Time To Panic Yet?

These days one doesn’t really have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Slovenian parties are gearing up for various elections coming up in the next two years. And even if it weren’t for that, there’s been enough movement in the political arena for the established political players (i.e. the parliamentary parties) to start twitching nervously while snapping left and right.

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Slovenian politics increasingly becoming like a family comedy (source)

Case in point being leader of the Social Democrats Igor Lukšič, who earlier in the week succeeded in derailing the bid of former Court of Audit chief Igor Šoltes to take over of minister of health. Now, under normal circumstances, Šoltes would have had Lukšič at “Hello!”, so to speak. But fact of the matter is that after announcing he will not seek another nine-year term at the Court of Audit, Šoltes was tipped to launch a new centre-left party. He said so himself in a short interview last summer. However, precious little has happened since. Šoltes had formed an association called Verjamem (I Believe), believed to be precursor to the party, but apparently he has some way to go before he actually forms a new political player.

Igor “Our Hands Are Clean” Lukšič

However, the prospect of a future leader of a miniscule party was enough to send Igor Lukšič to the barricades, calling the idea inappropriate, illogical and unhygienic. He flat-out accused Šoltes of attempting to promote himself via the ministerial post. In this he went head-to-head with the rest of the coalition which supported Šoltes’ bid and expected PM Bratušek to nominate him formally. This even included DeSUS which technically has the portfolio within its quota. But Lukšič would have none of it and when asked to comment on Gregor Virant‘s endorsement of Šoltes, Lukšič replied into the camera to “never mind Virant”. Which is a bit arrogant, considering Virant is interior minister, while Lukšič (albeit as a personal choice) is not a member of the Bratušek cabinet.

However, the real Top-Gun moment came Monday last when Lukšič was responding to allegations of misuse of public funds. Namely, he’s embroiled in a bit of controversy over allegedly rigging a public tender for a 1.4 million euro grant on civic education. Which may or may not be true, after all, pengovsky is told at least half of the accusations against him in an unsigned document are based on forged document. But the point is Lukšič went on the record saying SD’s “hands are clean”. Which is quite a ballsy statement coming from president of a party which bent over backwards to see the TEŠ6 Šoštanj coal power plant move forward despite warnings it will not be profitable. Warnings which are now becoming a reality.

Indeed Lukšič flashed the pair of rhetorical cojones he grew in the past few weeks more than once these days. Only a day later he took a broad swipe at everything that is left-wing and not part of the government. Specifically, this meant brow-beating their former coalition partners Zares (since ousted from the parliament), fringe-left TRS, newly formed party Solidarnost and Šoltes’ Verjamem, all in a single sentence, saying he believes “new parties will form some sort of Really Believe in Solidarty coalition, picking up a Sugar-cane worth of votes“, thus using names of the four parties in a cleverly abusive way.

Slightly off topic: it is somewhat ironic that SocDems, a party which claims political heritage of Edvard Kardelj should undermine political ambitions of Kaderlj’s grandson (that be Šoltes), but there you go 😉

Now, regardless of Lukšič’s derogatory rhetoric becoming uncomfortably similar to that of Janez Janša, there is an underlying sense of uneasiness with the SD leader. Namely, after going hard against Borut Pahor as party leader after the latter saw SD routed in the 2011 parliamentary elections, the two became remarkably amicable soon thereafter, fueling speculations Lukšič was in fact nothing more than an interim president with current minister of agriculture Dejan Židan waiting in the wings. And in this respect, the recent allegations against Lukšič may very well be a precursor to a leadership challenge.

Given the ratings SD enjoys lately, leading the public opinion polls for almost a year, such a challenge would have been next to impossible. But recently, the trend is becoming a bit less obvious and possibility of one or more new left-wing players (or old ones re-entering the match) is apparently making the SD nervous. Namely, it is more than obvious that SD is becoming a “refugee party”, with disappointed left-wing voters opting for them in absence of any meaningful alternative. But with alternatives appearing, SD as the “rational choice” is becoming less and less obvious. This, of course, does not mean SD will lose it’s alpha-party status on the left-wing. Not yet. But new parties just might chip off enough votes to preventg Igor Lukšič from achieving what he no doubt thinks is within his reach: becoming prime minister.

“I DON’T CARE, WE’LL TAKE ANYTHING!!!”

But if Lukšič and SD are panicking due to too many possible alternatives, Positive Slovenia is going all Homer Simpson over the lack of them. Namely, the lack of policy alternatives. As most of their painstakingly put together platform went right out the window with an all-out effort to avoid the (banking) bailout, the party is struggling to find firm footing, which is why they probably floated the idea od “researching the possibility of implementing universal basic income”.

Now, UBI is a radically different concept of welfare state, an overall noble idea and – strangely so – best of both socialist and neoliberal worlds. But this can not be done overnight. Probably not even in a year. But PS made an off-hand remark about how UBI should be included in the new coalition agreement as if they were talking about an insignificant little benefit. Which probably did more harm than good as everybody and his brother went ape-shit over the idea, even the wannabe neolibs who – if they were to remain true to their Friedmanesque ideas – should be all over the idea like Jeena Jameson over Peter North’s dick. Not to mention the left-wing which would rather see the welfare state of mid-70s suffer a death by a thousand cuts rather than accept the fact that an entire generation of young precariat is forming before their very noses and do something about it. As a direct result the UBI initiative is about as attractive to the general public as a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys, all thanks to PS’ frantic search for something to stand for. Sort of.

Truth be told, it seemed for a moment they were going to stand for a strict re-examination of the TEŠ6 project, but that went out the window quickly enough. So not only the SD maintains “their hands are clean”, the coalition (in this case in cahoots with most of the opposition) agrees the project is bad but will carry on with it nevertheless.

Moving on to the parliamentarian centre, Citizens’ List (DL) – rather, what’s left of it – is in a mild state of panic ever since the party tore itself down the seam and basically exists only as a figment of political imagination, barely registering in the polls. Which is probably why Gregor Virant has an opinion on every issue, sometimes even more than one. Is. Not. Helping.

Fight on the right (to party)

But if the left-wing is contemplating panic, the right-wing is moving from panic to hysteria. Well, not entirely, NSi, for example, hit the ground running and is doing the pre-EU-election legwork already. It seems that Lojze Peterle, their main man in Brussels is out of the picture and they’ve got some catching-up to do. But the Ljudmila Novak – Matej Tonin duo seems to be purring along quite nicely, possibly with Novak heading the party ballot on 25 May when Slovenians are to choose their representatives in Brussels.

The SLS is also showing signs of independence, distancing themselves from the latest political stunt by the SDS, where European People’s Party sort of got Janša’s back. SLS said they will have no truck with this, despite EPP paying lip-service to NSi and SLS as well.

With both junior right-wing parties showing increasing signs of independent cognitive abilities, the SDS is truly starting to become hysterical. The main reason for this being that ever more of their resources are being diverted to “saving private Janša” than creating a meaningful political alternative. As a result, they’re locked in re-living the glorious past, re-enacting the first mustering of Slovenian armed forced (via VSO, a “patriotic society” linked heavily with The Party) and defaming everyone who doesn’t toe the increasingly radical party line.

With a ruling of the Higher Court in the Patria case looming, the crunch-time for Janša is fast approaching. Indeed, it is a matter of political life and death for the illustrious party leader. Should the prison sentence be confirmed, even his EPP companeros might find Janša too hot a potato to handle and bail out on him. Which is why it is imperative he survives. To ensure this, no punches are being pulled.

Journalistic footwear

Case in point being Janša’s statement yesterday (carried by Party’s official Twitter account) that Jože Pučnik (the defeated candidate for first democratically president of Slovenia) in fact got more votes than the official tally showed.

The implication being that a) Milan Kučan, who won that and two succeeding presidential elections was in fact an impostor, b) the state electoral commission is an untrustworthy body (until now that, at least, was a no-go area of political rhetoric) and, consequentially, c) any future electoral result, unfavourable to the SDS, should be doubted as much as possible. Which is yet another step in Janša’s long-term undertaking of degrading Slovenia to a status of a banana-republic with him as the banana-in-chief. Expect calls for OSCE observers in the forthcoming election cycle. However, Janša’s immediate problems are judicial. The Patria case aside, he is embroiled in a number of smaller cases, not all of which are going well for him. He repeatedly fails to make himself available to be served with court mail (a special procedure in Slovenia, it can not be done Hollywood style over here) and was called out by the press repeatedly on this. But days ago Planet TV ran a piece on how Janša was absent yet again from a court hearing.

Authored by Gordana Stojilković, a journalist of (presumably) Serbian descent, it enraged Janša enough for him to start rapid-fire tweets about “opanke journalism”, with opanke being the traditional Serbian footwear and “Opanković” being the derogatory derivative for mayor Janković on account of his Serbian descent. The implication here being that the whole media coverage was orchestrated by journos and/or media faithful to Janković one way or another. The fact that Janković is in fact Janša’s only ally-of-opportunity in the much larger case of anti-graft report (and their efforts to show they weren’t given a chance to respond, hence the report is illegal) So, what we had here the other day was the leader of the main opposition party going on a nationalistic and xenophobic rant.

In fact, it was like Tomaž Majer all over again. Back then, pengovsky submitted that rather than being Janša’s pseudonim Tomaž Majer was/is a collective identity of like-minded individuals of nationalistic/xenophobic/supremacist/paranoid convictions. And, sure enough, almost instantly after Janša fired off the first tweet under the #opankarskižurnalisem hashtag a brigade of his followers started backing the man up with “evidence” of “opanke journalism”. It was only after the backlash became too strong, Janša started spinning the story, saying it has nothing do with nationality, but rather with unprofessional and unethical journalistic practices.

Which begs the question, what exactly does Serbian folk footwear have to do with it. But I guess that something only an “opanke journalist” would ask anyhow.

Point is the SDS is losing energy battling enemies real and (mostly) imagined, yielding ground to junior right-wing parties and knowing it. But other than an occasional rant in the general direction of NSi and SLS and everyone who appeals for calm and a more centrist approach, there’s little they can do.

No clue what to do next

Which is why at the moment they’re banging the drums of history, making one hell of a ruckus over an old UDBa (socialist secret police) case where allegedly Slovenian UDBa operatives killed a Croatian immigrant in early 70s, first kidnapping him in Austria and then transporting him to Slovenia, then Yugoslavian territory. The thing is that one Roman Leljak, a former Yugoslavian military intelligence operative supposedly uncovered archives claiming this was done with full knowledge of top officials of Slovenian branch of UDBa as well as (and this is the key) with full knowledge of the Slovenian communist leadership which in that time alredy included Janša’s arch-enemy Milan Kučan. Kučan himself denied allegations, citing archive documents and transcripts of Central Committee sessions.

And this is why parliamentary committee on human rights is convening for lengthy sessions these days. It’s not about murders and political executions, as disgraceful as they are. It’s about rallying the party troops and chasing ghosts in the absence of any clue what to do next politically. The only positive side to this for SDS is that time and again the political left falls for the same trick and starts playing ball, entering a shouting match and trying to prove the Party wrong.

It doesn’t matter if the party discipline in the SDS would make the real Communist party of the iron 70s proud. It doesn’t matter that some of the more fervent Communists are now SDS members (its president included). It doesn’t even matter how many times the political left (or any specific parties of that side of political spectrum) denounces activities of the UDBa. SDS will always claim “they haven’t gone far enough” and call that “their burden of historical guilt they’ve yet to deal with”.

But other than that this is just mass-hysteria, a precursor to general panic. Should be fun.

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The Future Planning Committee

Before we all scatter to our respective festivals of light, a small write-up. In what was deemed an important announcement, the President of the Parliament Janko Veber yesterday, while recapping the year, said all parliamentary groups decided to make an important step in seeking a way out of the crisis. This will, apparently allow heads of the parliamentary groups to partake in the general political push forward, hear suggestions from all walks of life and promote their own views. This, apparently informal mechanism, will be called… wait for it… The Future Committee.

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Janko Veber really should meed Malcolm Tucker (photoshop by yours truly)

Are you fucking kidding me? The Future Committee? An informal group? What the hell is this? The local gardening society? This is supposed to be the parliament, the supreme legislative body of this country, representing the sovereign, the people. Members of the parliament have monies allocated especially to finance their constituency field offices to stay in touch with their electorate. Their work is public. They can summon anyone for a hearing. The current parliament has twenty-six separate committees, three of those are parliamentary inquiry (investigation) committees as well as the Council of the president, comprised of the same people as this cockamamie informal group and yet some bright soul thought it would be a good idea to form the Future Committee?

Future Committee, my ass. What exactly will they be doing informally? Munching over finger-food about how “something needs to be done”? What in the flying fuck prevents the MPs to take part in whatever part of whatever process they wish as things stand now? This is beyond Churchill’s maxim that if you want something swept under the rug, you ought to form a committee. This is, plain and simple, filling the noticeable lack of ideas with big words. It also shows that the only reason the parliament is being sidelined in the political process (something Veber lamented about at the same event) is because not a single person in that particular chamber has any idea how to effectively use the plethora of political and procedural tools at their disposal. The fact the Future Committee is supposed to be informal also shows they haven’t got the balls to do it, too.

The only future this committee will meet will also be the future of this particular batch of parliamentarians. Right out the nearest hole in the wall. Most of them, anyway. The only possible reference for this aborted mental process is the Future Planning Committee from In the Loop. If you haven’t seen it, do so over the coming holidays. This country needs a bit of Malcolm Tucker. All of him, actually 😀

Have a merry Christmas, everyone :mrgreen:

 

Boxing Solidarity

A new political party was formed in Slovenia on Saturday. In a country with 78 political parties and organisations this might not seem terribly important, but since Solidarnost (Solidarity) was formed by several people and groups integral to the popular uprisings in late 2011/early 2012, they do deserve a second glance.

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The collective presidency of Solidarnost (source)

There has always been talk about new parties being formed out of the protest movement. But – as always – going from reaction to proaction proved much harder than many imagined at the height of the protest wave. Thus it is no wonder that it took almost a year for a new party to form. Especially since this is (broadly speaking) a left-wing party we’re dealing with here. And while political forces on the right traditionally care strongly only about a handful of issues, left-wing players care strongly about a zillion things. Each of them about a zillion different things.

OK, so pengovsky is exaggerating to make a point, but you get my meaning. If the common denominator of the protest movement was the administration of Janez Janša and its broad-sworded austerity policies, it was anything but easy to find a new common denominator of a heterogeneous group of strongly opinionated people whose initial motivation for entering the political arena was the questionable legitimacy of the existing political establishment and its power structure. I guess the best, albeit slightly stretched comparison would be if the NY Occupy movement tried to enter the race for New York mayor. In fact, the process was apparently so difficult, the party does not have a president, but rather a three-member presidency, comprised of Uroš Lubej (leader of one of the protest groups), Damjan Mandelc (a sociologist and political activist) and Marina Tavčar Krajnc (professor at Maribor University).

Anyways, point is that it took a while for Solidarnost to form. Now what? Interestingly enough, several polls published in weeks leading up to formation of the party showed a “protest movement party” would resonate heavily with voters, with at least one poll giving such a party as much as 40%. However, that was before Solidarnost’s platform was adopted and published. And therein lies the key to understanding the phenomenon.

People smarter than me (yes, there are a few of those, shocking as it may seem) made a good observation that the new party could become a focal point of voters’ wishes and projections. This, in fact, is probably the reason why “a protest party” scored so high in the polls. It is a pool of votes Solidarty can draw from. But if the difficulty of party-forming process is anything to go by, the expectations the voters have of the new party are even more wildly apart from each other than those of the founding members were.

Which is why it could very well be that the 12-point and 22-page platform, although addressing several key issues this country faces, will prove to be the problem rather than the solution. And for one reason only: it is, in pengovksy’s opinion, too specific. The left-wing, traditionally at odds with itself, is always happy to shoot itself in the knee and take issues with its own kind over even the most marginal of issues. Or the lack thereof. Case in point being the TEŠ6 clusterfuck, which is conspicuously lacking but a mention in the document. (EDIT: turns out TEŠ6 is mentioned, albeit only briefly (page 20). Still, the point generally stands.)

Point being, that Solidarnost is entering a heavily opinionated, heavily populated and heavily fractured territory, where few breaks are given. Not that the new party leadership is helping it cause, indiscriminately portraying the entire existing spectrum as “parties of the capital”, positioning itself further to the left. And despite what Slavoj Žižek recently wrote, that the only true left is today known as the “far left”, that is not a recipe for capturing much of the aforementioned 40%. Even worse, comparisons with German die Linke were floated around, which isn’t exactly helping if you’re trying to capture a plethora of voters of wildly different profiles.

In this respect, it is the least of Solidarnost’s problems that the media spotted a number of former LDS members at the event. Although this immediately resulted in it being painted a bypass-party for the heavily indebted and barely functioning LDS, Solidarnost really shouldn’t worry about that too much. They should, however, worry about being boxed into a corner and left (sic!) there to rot.

Namely, apart from the LDS connection, the evergreen rumour that former Zares leader Gregor Golobič is behind all of it. Or, – this from the right-wing media – that the new party is an “offshot of the Communist party and its remnants”. But since every self-respecting LDS member still crosses the road whenever he or she sees a Zares member approaching on the pavement and both will rather jump into the Ljubljanica river than be seen with an old communist hand, you can’t have it all. OK, I’m exaggerating a bit again, but you get the point. The left is fractioned. But the powers that be apparently see Solidarnost as enough of a threat to the “established order” that they will use every tool in their (for the time being) rhetoric arsenal to paint the party as “one of us”, the argument being that they’re all the same anyhow, but with the old guys you at least know who’s who.

Years ago Gregor Golobič “accused” pengovsky of declaring Zares D.O.A.. Fun times, those were. 🙂 But while not dead-on-arrival, Solidarnost is risking crib-death by starting to play the game others want it to play and allowing its position on the political spectrum to be determined by the established political players.

P.S.: Pengovsky’s first ever column for Nedelo more than five years ago was titled “Give us back the politics”. Solidarnost’s slogan is “give the politics back to the people”. They’re not winning any points with me for this one, but it is kind of neat 😉

Slovenian Banking Stress-Tests: The End Of A Beginning

Government of Alenka Bratušek and Bank of Slovenia will finally release the long-anticipated results of banking stress-tests later today. Performed by Oliver Wyman consulting company and overseen by a “Steering Committee” comprised of people of Bank of Slovenia, Ministry of Finance, European Commission, European Central Bank and European Banking Authority, they are meant to show the depth and breadth of bad assets in Slovenian banking system.

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Bank of Slovenia (source)

Little is known publicly about how exactly the tests were performed, but a methodology paper released last month by the Bank of Slovenia shows that banks were divided into two groups. The three largest banks, Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor (NKBM) and ABanka were deemed “systemic”, while Gorenjska banka, Banka Celje, UniCedit banka Slovenije, Hypo Alpe Adria Bank, Raiffeisen bank, Probanka and Factor banka were included with certain limits. Additionally, the last two banks were put under receivership in early September.

In the past few years, as it was becoming obvious that Slovenian banks are riddled with holes in their assets and even cooking their books didn’t help, different and often wild numbers were floated around as to how gaping a hole actually exists. These numbers went from an overly optimistic “just” 1.2 billion euro to massively exaggerated 10 billion. And anywhere in between. A lot of these numbers had a political motivation, with 10 billion being pushed by the opposition, mostly Janez Janša’s SDS (the argument being that ten billion we can’t cope with, hence the Troika should descend, hence new elections, hence their return to power) while the 1.2 number was usually given by the government, trying to show they’re on top of things and telling everyone to calm the fuck down.

As some point the newly minted Governor of Bank of Slovenia Boštjan Jazbec floated an estimate “in the neighbourhood of four billion” and given what is heard through the grapevine in the last few days, his seems to have been the best estimate. Namely, “unnamed officials” from the European Commission apparently said they expect Slovenia to be able to handle a banking recapitalisation of around 4.7 billion euro. Which is about as much money as Slovenia currently has “in reserve”, be it as an earmarked amount in the budget, in various savings accounts in the top three banks or as debt raised in the last round.

If this number turns out to be true, this will be a major coup for Prime Minister Alenka Bratušek, who took over at the helm of the country amid the hysteria of the Troika being just around the corner and with the government of her predecessor seemingly doing everything to apply for the bailout rather than avoid it, be it out of malice or incompetence. Indeed, now that the threat of the Troika was staved off (at least temporarily), even former finance minister Janez Šušteršič had to concede (albeit with teeth gritting) Bratušek and Čufer were successful in this enterprise

But before we start sucking each others dicks, a few things should be noted. No matter how you turn it around, there still is a gaping 5 billion hole in Slovenian banking system. That’s 5,000,000,000 euros. More than fifty percent of the 2014 budget. Plugging that will be no small feat, regardless of the fact we’ve got the monies to do that. The public debt will be bloated further and the clean-up operation will move further down the ladder less mercy will be shown.

Namely, it has been said virtually all of these bad loans were granted to but a few hundred Slovenian companies, with as little as ten-or-so of them being responsible for over 60% of that amount. This is the environment in which these toxic assets will be transferred to the Bank Assets Management Company a.k.a. the “bad bank”. If pengovsky’s information is correct, the transfer will be made at the rate of thirty cents per dollar, meaning that as much as 70% of bad debt will be written off, i.e. covered by the taxpayers. And with the political elite not exactly having excess of clout, be it with each other or the electorate, the clean up will have to be not only financial but also judicial and political.

There are only a few moments in life when quoting Winston Churchill does not feel either horribly out of place or horrendously arrogant. This is one of those moments: What we are seeing today is not the end. It is not the beginning of the end. But it is, one hopes, the end of a beginning.

UPDATE @ 11:20

According to official government Twitter account, 3.012 bn euros are needed to recapitalise NLB, NKBM and ABanka.

Bank of Slovenia Governor Jazbec said recapitalisation of the three banks will commence as soon as possible, pending approval of the European Commission and that may take until April. While for the rest the Bank of Slovenia expect the owners of the banks to come up with 1.764 billion until the end of June 2014.

And that is basically it. If you need more info, check out Bank of Slovenia website

A Reshuffle By Any Other Name

What turned out to be a resignation-happy week, culminated on Friday last with a collective fuck-you-we-quit by the trio heading the KPK, Slovenia’s anti-graft body. Goran Klemenčič, Rok Praprotnik and Liljana Selinšek announced their resignations in what they called a protest against the fact that – despite their best efforts – the powers that be are doing their best to ignore the systemic issues of corruption in Slovenia (full statement in English here)

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Samo Omerzel (DL) and Jernej Pikalo (SD) (source: RTVSLO)

The move opens a plethora of interesting questions, not in the least the fact that their successors must be appointed by the very man who (at least by the virtue of his position) oversaw the making of the clusterfuck that is TEŠ6 coal powerplant. That be Borut Pahor, of course, who as PM did nothing to stop the investment which soon thereafter spiraled out of control and went from a doctored 600 million to ass-whooping 1,4 billion euro without a single megawatt of energy being produced yet. But we’ll deal with that in the coming days. Mostly because there is shit going on in executive branch of the government as well.

Namely, after she ditched minister of economy Stanko Stepišnik and minister of health Tomaž Gantar bailed out of his own accord, PM Alenka Bratušek was faced with a miniature coalition crisis. Predictably it was Karl Erjavec of DeSUS who started making noises about how a proper cabinet reshuffle is overdue and that it should include head of SocDems Igor Lukšič who opted not to take on a ministerial position when Bratušek formed her government.

This flip-flop position was thus far very profitable both for Lukšič and his party. The SD is leading in every poll imaginable not in the least because Lukšič manages to avoid the daily bad press and lets senior party figures take the heat while he supports the government unless it is opportune not to do so. Seeing this, Karl Erjavec thought he might squeeze out a concession or two, saying that unless Lukšič doesn’t take on a portfolio, he himself will “think about him remaining a part of the government as well”. Naturally, no-one took him seriously and lo-behold! Erjavec has taken on the health portfolio as well, it was announced yesterday. Which makes for a fun combo: Karl Erjavec, foreign and health minister.

A rather less funny but far more intriguing combo is Uroš Čufer, who – in addition to finance – temporarily took on economy portfolio as well, thus joining two areas (supposedly) critical to turning the fortunes of this sorry little excuse for a country. Legally, this “pro tempore” solution can only be done for a period of six months (three plus three) and it seems PM Bratušek opted for it because Erjavec may still get what he wants, while Čufer will either go boom or bust in the same period. For “boom” read survive the banking stress tests and sell off at least some state-owned companies and for “bust” read none of the above.

At any rate, while no-one is calling it like that, an across the board cabinet reshuffle is in the air. Especially since the coalition will begin negotiating a new agreement, extending until next parliamentary elections in late 2015. Also, minister of infrastructure Samo Omerzel is in a bit of a fix these past few days over his company doing business with state-owned motorway company DARS and although only today the company stated that it bailed out on extending the deal, it may be to little to late. The PS is making noises that Omerzel should go for the same reason Stepišnik had to go – not because he did anything illegal, but because it was unbecoming. And on merit, they have a point. Politically, however, this can heat up things a bit and not just because the opposition is clamouring for his removal.

The thing is that not only is DL supporting their minister (obviously) but they would – if push came to a shove – probably make demands against other coalition partners as well. Which points to the conclusion that the Social Democrats will have to say goodbye to one of their own sooner rather than later. And that can only be minister of education, science and technology Jernej Pikalo. Not because he would do anything really wrong, but because he has the least clout of the three SD ministers in the Bratušek Government.

With Dejan Židan being the Number Two of the Social Democrats and the key senior government official in a recently launched anti-tax-evasion campaign while Anja Kopač Mrak is heading the labour, family and social department which is a can of worms few people want to touch let alone open in the first place. Which leaves Pikalo. His replacement would mean that each of the coalition parties had to throw one of their own under the bus and – in theory at least – everybody would be happy.

This, combined with new ground-rules being laid, the possibility of parties switching some portfolios among themselves and the fact that PM Bratušek is looking to replace three to five ministers within a year of her taking office is nothing short of a full-blown cabinet reshuffle. It’s just that nobody will be calling it that.

 

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Health Minister Resigns, Sickened By Inability To Pass Reform

The ink on the resignation letter of minister of economy Stanko Stepišnik had barely dried when PM Alenka Bratušek saw another member of her cabinet resign earlier today when minister of health Tomaž Gantar tendered his resignation with media grabbing his statement about blockade of any meaningful health reform by powerful players and people with vested interest.

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Minister in resignation. Another one (photo by Barbara Milavec/Žurnal24.si)

Indeed, in his resignation letter (Google Translate here) Gantar did, in fact, acknowledge corruption as a major issue of Slovenian health system. However, he adds that in this respect the health sector is no different than the rest of the country and that some of his problems may very well stem from his attempts to curb the construction lobby. Which, in all honesty, is as political a statement about corruption as any. Not in the least because the health sector is prone to occasional fits of corruption, the most epic of them being a tender for operating tables in surgery halls of Ljubljana University Clinical Centre which dragged on for years and resulted in no charges being filed despite tonnes of taxpayer’s money being thrown out the window by the bucketful. Then there’s was a tender for a new ER under Janša government 1.0, which also ran aground. Or the new Oncology wing which even years after it was completed is mired by cases of Legionella in its plumbing. Or the (relatively) new Pediatrics wing, which took more than a decade to build and serves a smaller number of patients than its predecessor. And so on and so on…

Every minister in ever government practically anywhere in the world will try to position himself/herself as fiercely anti-corruption. But talking the talk don’t always mean walking the walk. And Gantar was stumbling in office practically from day one. That be day one of Janša 2012 government, where only both DeSUS ministers (Gantar and foreign minister and party leader Karl Erjavec) held the same positions as in the succeeding Bratušek administration and Gantar was widely perceived as being out of his depth, despite the fact that he ran a relatively successful hospital in coast town of Izola prior to his entry in politics. Therefore, although resonating, his statements on corruption are neither revealing nor ravaging.

Therefore the rest of his letter is much more interesting in terms of shedding light on high-level behind-the-scenes power-plays. It shows that Gantar fell not so much a victim to various lobbies but rather failed in a power struggle for the future (re)organisation of the health system. To put it bluntly, it a tussle between proponents of further concessions in primary health care (i.e.: private GPs performing public-health services) and proponents of concentrating primary health-care solely in the hands of state-related organisations. Gantar positioned himself as pro-concessions and named labour unions as well as Social Democrats as forces opposing further issuing of concessions.

Therefore, while somewhat of a surprise, Gantar’s resignation is not really rocking the coalition boat. In fact, it may even show that the coalition is closing its ranks in the wake of a confidence vote won by PM Bratušek and is now getting rid of some of its looser parts. Whether or not this is the case will be seen pretty soon and gauged by the simplest of instruments: whether or not DeSUS president Karl Erjavec will start making noises towards leaving the coalition once again. The grapevine has it that Erjavec and Gantar were not really on friendly terms as of late and it might just be that Erjavec wants a more friendly person fulfilling DeSUS cabinet quota.

As for primary health care concessions and overall reform, this might even be a good thing. Opposition to reforms is indeed staunch, especially with players who stand to lose a lot. But it was also shown time and again that given the right person in the right position, a deal can usually be brokered.

P.S.: Gantar didn’t really say he was “sickened”. It just that The Onion-like title reads well 😉

 

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PM Bratušek Down A Minister. Just Not The One SDS Was Aiming For.

Late last night, after a 15+ hours of debate, the parliament voted to reject the bid to oust finance minister Uroš Čufer. The motion was filed by SDS of Janez Janša and the two basic charges against Čufer were that he backed the Bank of Slovenia plan for a “controlled liquidation” of Probanka and Factor banka, two small sort-of-investment banks which were mainly vehicles for financing ventures of their owners (although Probanka had a small contingent of “ordinary” customers) as well as the fact that he dismissed Andrej Šircelj, an SDS MP, from the board of the yet-to-become-operational Bad Assets Management Company, a.k.a. bad bank.

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Two ministers: one in resignation, the other one not so much. (photo: Aleš Černivec/Delo)

Now, the move-to-oust, or “interpelation” as it is known around here was filed some time ago and it went without saying that the SDS, which was alone in this venture with NSi and SLS watching carefully which way the wind blows, threw at Čufer everything they could get their hands on. Which mostly meant lecturing him at how he should run state finances.

Which is all fine and well, after all this is a democracy of sorts with a relatively well-thought-out system of checks and balances. The same goes for the interpelation instrument. However, what we witnessed yesterday was not so much a case of oppositional oversight as it was a degenerated filibuster where the goal was not to prevent a measure being passed but to drag the proceedings for as long as possible, hoping that somewhere along the way the coalition would drop the ball and fail to produce a majority vote. In fact, this was nothing short of a shit in political tactics. Namely, about a week ago we’ve seen practically the same approach when the parliament debated the 2014 and 2015 budgets. In a multi-day session which culminated in a Thursday all-nighter, the final vote was cast on Friday at 6 in the morning.

The good old days of touch and go

Now, all-night-sessions are not unknown in this part of the world. When shit was hitting the fan while Yugoslavia was disintegrating and the whole Slovenia situation was touch-and-go we used to see them regularly. In fact, one could argue that all-night sessions of the parliament or another high-ranking body were the hallmark of the era. And it seems as if the opposition is trying to bring back the aura of emergency and instability.

Not that there was any lack of urgency to begin with and until the budget was passed, the Bratušek administration sure as hell couldn’t be filed under “stable”. But ever since Janez Janša was toppled he was looking for ways to undermine the current government in any way possible. True, the ruling coalition is perfectly capable to undermine itself (as we’ve seen time and again in the past months) but it would appear there’s some movement in the right direction.

One could argue that Bratušek and Čufer achieved with this budget what Janša and Šušteršič couldn’t. Namely, get at least half a nod from the EU and effectively take threat of the Troika descending off the table at least temporarily. And as demonstrated in the previous post, for Janša the equation is simple: no Troika, no return to power any-time soon. And a derailed budget or a toppled finance minister are not to high a price to pay, apparently. Not to mention inevitable relegation of Slovenia to protectorate status in case the Troika materializes.

Again: Slovenia is not out of the woods yet (not even close) but a hint was given we’re on the right path. And that is not good news for Janša.

It’s about management, stupid

But as someone recently told pengovsky, this country doesn’t have as much of a financial problem as it does have a leadership management problem. Both in government and in business. Which is one of the reasons we find ourselves in the shit we’re in. Case in point being minister of economy and technology Stanko Stepišnik, who was forced to resign yesterday evening over a repeated issue of his tools-manufacturing company Emo Orodjarna applying for and being awarded government grants while he was in office.

Now, there’s a caveat to this: until recently, there was a strict prohibition of companies (co-)owned by public officials applying for tenders with the institutions their owners worked for. I.e.: a company a minister or a member of his family owned (at least partly) could not apply for a grant within his ministry’s purview. Some years ago there was even a complete prohibition for such companies doing any business with any government institution, but that was struck down as unconstitutional. But even this watered-down prohibitive clause was too much for some and was reduced even further by the last Janša administration (albeit at the behest of the SLS) and now stipulates only that people with a conflict of interest should remove themselves from the decision-making process.

And when it transpired that Stepišnik’s company did in fact apply for a government grant at Stepišnik’s ministry, it was all perfectly legal, since Stepišnik did in fact remove himself from the decision-making process. And yet, it failed to dawn on him that simply is not the way things should be done. It took further revelations of his company applying for additional tenders and – this clinched it – apparently falsely stating there are no possible conflicts of interest in one of the tenders for Stanko Stepišnik to finally realise he is in an unsustainable position.

However, since Stepišnik was an MP for Positive Slovenia before assuming ministerial duties, he is bound to return to take his parliamentary seat, making the situation no less more agreeable. Now, arguably, Stepišnik’s resignation is a good omen as it is the second minister in Bratušek administration to resign over a similar conflict of interest (Igor Maher having done so after only 12 days in office) and it shows this government does have a sense of appropriateness. Also, Stepišnik was widely tipped to be let go once PM Bratušek wins the vote of confidence, so there’s no real harm (political or otherwise) in him being replaced.

The necessary vote of confidence

But it does show that – despite the fact some people were mocking Bratušek for tying it to passing of the budget – the recent confidence vote was much more crucial than most people thought. It finally gave her the leg to stand on politically and rallied the coalition around her, at least temporarily. And it appears finance minister Čufer is one of the cornerstones of her political credibility. Which is why she took the somewhat unusual step of the PM addressing the parliament and defend her minister during an interpelation.

This, of course, did not go unnoticed and you can be sure Čufer will find himself the target of much more elaborate attacks and insinuation than just a case of a disgruntled opposition MP who – due to a legal provision, mind you – lost his 6k EUR monthly paycheck in the bad bank which came on top of his 4k monthly MP salary.

 

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