SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

PM Bratušek Calls A Confidence Vote For a Political Hat-Trick

As hinted at in pengovsky’s last post, which – admittedly – was published shamefully long ago, PM Alenka Bratušek is apparently going to move for a vote of confidence in the coming days. That she is going to tie the confidence vote to passing of the 2014 budget, made most of the pundits declare this as eyewash, since the budget is usually hammered out during tense intra-coalition negotiations and if you make it that far, you’re pretty much home safe. However, in case of PM Bratušek, this is only half (of a third of) the story.

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PM Alenka Bratušek (source)

As pengovsky noted some time ago, the budget is half-guesswork, half-black-magic and all politics. In case of Slovenian 2014 budget, this means steering between a drive to raise taxes, a rush to lower expenditure and a dive to avoid the troika (yes, it’s that time of the year again). What Bratušek and her finance minister Čufer did was apparently something in between, looking to raise additional EUR 500 million in a EUR 9 billion budget with a set of new property taxes and decoupling of income-tax breaks and inflation (where your level on non-taxed earnings rose automatically as the inflation rose). On the other hand, they’re trying to slash expenditures, even in the science and education sector while apparently allocating funds for infrastructure projects. Thirdly (and this is their primary short-term goal) they’re waiting for the final approval from “Brussels-am-Berlin” to start the bad bank, which is supposed to ease the credit crunch. Not that anyone is holding their breath. Translation: Surviving 2014 is the main priority, everything else (including any meaningful growth) is secondary.

It seems the coalition parties sort of underst-ood that and will support the budget despite heavy posturing, especially by DeSUS and SD. In this respect the confidence vote can be considered as simply more posturing. But if one takes a look at what PM Bratušek was and still is going through politically, the confidence vote is the long-overdue curved ball she desperately needed to throw.

Just take a look at the Gašpar Gašpar Mišič business. Her hand was forced in that particular mudfight and as pengovsky told the European Voice, it went against her politically, since she tried to block Gašpar Mišič’s appointment as CEO of Port of Koper, but failed. That alone damaged her position quite heavily, not to mention the rest of the coalition which was crying bloody murder over political appointments in state-owned firms (yes, there is a lot of irony in this sentence). That SD, DeSUS and DL were more into undermining her than actually giving a pair of fetid dingo’s kindeys over Gašpar Mišič is now obvious now. Namley in the wake of the appointment SOD, the state fund which owns much of the port, was clamouring for shareholder meeting where enough supervisory board members of the company would be replaced to have Gašpar Gašpar Mišič removed from the position. And yet, the man is still head of the Port of Koper. You do the math.

Furthermore there is the looming party congress for Positive Slovenia, now scheduled for mid-October, where the commentariat is going ga-ga over the remote possibility of Zoran Janković running for party chieftain yet again. In pengovsky’s opinion Zoki is not going to run, but that did not stop a group of party members to nominate him for the position. Of course, this means nothing if Janković doesn’t agree to the nomination (he has about a week to do so) and it is quite possible that he is trying to make life difficult for those within the party who are side-lining him. On the other hand, the party is going to have a mail-in elections, with results being declared on the day of the congress. This, apparently, was done to prevent Janković taking the stage at the 11th hour, swaying the crown in situ and make a killing. It seems Janković understands this and is only making a nuisance of himself. You know, just to sour the milk a bit. That he is officially still mum on the issue only further strengthens the point.

Thus tying the confidence vote to an agreed-upon budget is a rather cunning move. There is zero chance of coalition parties bailing out, while at the same time PM Alenka Bratušek and her government get a renewed oath of allegiance and at least temporarily closes ranks. Not to mention the fact that upon entering office, Bratušek said she will call a confidence vote within a year. What we have here, is in fact a neat little political hat-trick.

There is an art, rather, a knack tp calling a confidence vote. Former PM Janez Janša knew how to do it. And whoever advises Bratušek politicaly, is pretty good at this game, too.

Shipping Shipping News: Why PM Bratušek Should Demand a Confidence Vote

Pengovsky is en vacances these days, which sort of explains why the trickle of posts, scarce as it is, dried up temporarily. Sure, there is stuff in the pipeline, including the upheaval in the local Roman Catholic Church, which was beheaded by pope Francis for doing exactly the opposite of what Jesus did in the Temple. However, another, even more urgent issue exploded on Monday.

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Gašpar Gašpar Mišič, a.k.a. GGM (photo Boris Šuligoj/Delo)

Gašpar Gašpar Mišič, former state secretary in the office of PM Alenka Bratušek, before that an MP for Positive Slovenia and before that a real-estate magnate in the Koper area was appointed CEO of Port of Koper (Luka Koper), Slovenia’s only cargo port. Now popularly known as “Luka Luka Koper”.

Luka Luka Koper

As a result, about three-quarters of the country went apeshit, the coalition parties are rattling their sabres with SD leader Igor Lukšič talking openly about quitting the government while the protest movement announced a new instalment of the uprising for 4 September. However, despite all the protestations, rest assured that the one thing we will not see, is collapse of the government.

To be sure, the entire episode of picking new CEO of Luka Koper was shambolic, to say the least. Under “temporary management” for some time, the company was still reeling from a series of bad investments made by the management installed by the first Janša administration (2004 – 2008).

After Zoran Janković won the 2011 elections, Gašpar Gašpar Mišič, Zoki’s point-man in the region, made it no secret he was eyeing the top job at Luka Koper. The brazen directness of is ambition made a lot of people balk, especially since shipping and/or logistics apparently are not his forte, despite the fact that he holds a rank of deck officer in the merchant marine, having graduated from Naval Faculty. But he found his success in real estate, making his ambition even more brazen. With advent of the Bratušek administration, the flame of Mišič’s ambition was reignited, especially after he quit his MP post to become state secretary in the office of the prime minister.

But as Bratušek and Janković fell out, he was increasingly seen as Janković’s man on the Bratušek team, making life difficult for the PM politically, as he made it clear that in a potential Bratušek-Janković showdown, his loyalties lay with the latter. Which is also why Mišič is now seen as bringing the company into Janković’s sphere of influence.

If it were only that simple

What we have here, is (at least) a five-way match for control of state-owned assets, where in the finest tradition of partitocracy members of (first) supervisory boards and (second) management boards are picked chiefly on their party loyalty, whereas professional ability is a bonus. And just to make sure it don’t get too dull, there’s the Koper municipality, whose mayor Boris Popovič is following his own agenda as well as the increasingly cold relations between Janković and Bratušek.

Thus a relatively low-key appointment became a high-octane political feature which forces many a hand and will have political ramifications one way or another. No danger of the government collapsing, though, despite some heavy rhetoric by all junior coalition parties. DL of Gregor Virant and DeSUS of Karl Erjavec can simply not afford an election right now, while SD, although scoring high in the polls, is positioning itself quite nicely in state-owned companies and is also quite bound to the TEŠ6 project. In other words, every coalition party stands to lose a lot if the government were to fall.

Who backed whom

Perhaps the wildest of conspiracy theories floating around (and there are quite a few to choose from) stated that Jay-Z and AB were in fact in collusion, the rift between them only feigned to disguise their real intentions. Now, were this even remotely true, it would require an extraordinary amount of skill and coordination, not just between the (ostensibly) former leader of Positive Slovenia and his successor, but between their respective operatives. It would also mean their rift was put aside at least temporarily. The way Slovenian politics stands today, neither are possible. Janković never forgets and rarely forgives, but even if that condition would be fulfilled, there would have still been the impossible task of pulling off a stunt like that. With precious few expcetions, the current players in the political arena simply do not have either the mileage or the wit for double play. A wise man once said that one should never put down to malice what one can to incompetence. Simple. And somewhat sad.

On the other hand, it seems the Koper Big Kahuna, mayor Boris “Popo” Popovič had a role to play in this charade. Judging by the flurry of activity of PR pros Popo hired recently and who were not unsympathetic to Mišič taking over the port, the Koper mayor is dancing the Mipos dance of Joy right now.

Now, whether or not Zoran Janković played a role is uncertain. Despite him making loud noises over who should run and oversee funds controlling state assets, his “suggestions” were largely ignored or overruled. He had made his displeasure known, but it begs the question, if he was unable to impress his will directly on the government, how would he have been able to control events further down the food chain?

One possible answer is that Zoki and Popo are tighter than it would appear at first sight. Also, since the newly minted CEO of Luka Koper professed his allegiance to Janković time and again (after all it was Mišič who coined that ill-thought-out phrase about Janković being able to generate growth even in Antarctica, earning PS the moniker “Penguins”), it would indeed seem the Ljubljana mayor can’t be very far from this story.

But even if that is true (and it is by no means a given), Zoki has seen too many defections from his camp to consider the matter solved. More often than not, he has seen the defector wait until he/she got what they wanted and then turn their back on him. Case in point being Renata Brunskole MP, who – after switching from SD to ss to secure another term in the parliament – threw Janković under the bus the moment a push came to a shove. So it is quite possible that having gotten what they wanted, both Boris Popovič and Gašpar Gašpar Mišič will start putting a daylight between Janković and themselves.

Vote of confidence

But it is PM Bratušek who is facing a real problem. What has happened on Monday, was a direct defiance of her wishes by a senior party figure and (nominally, at least), her close aide. Namely, Bratušek publicly tried to stay out of this story for as long as possible, but ultimately her hand was forced and she had to say something. Amazingly, she admitted that corporate governance of state-owned companies is a joke more often than not. She didn’t do it in as many words, but said politics has too much of a hand in picking managers and supervisors. She added it is inappropriate for a senior civil servant to make the switch just like that and hinted at sacking Mišič who in turn quit of his own accord.

At that moment, a week ago, it seemed as if Mišič’s ambitions were curbed, but when the supervisory board confirmed him as CEO on Monday with the president of the board doing an about face on the issue and providing the necessary vote for a 5:4 majority. All of a sudden, Bratušek found herself in a tight spot, having first been prodded by her coalition partners and ultimately defied by a high-profile member of her own party.

As a result, she finds herself heavily undermined in a position that was more than just a bit shaky to begin with. In fact, with the Mišič stunt, Bratušek is three-quaters of a way to becoming a lame-duck prime minister. If she does nothing, she will lose what little authority she has left and as a result the Mišič-like stunts will be repeated over and over again and she will preside over people with vested interest from all parties gobble up what is left of Slovenian economy. True, there is the danger of this happening anyway, but if you gotta go, you might as well go with style. And if AB wants to retain (let alone regain) her footing, there is only one thing she can and should do: she should go to the parliament and demand a vote of confidence.

This is the only possible way she can (perhaps) contain her coalition partners whose appetite for control of state assets has just been whetted beyond anything we’ve seen to date. Ditto for elements of her own party. Additionally, with this she will pre-empt any loose talk of junior partners quitting the coalition (lest they be granted additional turfs) and re-establish herself just enough to come down hard on Mišič. Failing that, she might as well throw in the towel now.

It’s like Danica Simšič all over again

There is historic precedent to all of this. Way back in 2002, Danica Simšič of what is today SD was – against all expectations – elected mayor of Ljubljana. Hip, hip, hooray and all that jazz, but the problem was the left-wing coalition that ruled the city had other plans and was hoping Vika Potočnik of LDS would retain the mayorship. As a result, Simšič soon found herself without the political support of her own party, let alone the coalition, but instead of resigning, she pressed on, soon losing all grip on the situation and finding herself being played time and time again by her own people, to the very bitter end (that is, to the landslide victory of Zoran Janković in 2006).

Therefore, the only thing PM Bratušek can do now is to call the various bluffs and put her cards on the table. In this, she must also be prepared to lose. But there is no disgrace in losing (more or less) honourably. Knowing that you should do something, but can’t bring yourself to do it is, however, mighty bad form. Case in point being the incumbent president, who back in his PM days knew he should quit and go to the polls, but couldn’t.

State ownership just went out the window

There is one thing, however, that may have went beyond the point of no return: after the Gašpar Gašpar Mišič episode, where everyone was/is locked in some kind of a Mexican standoff, it becoming increasingly hard to argue in favour of any kind of state ownership. Not because the state would be a bad owner per se, but because – in Slovenia at least – state ownership continues to be the mud-pit of ineptitude and special interest.

After the dust settles, we’ll be lucky of we can keep the basic infrastructure of this country in taxpayers’ hands.

Positive Discharge

Recently, Slovenian media widely reported of a rift in Positive Slovenia (PS), the senior coalition party. Both print and electronic media were awash with reports of sparks flying between PM Alenka Bratušek and Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković during a party huddle some three weeks ago.

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WIZJGTD – What Is Zoran Janković Going To Do? (source: The Firm ™)

According to Delo (Slovenian only), Janković, unhappy with being sidelined within the party, went head to head with Bratušek over how much extra money city of Ljubljana would get in the budget balancing act (which has since been passed). However, Bratušek apparently told him that “how much” actually means “if any”. Apparently this precipitated and angryish exchange and forced a roll-call in the party council where a large majority sided with the PM.

The Clash

The allegations of party in-fighting were dismissed publicly and interpreted only as a “spirited debate”, but it did not escape pengovsky’s attention that Renata Brunskole MP, who actively courted Janković to enter the national race in 2011 and even split from SD to facilitate this, basically hung Janković out to dry. She told the media mayors often have different views of state budget thus in effect withdrawing her support for Janković. Not totally unexpected, by the way, since she apparently doesn’t blink twice when switching allegiances suits her immediate political needs. But still, something Janković will not forget easily.

After allegations of a party rift came to light, Janković sought to play down the whole thing, claiming he supported the budget rebalancing act all along and that he believes Alenka Bratušek is an excellent PM. Conspicuously, he said nothing about her as party president, only saying that we will decide on whether he’ll run for party chieftain some time until autumn.

Thus the question which causes many a talking head to predict yet another installment of the “hot political autumn” (the classic and probably most abused idiom in Slovene political lingo) therefore is, whether Jay-Z is going to run for president of Positive Slovenia during their September huddle.

Option One

There are two options, obviously, one more likely than the other. Option One: Janković runs for head of PS, Bratušek as per her earlier stated intentions does not put up a fight, Zoki gets elected head of the party (again), all hell breaks loose within the coalition, early elections are called, cue the Apocalypse.

Now, this scenario has a slight problem: it is way too straightforward. If current ratings are anything to go by, the only two parties which might be interested in (yet another) early elections are Social Democrats of Igor Lukšič and SDS of Janez Janša. The latter perhaps even more so since they are in opposition with Ivan basically hiding under a rock somewhere, save occasional sightings on Party meets and via Twitter. Janša’s political star is fading fast courtesy of the anti-graft report, a gift, by the way, that keeps on giving.

On the other hand, early elections might look appealing to Lukšič (his party secretary-general tweeted as much), since they do offer a chance to mitigate the 2011 ass-whooping the voters served to Borut Pahor and come out on top. With SD being the only coalition party that has both adequate reach and ground network, that may even be doable, especially if they manage to pin all the unpopular things of the Bratušek administration to the PS.

But Lukšič might face an unexpected problem: his party. Specifically, party heavyweights who have too much vested interest in this government continuing, or – at the very least – not having yet another government come in and running the danger of shaking things up. This includes (but is not limited to) the faction(s) supporting the massive headache that is the TEŠ6 power plant in Šoštanj. If too many key SD people became too cosy, early elections might prove to be a bridge too far for Lukšič.

But even so, calling early elections is not exactly a walk in the park. Even if SD quits the coalition due to Janković comeback, PM Bratušek might try to continue with a minority government. Namely, despite Karl Erjavec of DeSUS and Gregor Virant of DL professing their intention to vacate the coalition immediately if Zoki gets back in the game, they both stand to lose plenty. And while DeSUS can still be counted on making it above the 4% threshold on election day, DL is all but finished and the further away the election day is, the better.

Enter Kučan

But this is the less likely scenario. Apart from Janković’s insistence that he never really quit as party president (but merely “freezing” his position, pending a party vote), the only thing that goes in favour of Zoki’s mounting a leadership bid is former president Milan Kučan saying in a recent interview that he ought not to.

That’s right. Some days ago Kučan, commonly seen as Janković’s mentor, gave an interview to a TV station in his native Prekmurje region saying “if Janković can not lead his party due to corruption charges – and it is my belief he can not – then the same goes for a president of any other party, regardless of the support within the party ranks” (full video here, in Slovenian).

Now, Kučan obviously drew a parallel between charges against Janković and Janša, both implicated in reports by the anti-graft commission. Not only did Kučan say Janković shouldn’t lead the PS anymore (thus implicitly supporting PM Bratušek), he also drew a parallel between JJ and Jay-Z, something the latter has tried very hard to dismiss ever since the reports were published.

The pundits went into a frenzy, interpreting this as Kučan throwing Janković under a bus, the final nail in Janković’s political coffin and so on ad nauseam. However, Zoran Janković didn’t get where he is today by taking orders from other people. In fact, while he has always maintained he has deep respect for Kučan, he has defied him politically before. Apparently, Kučan advised him against running for mayor in 2006, but Janković did and won in a landslide. Similarly, the former president apparently privately advised Janković not to go national in 2011 election, but Janković did, again winning in a landslide, but ultimately failing to clinch the PM job. After Janković announced his bid amid much media furuore, Kučan supported him, but noted that he did so for “different reasons”.

Anyways, point being that Kučan lost control of Janković years ago – if he had any in the first place, that is. Also, history shows Janković reacts badly when being told what to do and is liable to do exactly the opposite, just to prove his point. But again, the probability of anything like this happening is, for the moment at least, fairly small.

At this junction, a word of caution is necessary: With Janković, any decision he might or might not take is of academic value at best until a week or so before deadline. As a politician, he often acts instictively, making any sort of rational analysis of his actions useless. During the years, he has toned down this approach significantly, especially after the government-forming debacle in late 2011, but as he often says, he’s too old to change.

Option Two

In pengovsky’s opinion, Janković will (cue Option Two) not run for president of Positive Slovenia. Even more, there is a high level of probability he will not run for a third term as mayor of Ljubljana, either. For some time now, Janković has been dropping hints about “a new mayor and a new team” every now and then. And while he only recently initiated a massive push to upgrade Ljubljana’s ailing infrastructure with a price tag north of 200 million euro, there is a certain lukewarmness in Jankovič’s demeanor.

While this could all be put down to pre-summer exhaustion, it should be noted that municipal elections are slightly more than a year away and that while all other parties in Ljubljana have thusfar failed to produce a strong challenger to Janković, his armor has been more than just slightly dented in the past two years. And, as we have seen time and again, to win an election, you needn’t be the best candidate. You just need to make the fewest mistakes.

2014 is also the year of European elections and it is unlikely the electorate would look kindly upon a political player that would bring them yet another trek to the polling stations, despite the fact that Janković at the helm of PS would probably mean a boost in public-opinion polls for PS which as things stand now, continually scores only high single digits. Despite being instinctive about politics (or precisely because of that), Janković is not suicidal.

In pengovsky’s view this computes into Jay-Z not running for head of the party, while his running for a third term as the mayor of Slovenian capital should not be taken for granted. Sparks were flying, but the lights didn’t go out.

The Survivalists

A social network diagram of Slovenian governments is making rounds on the interwebz these days. Posted over at Virostatiq, it is an awfully nice presentation of how the “six degrees of separation” are cut down to, well, only a couple. If you’re Slovenian, you surely know somebody on that list, or at the very least, you know somebody who knows somebody on that list.

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Social network diagrams of Slovenian governments between 1991 and 2013 (source)

The diagram claims to show different levels of loyalty between members of various ranks of government officials, ranging from prime ministers down to the level of state-secretaries (the level immediately below a ranking minister). The fact that author Marko Plahuta wrote it up in English is also commendable. However, while mighty interesting and potentially useful, the diagram as it is now is only partly relevant.

Don’t get me wrong. Pengovsky is going ga-ga with excitement, because something like this was long overdue. Also, it hits close to home since distribution of political power was part of my thesis at the university and I know from first hand experience that one soon hits a brick wall of non-transparency when trying to find rhyme or reason when compiling a “who’s who” of movers and shakers (not that it can not be done, as it will be shown later in the post).

And this is exactly the point where the diagram fails. Among other things. So, my two cents on the entire thing, hoping the author finds them useful:

Loyalty of ministers

Loyalty between PM and the ministers is a much more fragile category than the diagram would have us believe. Indeed, some ministers are utterly loyal to the PM, while others much less so. To put it graphically and using the current government of Alenka Bratušek as example, we can say that ministers from Positive Slovenia (Bratušek’s party) are much more loyal to their prime minister than ministers from Citizens’ List or (perhaps even more so) ministers from SocDems quota.

So, ministerial loyalty indicator could be augmented a) by party affiliation and b) by the influence/power the party wields in the parliament/coalition/government. Actual ponders would have to be worked out, but a good rule of the thumb would be this: Unless a minister is a member of PM’s party, then the larger his or her party or the more ideologically different, the weaker a minister’s loyalty towards the PM.

The above is a direct result of a multi-party coalition system we sport in Slovenia, where a government’s agenda is the highest possible common denominator of all the coalition party platforms.

Loyalty of state secretaries

The author assumes state secretaries are a lot less loyal to their ministers than ministers are to the PM. Even if we neglect the varying degrees of ministerial loyalties demonstrated above, pengovsky contends that – if anything – state secretaries are more loyal to their ministers than ministers are to the MP.

Again, once you delve into the issue, it becomes a lot more muddled. The role of state secretaries changed dramatically over time. When the new public service hierarchy was developed, the role of state secretary was indeed meant to be that of the highest ranking bureaucrat, a link between political agenda of any given minister and a running public service, impervious to political squabbling and special interest.

Riiiiight….

Parties soon realised the position of a state secretary is arguably even more important to their agenda than that of a minister and it wasn’t long before positions on this level of administration were heavily fought for. This resulted in inflation of state secretary positions and At one point a sort-of-compromise was reached where one state secretary was politically appointed, the other supposedly for his or her expertise in a given area.

This was later abolished because and now state secretaries come and go with their respective ministers. Which is why in pengovsky’s opinion their loyalty factor should a) be increased overall to reflect dependence on their minister and b) corrected downwards on individual basis during the period where one state secretary was a political appointee, the other expert.

Also, the above sort of invalidates the claim that state secretaries are loyal to each other. Since their appointments are inherently political ans their primary role is to serve as a liaison between politics and public service (with their secondary role being lightning rods and scapegoats for high-level fuck-ups), the horizontal loyalty rarely goes beyond professional courtesy.

People who are not in the picture but should be

When we’re talking about distribution of political/social power in Slovenia, we can not by any means neglect political parties themselves. And this is where the diagram is noticeably lacking. Government officials, especially ministers and other political appointees are often caught between solving problems of their specific field and catering to their party’s interests. For “caught between … and….” you might want to read “neglect…. in favour of…”, depending on your point of view.

@Spovednik has an excellent blogpost on this phenomenon. In Slovenian only, I’m afraid.

But to continue and find an example at random: when the field of education was redrawn under the Janša 2.0 administration, minister Žiga Turk and especially the ranking state secretary Borut Rončević did undertake some necessary steps, but quite a few of them were directed to the ultimate end of state forking out money for private scholarly institutions close to Janez Janša‘s SDS party. Again, this is by no means the only such example, but it is a telling one, especially since it had the “added value” of being done under the guise of tackling the crisis.

In this respect, party officials who are not elected by popular vote, also sport great power and should be included in any such diagram. Again, the general rule of the thumb is that the bigger the party, the more important party people are, since at some point party leader(s) need to delegate decisions down the ladder.

Additionally, until recently, the name of the game in Slovenia was that party leaders are also government ministers or, at least, have some other high-ranking function. Not allowing the trend to continue was – among other things – the reason Zoran Janković failed in his PM bid in 2011. But with advent of the Bratušek administration, this is no longer the case as a) Igor Lukšič of SD chose to pass on a ministerial position and b) Ljubljana mayor still plays a big, although diminishing role in national politics (a blogpost is pending, fear not).

Therefore, while the diagram explicitly deals with members of the government only, this is by far not the entire scheme of distribution of political power in Slovenia. In the last twenty-odd years we’ve had a number of individuals who have exerted power over specific government decisions from beyond the limits imposed by this diagram. To increase its relevancy, this should be rectified.

The above does not include only party heavyweights, but also elected officials from other branches of power, especially since we are starting to see a trend of people starting in one branch and then continuing to another. Off the top of my head, the diagram would have to include the president of the parliament, leaders of parliamentary groups and (optionally) leaders of parliamentary committees. Also, in pengovsky’s opinion, the office president of the republic should be included in the diagram.

And although this might be stretching it a bit, the diagram begs consideration as to what exactly happens when a person is no longer part of the government. Does his/her influence stop immediately? Perhaps a diluted factor of loyalty could be allowed for a selected period of time? After all, every change in government produces more or less serious shifts in top layers of power.

The mysteries

Based on the graph, Virostatiq makes a number of erroneous or incomplete conclusion. One of them is the apparent surprise at the fact that governments of Janez Drnovšek and Tone Rop are the most similar. Well, they had to be. Not only was Rop finance minister in Drnovšek’s last government, there was also a tacit agreement that Rop, upon being sworn in as PM, will not replace ministers and other cadre Drnovšek picked only two years earlier. In retrospect, this was probably the single biggest mistake that led to Rop’s LDS having its ass whooped in 2004 elections. Therefore, while the similarities of Drnovšek and Rop clusters are undeniable, the reason for this is not their ideological likness, but rather pure political necessity.

Furthermore, when viewed from the point of view of various institutions, the analysis of the graph states that “prime ministers like to keep close Department of Defence, Department of Finance and Department of Internal Affairs. People close to these offices are the movers and shakers.”

Again, had the graph included party positions, distribution of power would quite possibly be markedly different. Also, the fact that a department shows up close to the PM, doesn’t necessarily mean the people in it are the big kahunas in town. Rather, this depends very much on the style of governing of a particular prime minister.

It is no secret that during the Andrej Bajuk six-months-long administration Janez Janša was the main honcho. Since he was the minister of defence at the time, the analysis might even seem correct in this case. The only problem is that you won’t find ministry of defence anywhere near Andrej Bajuk on the graph. Alternatively, saying that Janez Drnovšek kept ministries of defence and internal affairs close is a huge misrepresentation of the situation. On the other hand, he was indeed very much into the daily operations of financial ministry, but one could argue that he ran the show there rather than having people on the ministry run him. Ditto for ministry of foreign affairs which by all accounts should come up very close to Drnovšek, but doesn’t.

The survivalists

However, the Virostatiq diagram is far from non-usable. In fact, the most obvious but perhaps unintended result is seeing who are the great survivors of Slovenian politics. There are a couple, but on political/ministerial level you will not be surprised to find that the greatest survivors of Slovenian politics are Dimitrij Rupel and Karl Erjavec. Curiously enough, they’ve both held the post of foreign minister. Go figure…

So, to wrap up. The diagram has limited use for the intended purpose. But with a little work this could become an awesome tool. But it desperately needs to include additional data. Just a hint: Ali Žerdin recently published a Omrežja moči, a book on social networks in Slovenian politics and economy. I’m sure it would provide a useful resource.

Karma Is A Bitch

Yesterday, Igor Bavčar and Boško Šrot were sentenced to seven years and five years, ten months prison sentence for their role in takeover of Istrabenz. While both are expected to appeal the verdict, this event, coming on the heels of Patria verdict marks an important milestone.

Igor Bavčar and Boško Šrot (source via this)

As you know, the Bavčar/Šrot affair goes way back to 2005, when their respective MBO attempts were part of a larger scheme in which Šrot and Bavčar were given the go-ahead to take over Mercator and then went about taking over the companies they ran by employing a series of what at the time were seen as ingenious business moves, while Janez Janša and his government were given undue influence if not operative control over Delo, the nation’s largest broadsheet daily.

All these grand schemes have now crumbled to sand-dust and the symbolism of this cannot be overstated. On one hand we have nothing short of collapse of the grandeur of Slovenian independence. Sure, one could argue that the supposed virginity of this nation’s statehood was lost at least when the scope and systemic nature of the “erasure” became known, but still. Janša and Bavčar, two of the architects of Slovenian independence, who sought and were usually granted cult status, have now been found guilty of abuse of powers. The mighty have truly fallen.

If Bavčar and Janša represent the new political elite, then Boško Šrot is the epitome of the new economic elite. The nouveau riche of Slovenia. Having been hand-picked sucessor to Tone Turnšek, the guy who made Laško a serious player in the drinks industry, Šrot (who played a big role in Laško takeover of Ljubljana-based Union Brewery) went about wrapping up Laško’s hold on much of Slovenian economy: drinks, retail, media… You name it. Together with Bavčar’s Istrabenz which (to use a hase popular at the time) “consolidated” the foods industry, there was little he couldn’t do. Including help Bavčar try to take over Istrabenz.

Instead it all ended in tears, with Šrot now poised to join the ranks of fallen “pillars of economy”, construction bosses Hilda Tovšak, Ivan Zidar and Dušan Černigoj as well as former big retail kahuna Bine Kordež of Merkur, who was just recently locked up for six years on a similar charge.

Combined with the swift fall from grace experienced by Dimitrij Rupel, who in this constellation of the fallen represents those feel are simply entitled to powerful and prestigious positions, what we have here is a fairly quick disintegration of an important part of the ruling political class.

As for reasons for this, we can safely point the finger at the winter popular uprisings. It seems that apart from removing Janša from power, those were instrumental in breaking the spell politics had on various other sub-systems of the society. This includes the judiciary which was under nearly constant attacks over its incompetence and – truth be told – as time passed, these claims seemed to have ever more merit. But as if the uprisings showed that things can indeed be achieved if you try hard enough, the judiciary appears to have applied the principle of the rule of law primarily to those, who have gamed it for years on end and who – perversely – were the first to point out its inefficiencies whenever it suited them.

Just as in Janša’s case, the verdict against Bavčar and Šrot will in all likelihood be appealed at the Higher Court (OT: go see Rolig’s comment on “innocent until proven guilty”) But on the whole, the old adage has once again been confirmed: Karma is a bitch.

Keep Calm and TEŠ6

Debating the ever more derailed project of Šoštanj power-plant bloc 6 (TEŠ6) the parliament played the blame game entire day yesterday. It was both fun and gruesome to watch. Like German 70s porn. Called by the opposition SDS it had one goal and one goal only. To put a daylight between them and a project that is spiralling out of control as has almost tripled in cost, going from 600 million to 1.5 billion euro. To put things in perspective: 1.5 billion may not seem a lot. It won’t buy you a Virginia-class nuclear submarine, to pick an example at random. But on the other hand, it represents about 4.5% of total Slovenian GDP. It will also buy you a lot of German 70s porn.

20130717_tes6a

Now, you may or may not be fully up to speed on the issue, but while quite long in the making, the issue became hot during the Pahor era, when Zares of Gregor Golobič started ~~making noises~~ raising hell about how this project is run so badly it is going to explode into everyone’s face. In retrospect they were right and this was arguably the single most important issue that brought down the government of Borut Pahor. Namely, it emerged that an ad hoc SD-SDS special interest coalition formed on this project specifically and passed a law of a state guarantee for a 400 million loan by the European Investment Bank. At the time it was hailed as the only infrastructure project in Slovenia worthy of its name, a backbone of Slovenian energy self-sufficiency and a jobs maker in the area.

Very few people asked themselves how exactly TEŠ6 helps energy self-sufficiency if it is only meant to replace the ageing blocs 4 and 5 and thus producing almost zero net increase in megawatt hours. Few people asked themselves just how exactly do 3500 jobs warrant over a billion worth of stimulus when the entire country is going down the shit-hole. And finally, nobody really took care of the project, which means that TEŠ6 still has to produce a single megawatt of electricity.

A shitload of people had and still have a vested interest in this project which is why it was defended furiously. Case in point being this POP TV video from 2010 (Slovenian only) where Srečko Meh, a SD heavyweight from Velenje/Šoštanj area goes after Gregor Golobič from the very beginning, defending the project as financially sound, economically justifiable and socially necessary. Fast forward three years (June 24 2013) and Srečko Meh posts a video (Slovenian only), slamming the SDS for calling the parliament debate and pre-emptively distancing himself from the project and the parliament-approved guarantee he helped secure.

You see, TEŠ6 was meant to be a hunting ground both in terms of money for pet projects as well as securing high paying jobs for selected people. Which is why the entire project was based of the principle of fait accompli, with stuff being done first and then asking the relevant authorities to either OK it or cough up the dough. or both. Energy is where the money is and TEŠ6 was earmarked to burn the local lignite which has the energy density of a well-behaved rock and is pricey to say the least. It is also a matter of some debate whether – after decades of mining – there’s enough lignite left for the entire life-span of TEŠ6 or will this mean importing coal, driving the cost up even more. In fact, yesterday’s parliament session even pointed to the possibility of the power-plant making a loss. Yes. you read it correctly. Apparently, TEŠ6 is so screwed up it is liable to lose money rather than make it. It should come as no surprise then that Uroš Rotnik, CEO of the plant at the time when the deal with Alstom was sealed is now under criminal investigation

What we saw yesterday was a classic example of pot calling kettle black. It was perverse seeing SDS and SD pointing fingers at each other and screaming bloody murder over a billion-and-a-half worth example of pork-barrel politics. In fact, in a bizarre show of complete disconnect, the SDS actually moved to have the parliament set the price tag at 1.3 billion and not a penny more. As if Alstom, the French construction company which got the contract to build under suspiciously favourable conditions, would give a damn.

But if you think anything changed, you’re mistaken. The 800 million already spent remain with Alsom and 400+ mil state guarantee for an EIB loan stands, despite a new majority in the parliament and a new government at the helm. The only decision that begs mention is a measure instructing the Court of Audit to go over the books of state-owned HSE, the mother company of TEŠ. But the law does not give the Court the power to dig into companies that are indirectly state owned, like TEŠ is. So in fact, the parliament yesterday almost unanimously decided that the project is a disaster and then voted to carry on with it.

Edward Snowden: Pics Or It Didn’t Happen

Last Saturday, Delo daily ran a front-page story by its Moscow correspondent Polona Frelih about NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden‘s meet-up with Russian human rights organisations. The catch: she took part in the meet, snapping some pictures in the process. Almost immediately, all hell broke loose here in Slovenia, mostly on account of her taking pics of the USA‘s most wanted fugitive despite his explicit request not to do so, but also on account of going into the meet under false pretext (she was assumed to be a member of a human rights NGO and did not disclose she was a journo) as well as some shameless self-promotion over her getting the scoop. To be blunt, she was accused of making the story about her and not about Snowden. While understandable, in pengovsky’s opinion most of these arguments are flawed, so let us work our way out of this conundrum.

Edward Snowden days ago at Moscow Šeremetjevo (photo by Polona Frelih/Delo)

Me, myself and I.

This is probably the point where Frelih made quite a few blunders. Pengovsky never met her, let alone knows her personally, but her responses (mostly via Twitter) after being second-guessed by many, came across curt and sometimes arrogant. Also, the fact that Delo went from a story about the meet to a background story within a day or so shows, that there was either fairly little additional content available and they were milking it for what it was worth and beyond, or everybody was pleased with themselves as punch and saw little need to do any follow-up and spin-off stories.

My guess is that we’re talking about combination of both. Frelih has turned up some good pieces over the past few years, presenting the side of Russia we don’t usually read about. Including youth boot camps, neo-nazi raids against migrant workers and homophobia. On the other hand, a correspondent is more or less on his/her own while on assignment and has few resources at disposal. And when three thousand journalists hang around Moscow Šeremetjevo airport, hoping to catch a glimpse of Edward Snowden was last seen three weeks ago in Hong Kong and you’re the only one who gets to see him, I think a little pride is justifiable, no? But then again: there’s pride and then there’s gloating.

Apparently, she said that she wanted to help him one way or another and that too was seen as pretentious. Maybe, but here’s the thing: Snowden was meeting Russian human rights NGOs, which in turn were about to become his only mouthpiece save for Wikileaks. Newsmedia would be forced to take whatever they say for granted without any possibility to corroborate. Therefore, in some curious way it was both in Snowden’s as well as in public’s best interest for a journo to be present, because she was the check-and-balance to whatever the NGOs were about to say.

Because that’s what journos (supposedly) do. Act in the public interest. To many, Snowden is a hero. The whistleblower who told the world what most of us suspected all along. This cuts him some serious slack with a lot of people who are keen to take whatever he says (or is said in his name) without even a pinch of salt. But it is one thing to hear and see him say things in person, quite another to read a Wikileaks press release. He or the people around him cannot be the only ones who decide the agenda on this issue. This is what Julian Assange learned the hard way. When individual Wikileaks Cables were being investigated and corroborated by The Guardian, NYT and the rest of the newspapers, Assange lost patience and just uploaded it all. But the public interest is not served best with raw data. These need to be checked for relevance, contextualised and presented in a digestible manner. In this day and age, this includes pictures.

Pics or it didn’t happen!

Frelih said she needed to show the world that Snowden was indeed alive and well and at the airport, which is why she took the pics, despite being told not to. But what she really needed was to prove to the world she was really there. This is where she took most flak: why take pictures when there was a no-photo edict out? Well, if they really wanted to prevent photos to be taken, the organisers of the meet would confiscate smartphones upon entry. Then there was the “facial recognition” argument, postulated by Snowden himself saying that “the more he is photographed, the less secure he is”. Call me silly, but that’s kinda weird coming from a NSA contractor. I’d imagine they’ve every possible detail of Edward Snowden recorded and stored somewhere, including a DNA sample. If they don’t then the US intelligence community really are a bunch of fuckwits.

But let’s assume they’re not. Let’s assume they were taken by surprise and are now committing every resource to make this guy stop what he’s doing. The only thing that protects Snowden right now is continuous media exposure. The moment the media lose interest, he becomes damaged goods and finds himself on the first plane either to the US or to Hong Kong, back from where he came. You see, Russia ain’t exactly a democratic place. Not by Central European standards, anyhow. And the very fact that Snowden was allowed to remain in Šeremetjevo transit zone shows that Russkies are playing a game of their own. They are, in fact, using him. Transit zone is still Russian territory and authorities there need exactly five minutes to drum-up a charge and have him deported (travelling without documents, health hazard, loitering, take your pick). That they don’t means they’ve got more to gain from him being there than gone. Yes, democracy needs Edward Snowden. But Edward Snowden needs the media. And media are pictures, too.

False flag

Then there’s a case of her working under cover. A risky move, to be sure. If pengovsky’s understanding is correct, she didn’t exactly fake her identity, but was rather mistaken for a proper NGO member and she did nothing to change the perception. In fact, there’s a journalistic code of ethics in Slovenia which prohibits exactly these kinds of tricks. But in my opinion, this case falls outside normal scope of journalistic work. This was not faking an identity to find out the state of the royal pregnancy. This is arguably the single most important leak of the decade and usual rules do not apply. This was demonstrated by the US when they force-landed-by-proxy the presidential plane of Bolivian leader Evo Morales thinking Snowden was on board. This was also demonstrated by Russia, intently looking the other way while a person without a valid passport is walking around one of its airports. And it was demonstrated by Snowden himself, when he threw everything he had to the wind and did what he felt was right.

While not nearly as dramatic or pivotal, Frelih did something along those lines. She did what she believed was right and risked burning her contacts to achieve that. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if as a result she finds out Russian NGOs unwilling to talk to her. Since she also gained both notoriety and fame, she will have a hard(er) time passing as a lowly reporter just doing her job. But that is what Polona Frelih was doing. Her job. There are limits to what a correspondent can do. Frelih probably has neither the resources nor in-depth knowledge to write-up a piece on e-surveillance. Delo’s IT desk should be doing that, despite the fact that the US probably thinks Slovenian secret service is a joke ever since Janez Janša blew the cover off a joint SOVA/BND operation and that the Americans get more info on Slovenia directly from their sources then they get by wire-tapping. The fact Delo didn’t write-up anything remotely similar speaks volumes.

But what Frelih can do, is to report about what Edward Snowden is doing in Moscow. Which is exactly what she did. Which is why pengovsky still believes congratulations are in order (yes, there was a typo in there). Just don’t let it get into your head 😉