SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Political life of DeSUS president and minister for environment Karl Erjavec is in limbo as of yesterday. Prime Minister Borut Pahor namely submitted a motion for Erjavec’s demission to parliament, citing a damning report by the Court of Audit and hinting to various other mishaps which hampered Erjavec’s performance as of late. Not that he had a lot to show for himself in his first year as minister of environment, but there you go.

Minister of environment Karl Erjavec leaving. Permanently. (source)

Erjavec was very much accident prone even while he was defence minister during the government of Janez Janša (just as today, then too DeSUS was a part of the ruling coalition). Not only did his ministry “mistakenly” transferr some 600.000 EUR to a bank account of a Maribor-based company, only never to see part of the money again, but also signed the contract to purchase the now-infamous Patria APCs. When shit started brewing (first over quality of the product), he defended himself saying that he only signed the document which was brought to him by his secretary to be signed (this bit will become important later on) and that he was unaware of any harmful provisions in the contract.

By then Erjavec started sporting some weird teflon characteristics as none of his accidents reflected badly on him. Even more. Regardless of the fact that he was (by way of office he held, at least) embroiled into the Patria Affair, no mudsling, no matter how gooey seemed to have stuck on him. People were being accused left and right of him, charges of bribes were being laid, only he, apparently blissfully ignorant of the storm around him went about his business and led his party to a resounding success in 2008 parliamentary elections, where it won seven seats. However, the honeymoon was soon over as he and the newly minted PM Borut Pahor fell out over which portfolio Erjavec be given. He himself (naturally) wanted to remain defence minister, but Pahor didn’t want to have any of that and after a brief show of force by both politicians shoved the environment portfolio down Erjavec’s throat.

Fast forward one year and suddenly criminal charges are filed against Erjavec, accusing him of gross negligence in the Patria Affair which are the first charges filed against any serving member of any Slovenian government. Immediately the question of whether Erjavec is fit for the job was raised, but PM Pahor insisted that Erjavec is inoccent until proven guilty, whereas the dilemma of whether the charges hamper his efficiency as a minister, Pahor left to Erjavec himself to decide on.

However, this push came to a shove days ago when Dnevnik daily ran a story on Erjavec signing a contract to sell 49% government stake in a energy company without government approval, although the government must approve every single sale of its assets. Erjavec defended himself that he was misled by the notary, who apparently assured him that everything about the sale is squeaky clean. In essence, he just signed on the dotted line without reading the contract. Rings a bell? Thought so…

And just to top it off, only yesterday did the Court of Audit published a highly critical report on activities related to establishing an effective waste-separation system in Slovenia and concluded Erjavec was grossly negligent in execution of his ministerial duties and recommended that PM Pahor dismisses Erjavec.

It was at that point that Teflon Karl’s credit seems to have run out. Two counts of “signing without reading” and two counts of “gross negligence” combined with some heavy-duty discipline enforcing within his party was just too much to handle even with his slick style of politics. At this juncture Erjavec seems so radioactive, that no-one will touch him with a ten foot pole, his own MPs included. It was only last week that hewas yet again threatening with DeSUS walking out of the coalition should his ministerial position be endangered. But yesterday DeSUS MPs were in disarray, some saying that it was all a set-up, others saying that they will go with the flow and vote with the majority of the coalition. This means that they will vote to dismiss Erjavec, as every other coalition party went on the record saying that they will support the demission.

As things stand now, Erjavec is politically dead and decaying rapidly. It should not be put past him to regroup and cajole his remaining five MPs to oppose his demission in the parliament, regardless of their stated intention to remain a part of the coalition. However, the mathematics of the parliamentary vote makes it virtually impossible for Erjavec to survive the vote. This would be possible only if he were supported by what is left of DeSUS parliamentary groups, entire opposition plus the two minority MPs. But this scenario borders on outer limits of science fiction, especially since Zmago Jelinčič of nationalist party already said that his MPs will vote for demission.

This leaves only two questions. What will this mean for parliamentary majority of Pahor’s government and whether the whole shebang was a neatly directed set-up to get rid of Erjavec.

As far as parliamentary majority is concerned things neither look too bleak not too hot for Pahor. The coalition enjoys a majority of 50 votes in a 90-member parliament. Ever since Franc Žnidaršič and Vili Rezman were ejected from DeSUS parliamentary club (although now independent, they still support the coalition), Erjavec’s party has 5 MPs, one of whom – Vasja Klavora – is also vice president of the parliament. So if Erjavec somehow persuaded his MPs to leave the coalition, PM Pahor would be one vote short of an absolute majority (46 votes) and would effectively run a minority government, leaning on minorty MPs and Zmago Jelinčič’s nationalist to supply the votes needed. Admittedly not a nice prospect, especially as far as Jelinčič is concerned.

But a possibly hung parliament means that neither can the opposition muster enough votes to form a new majority, which makes Pahor’s position more or less safe, especially when one considers the more earthly conequences of DeSUS leaving the coalition. It can be expected that Vasja Klavora (to pick an example completely at random) would be replaced as parliamentary VP, a privilege few would be give up willingly. So with a bit of horse-trading PM Pahor can get rid of Teflon Karl and keep the majority in the parliament.

Which leads us to the second question. It Erjavec a victim of a smear campaign or is he experiencing a series of highly unfortunate events? At the risk of sounding naive, pengovsky believes that it is a bit of both. Shit Erjavec managed to get away with until now is almost unbelievable and – combined with his quick wit – borders on hilarious. Fact of the matter is that he was a pain in the ass of many a political big shots including (but not limited to) Katarina Kresal of LDS and Gregor Golobič of Zares, to pick two examples completely at random Especially his repeated threats to walk out of the coalition (a tactic that worked well in Janša’s government) were winning him no friends and were wearing the patience of other coalition partners thin.

So a certain amount of plotting must have taken place, otherwise things would not have fallen into place so neatly. Even more, the way PM Pahor handled it suggests that in the true spirit of Sun Tzu’s Art of War the battle was won before it begun and that Erjavec was reduced to watching himself going from bad to worse. Namely, after the damning report by the Court of Audit Pahor called a meeting of coalition leaders (including Teflon Karl) and then had a tete-a-tete with him. Emerging from this meeting Pahor and Erjavec announced that they both agreed that the PM would propose Karl’s demission and let the parliament decide whether or not the latter gets to keep his job.

It was a rather clever trick. Short of Erjavec stepping down of his own accord, there is no other way to replace him but to ask the parliament to dismiss him, since it is the parliament (rather than PM) who appoints ministers in the first place. But the way Pahor phrased it and used the report of Court of Audit as a pretext, he tried to keep the appearance of conforming to checks and balances of various institutions and – somewhat surprisingly – Erjavec seems to have bought it. Either that or they made some sort of a deal to keep the soon-to-be-former minister happy. Namely, Teflon Karl was not elected to the parliament in 2008 and will (once dismissed) remain sans any relevant public position, save being a president of DeSUS. But a party president who is not in the governmental loop is poised to soon become an ex-party president as we have seen a year or so ago in case of Slovene People’s Party and its president Bojan Šrot who also didn’t hold a government post but was/is rather mayor of Celje.

However, it should be said that Erjavec has no one blame but himself. It was more than apparent that he was rapidly alienating the rest of the coalition as well as part of his own party. And yet he was careless enough to cook up shit. Had he more friend in the coalition, these mistakes and blunders would probably be forgiven, but since he was getting on everyone’s nerves, the rest of the gang saw this as an opportunity to get rid of him expeditiously. So instead of a slap on the wrist he is now being charged with gross negligence.

Moral of the story: if you’re a political maverick, you have to cover your ass. Otherwise you get busted.

Members of SDS, SLS and NSi youth organisations throwing slurs at mayor Zoran Janković

Pengovsky went more or less AWOL in mid-December and failed to post on a couple of things which may very well come to determine the immediate political future of this country, or – at least – some of its politically prominent citizens

Echoes of a revolution

While addressing the Council for Republic (Zbor za republiko), opposition leader Janez Janša said core values of “Slovene Spring” were under threat and that it was high time to “repeat certain lessons from twenty years ago” and that wants the people to turn out en masse on Slovene streets in spring. The statement sent shockwaves through Slovenian political scene, just as (probably) intended. First reactions were nervous and even furious. Justice minister Aleš Zalar of LDS (wrongly) interpreted it as a call to arms, while others saw this as Janša’s attempt to cash in on the social unrest and topple the government. Somewhat unexpectedly, however, Janša found himself very much isolated, since even Slovene People’s Party (SLS) and Slovene National Party (SNS) rejected a call to the streets. Radovan Žerjav of SLS even said that “getting people on the streets is easy during times of crisis. The problem is getting them off the streets again.“.

Slovenian Spring aside, this would not be the first time Janša tried “street democracy”. When the late PM Janez Drnovšek proposed demission of then-defence-minister Janša in 1994 over the Depala Vas Affair, thousands poured to the streets in his support, some sporting pitchforks and shovels. Janša was dismissed from office regardless. Ten years later, in the summer of 2004 he took part in anti-Roma demonstrations (that time around happily seconded by Zmago Jelinčič of SNS) and thus helped uncork a prolonged out-pour of racism and xenophobia which was for years aimed at Slovene Romas, symbolised by eviction of the Strojan family

Speculations about what prompted Janša to issue the call and why, specifically, does it have to be spring? Some say that it has to do with the Patria Affair and that, come spring, people will again be protesting for the release of prisoner Janša. Others say that he’s likely to get more people to attend when the weather is warmer. Which weirdly reminds of Janša’s reaction to labour union demostrations in 2005. Then still a PM, Janša upon hearing of the strike being called for end of November, cynically remarked that the unions would be better off staging the strike in spring, to get the attendance. He was soon forced to take his foot from his mouth, since 30.000 people attended in near-blizzard weather.

Anyway, things will get mighty interesting, come spring.

Echoes of xenophobia

Which is not to say, that things are not interesting as it is. Just before Christmas representatives of youth organisations of right-wing SDS, NSi and SLS paid a visit to Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković and presented him with Monopoly card-board game, thus trying to point out that he is – in their view – ruining rather than running the city and is selling city property to line his own pockets. They also accused him of lying to the people of Ljubljana. Since the whole thing happened during one of Janković’s regular press conferences in full view of cameras, the mayor responded immediately, telling the youngsters off and (obviously prepared) gave them a book on democracy for children as well as a copy of law regarding financial transactions of municipalities.

But then all hell broke loose, as some of the visitors said that “at the very least they are Ljubljana natives, whereas Janković is not” and added that he is “a Balkan cowboy stealing from city coffers“. The mayor (rightfully) retorted that he is proud of his family and then some more slurs flew in his direction.

Not that is stopped there. Soon thereafter SDS youth organisation, whose newly minted president Klement Perko was present during the Janković escapade, tried to pull a similar trick on president Danilo Türk, apparently for his giving a medal to Tomaž Ertl (the last socialist interior minister). Perko tried to present Türk with a plaque with the word “Šalabajzer” written on it. Being of Serbian apparently German origin, the word can best be translated as “twat“. Which is not a nice thing to say to a president, no matter what language you say it in.

It should be noted, however, that NSi and SLS youth days later apologised for the outburst, while SDS remained stubbornly quiet and accused Janković of using their words against them (whatever that means)

Back to the future

And just to top it off (and do some teasing for tommorow’s post), Prime Minister Borut Pahor proposed a demission of minister of environment and DeSUS leader Karl Erjavec. Reasons for this are various and the demission will have to be voted on by the parliament and it remains to be seen whether this means that Pahor’s government will lose the majority in the National Council.

The game, as the phrase goes, is afoot

Last week the European People’s Party whose proud members include Slovenia’s very own SDS, SLS and NSi, led by Janez Janša, Radovan Žerjav and Ljudmila Novak respectively, held a congress in Bonn, Germany. One of many results of this fruitful gathering was also an Emergency Resolution on Totalitarian communist regimes. The text of the resolution condemns glorification of Communism in Slovenia, specifically in the form of naming a street in Ljubljana after Josip Broz – Tito and presenting Tomaž Ertl, the last Slovenian socialist interior secretary with a medal for services.

Radovan Žerjav, Ljudmila Novak and Janez Janša explaining the resolution to Slovenian press (source)

EPP furthermore criticises local and national governments in »some former communist countries« which are thus rewriting history, prolonging divisions within nations, give a bad example to younger generations and are preventing these countries from completing the transition into democracy.

Now. Regardless of the fact that this resolution is only one of eleven passed by EPP in Bonn, the document is incredibly important, because it a) illustrates the attitude EPP has towards new EU member states, and, b) shows the infinite double standards of Slovene political right as well as utter lack of patriotism, something the right is only too keen to accuse their left-wing rivals of

Apart from Slovenia, EPP in its Bonn resolutions specifically mentions three more countries: Honduras, Cuba and Belarus. It goes without saying that none of these were mentioned in a favourable context. So, the question du jour is what prompted the European centre-right mama-party to put Slovenia in the company of banana republics? The answer lies both in the text of the document as well as in its properties. Literally.

The text of the resolution shows that the resolution was adopted in more or less proposed form. Had that not been the case, then a few (historically and geographically incorrect) exaggerations, which have a function only in Slovene politics, would never have remained in the text. For example: Titova Street is in fact not really one of Ljubljana’s main streets but will be (once it is actually built) one of this world’s many featureless traffic arteries, overlooked by the new Stožice Stadium (once it is built as well). Truth be told, Titova Street once indeed was Ljubljana’s main street, stretching for kilometres, but in a dash to separate themselves from all things socialist, Ljubljana city council (at that time dominated by right-wing parties) cut the street in two and named is Slovenska (Slovenian) Street and – oh, the irony!- Dunajska (Vienna) Street.

Things get a bit more complicated when the resolution compares Slovenian secret police UDBA to East-German Stasi or Romanian Securitate. True enough UDBA was a full fledged political secret police and an instrument of state terror, but drawing comparisons between it and Stasi is nothing more than a thinly veiled act of false heroics, saying »look, we Slovenians endured secret police-induced terror as well«. Fact of the matter is that, just as socialism itself, secret police in Slovenia and Yugoslavia went through different phases, including its bust-up in 1966 when Tito dismissed the all-powerful federal interior minister Aleksandar Ranković who was allegedly spying on the Old Man himself. After the shake-up UDB (or UDBA as it was popularly known) was organised federally, with branches (or services) in republics (known as SDVs) being under control of republic’s leadership as well as answerable to federal administration, known as UDBA. This dual system meant (among other things) that Tomaž Ertl did not control UDBA but rather Slovenian branch of SDV, which – although still a secret police – did not even begin to resemble Stasi, Securitate, KGB or any other acronym that sent shivers down the spine of most Europeans until 1990s

Make no mistake: the above does not mean that either Titova Street or Ertl’s medal were bright ideas. They were not. This city and this country would do just as well without either of them. And the EPP resolution might even be right in one sentence, where it states that such moves only prolong healing of wounds of the nation. However, the rest of the text shows that resolution is less about healing wounds and much more about plain snitching, intentionally confusing cause and effect and (as already noted) double standards

When Blaž Zgaga and Matej Šurc crafted the so-called Petition 571 (which, btw, came a year too late to have any real effect), where a significant number of Slovenian journalists alerted the international public to the authoritarian methods Janez Janša and his government subscribed to when dealing with the media, all hell broke loose. Janša claimed the petitioners were only trying to taint the image of the »beacon for the 21st century that is Slovenia« before his government took over the EU presidency in the beginning of 2008. Fast forward two years later and suddenly we find those very same parties which comprised Janša’s coalition, having no second thoughts about snitching their own country to the mama-party and doing their dirty laundry on international stage. All this regardless of the fact that the frame of what is acceptable for a political party is much narrower than it is for a grass-roots organisation.

As for cause and effect is concerned, things are predictably twisted. When accusing the current government, both local and state, of rewriting history, the political right conveniently forgets that this is the sport it excels at. Even more. In a classic rhetorical manoeuvre, the right wing justifies its attacks on Titova Street and Ertl’s medal by the very resolution which it proposed in the first place

Namely. It is almost certain that the EPP resolution was drafted by no other than Lojze (Alojz) Peterle, EPP’s former vice-president and former Slovenian PM, currently serving a second term as MEP for Nova Slovenia (NSi). At the very least this is the conclusion one comes to when opening File->Properties on a Word document which was initially circulated in the public and where one »A.Peterle« is noted as author of the document.

Slovenian political right is known for seeking confirmation of its actions and positions abroad. This would be perfectly OK except for the small fact that the driving force behind this is an ideological fear of Communism, which occasionally explodes into full-fledged witch-hunts. This fear, combined with an insatiable thirst for power (inherent to all political players) can have disastrous effects. Thus have, for example Slovenian pre-WWII authorities, led by ban (governor) Marko Natlačen of pre-war SLS actually contacted the advancing Nazi army and asked for Germany to occupy entire Slovenia, whereupon they would be granted some sort of autonomy in exchange for loyalty to the Nazi regime. Ironically, it was the communists and their existing underground network (set up as a result of persecution by pre-war authorities) who ultimately, after a short period of soul-searching organised and then monopolised an effective guerilla war.

That same fear of Communism also drove scores of Slovenians into making more wrong choices, notably to collaborate with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, under the guise of fighting communism. And today, the right wing again seeks protection of foreign powers in order to fight what it sees as resurging Communists forces, although any die-hard Commie that may still be alive in Slovenia will tell you that what we are seeing today in the left wing is neither resurgence nor Communism.

But so it goes. From the role of collaborators during WWII to the role of some people in the drive for Slovenia’s independence, political parties of Slovene right are reinterpreting history faster than Stalin’s regime re-touched official photos, depending on who curried Joe Džugašvili’s favour. At the pace this has been going on recently, it was more or less obvious that the left wing will try to return the blow by an ill-judged move or two.

After all, this still is a democracy, where people are allowed to see things differently, regardless of the fact that EPP resolution states that Slovenia has yet to become a democratic country. This of course immediately raises the question of whether Janša’s 2004-2008 government was elected democratically. I sense we might get an answer sooner than expected 🙂

Slovenian labour unions organised a massive rally on Saturday, calling for an increase in minimum wage which – as it stands now – is indeed criminally low and stands at 589 EUR (gross), with net salary amounting to some 460 EUR. With the onset of the crisis and accompanying staggering increase in unemployment (nearing 100k out of 1.06 million strong labour force) households are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. This was one of the reasons for unions (most of them, anyway) to hold what is apparently becoming a traditional biannual late-autumn strike.

Protesters in downtown Ljubljana (source)

Unlike on the past two occasions (2007 and 2005) pengovsky wasn’t there to witness the show first-hand but while the previous to rallies were held in an increasingly expanding economic environment, this latest installant of labour discontent was held just as latest GDP figures were announced (down 8.3 percent) and when it is perfectly obvious that not only are dark clouds gathering (thanks, Adriaan) but that we’re in a middle of a big fucking storm that shows no signs of abating. Despite these differences the theme remained the same. Higher wages.

Something doesn’t seem quite right. If during a period of economic expansion labour unions demanded higher wages, surely they would recognise the futility and counter-productivity of their demands during the Big Slump?

On the other hand, the employers (firms) keep repeating the same theme, too. In 2005 they yearned for relaxing of employment laws (basically demanding that sacking people be made easier) and cutting taxes. In 2007 they pretty much kept to the same tune, saying that “increasing wages would kill productivity and (while we’re on the issue) so do the high taxes and rigid labour laws, so would the government please do something about that?“. And today, in 2009, they make nervous noises that higher wages would sink a lot of companies and while we’re on the issue, would someone please lower the taxes or ease labour laws or preferably both?

Something doesn’t seem quite right. If during the Big Slump companies worry that increasing wages would send them south, then what the hell fuelled their growth during the good days?

And the government? Ah, the government… Seems like the previous one was heavy on money and light on ideas (it ran a deficit during the good years), whereas this one is trying to operate beyond it’s increasingly meagre means.

Something doesn’t seem quite right. If during the Big… ah, screw it. It just ain’t right. Unions, employers and government are sitting tight, repeating oft-heard tunes while the river flows by, carrying more and more corpses. Time to start banging heads together, kids! This thing ain’t gonna solve itself, you know….