty nicely.

      A referendum, I hear you ask? But didn’t we just go to the polls, voting for godknowswhom in godknowwhat capacity? Well, 24 percent of us did. And it was called the EU elections, silly. But this time, the game is a wee bit different. You see, the outgoing administration of Alenka Bratušek passed a new law governing safekeeping and access to state archives. The existing law, passed in 2006 by the Janša 1.0 administration was amended and expanded on by Ministry of culture headed by Uroš Grilc, which caused the SDS to go apeshit and muster 40.000 signatures required to hold a referendum, claiming the new law prevents access to archives of UDBa, Yugoslav communist secret police. Which, as far as The Party is concerned, only goes to show that communists still run this country, that Milan Kučan is behind all of it and that you should vote SDS in the next parliamentary elections, to be held a month from now. But first, the form.

      Quorum against

      The referendum this Sunday will be the first held under the new rules. In the old days a referendum was called when the petitioner first collected 2k signatures to initiate referendum proceedings in the first place. Clearing this hurdle, they needed 40k verified signatures (i.e. your signatures on a special form, verified by a clerk) to force the parliament to call a referendum on the issue. This was, arguably, the biggest obstacle. And when the actual vote came on, a simple majority was needed to either confirm or overturn the law in question. And with referendum turnout percentage traditionally being in the low thirties, this regularly brought about situations where fewer than 20% of the electorate got to decide a publicly relevant issue.

      But now, the tables have turned. As of recent, petitioners must collect 40k verified signatures to begin with, while the referendum itself is subject to “quorum against”, meaning that to overturn a law passed by the parliament must see a) majority of all votes cast is against the law, provided that b) all votes cast against represent at least twenty percent of all eligible voters. Which, admittedly, sets the bar wee bit higher than before. Assuming a vote split down the middle, around forty percent turnout is needed to give the petitioners against the law a fighting chance. For example, the turnout at the 2012 presidential elections was just north of forty percent.

      Point being, that unlike before, when it was oftentimes enough to merely call a referendum to derail a political process (and if the vote went your way, well, hip, hip, hooray and jolly good!), today the emphasis is much more on bringing out the vote. Which brings us from form to the content.

      The content

      It seems that the crux of the matter are amendments of article 65 of the law which – according to the SDS, the petitioning party – allows for indiscriminate redaction of sensitive material, supposedly creating conditions for the government and the archive personnel (both of which are communist-controlled, obviously) to redact and remove any and all information which could shed light on UDBa and general communist mischief, the apex of which was, is and forever will be Milan Kučan. The ministry of culture, however, says that no such thing will be possible. Quite au contraire, they say, the new law prevents mishandling of the archives, allows for a broader access to more archives and only allows for redaction of personal circumstances, i.e. sexual preferences, religious beliefs, medical conditions and so on.

      The SDS, whose vitriolic anti-communism is the glue that keeps this party together (and is especially strong with members who were ardent Commies right up to the end of Socialism) is of course milking this one for all it is worth and then some. Namely, if they are correct and the government is planning to shut down access to archives, it means no more playing around with the Xerox machine. And if they are wrong and the ministry of culture is correct and the new law means broader access to archives, well, the SDS gets fucked as well, since their fooling around with the archives will be exposed much more easily. Either way they lose.

      My precious!

      It doesn’t help their case that their point men in this case are two gifted amateurs with little or no formal training in relevant scientific fields. Igor Omerza and Roman Leljak have been trawling the archives for some time now and churning out massive amounts of copy most of which was immediately picked up by the SDS. Case in point being disappearance of one Stjepan Crnogorac, a Croatian national who was allegedly kidnapped and killed by Slovenian SDV. The thing is that most of what Omerza (former Ljubljana deputy mayor) and Leljak (former Yugoslav Army intelligence officer who later did time for fraud) come up with is not independently verifiable. And when you find out that the Daring Duo has an unlimited pass to see the un-redacted archive originals and will continue to enjoy this privilege even if and when the law is passed it makes you wonder if what we’re seeing here is not some kind of jealous protection of “the ring”

      Red herring

      But there are other levels at which this law simply doesn’t work for the petitioners and they’ve nothing to do with existing UDBa archives. Namely, the keen eye of the Good Doctor spotted a teeny-tiny little detail called “Article 50a” which – in a nutshell – states that selected archive material of parliamentary political parties is to be treated as a “privately owned archive”. Translation: political party archives fall under the purview of the new law, can not be messed with at will and must be granted access to under certain conditions.

      Now, what if what we’re voting on Sunday is not really about UDBa archives being open or closed but rather a knee-jerk reaction of at least one political party to possibility of other people having a peek at their archives. It would not be the first time a red herring would have been employed in such a manner. Namely, in 2005, Janša 1.0 administration passed a new law on media which – among other things – provided for an extensive “right to reply”. Editors and journalists went apeshit, the left-wing opposition was screaming bloody murder but while half of the country was claiming government interference with the media, another and much more fundamental provision was overlooked: the new law dropped the provision banning ownership concentration of media. But since everyone was up in arms over a principle (one which ultimately didn’t matter a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys as editors often simply ignored claims to right of reply), a massive change or rules took place under the radar.

      Which is what we’re looking at here, in pengovsky’s opinion. The real fight is over the unmentionable. The SDS obviously will never admit it has a problem with granting access to its archives after clamoring for a free-for-all on state archives. The government, on the other hand, will never admit it has any interest in papers of any political party. Although granting access to their archives should be a given since parties are mostly funded by taxpayers’ money.

      Or are they? 👿

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