The Second Government Of Robert Golob

Eight-and-a-half months passed since Robert Golob got the keys to his new office. And last week, he finally got the government he needs. But whether it is one he deserves, remains to be seen. But with twenty ministers, the Big Bird’s second executive is the most numerous since the days of Lojze Peterle.

PM Robert Golob with his upgraded cabinet.
Team Golob 2.0 (source)

This inflation of top-level postings is a byproduct of coalition haggling. Specifically, it was Robert Golob making sure Tanja Fajon and Luka Mesec brought home some serious bacon. This was meant to offset the dismal showing by both leaders’ parties in April election. But Team Golob 2.0 is also a consequence of shifting political priorities.

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Crunch Time in Slovenian Election

With parliamentary election in Muddy Hollows in T-minus-two-weeks, we are finally at crunch time. The stage of the campaign where things start to matter. This is not to say that things didn’t matter before. Until now, however, the parties and their leaders were busy with laying the groundwork, setting up a favourable narrative and testing messaging. They have two weeks left for everything to come together.

Crunch time beckons in Slovenian parliamentary election. Politico Europe's poll of polls indicates stable support accross the board.
Politico Europe’s Poll of Polls for Slovenia (source)

Public opinion polls will also become much more relevant in the next fortnight. Until now, the things to watch were mostly trends. As of now, however, numbers will become important, too. But most importantly, whatever room parties and their leaders had for various campaign mishaps is rapidly disappearing. From now on, every fuck-up could be fatal.

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Ukraine War Forces Slovenian Politics To Think Foreign Policy Thoughts

In all honesty, it is a bit self-serving to try and look at Russian war against Ukraine through the lens of Muddy Hollows and its political cesspool. But seeing as this is an utterly self-serving blog, pengovsky will go right ahead. PM Janša, on the other hand, will stay put, as the Russian aggression preempted his photo-op in Kyiv planned for today.

Flags if Ukraine in the government district in Ljubljana.
Ukrainian flags in the government district in Ljubljana (source)

This, incidentally, should make the Glorious Leader available for a court-date in a defamation case against him. But he’ll probably claim an emergency NatSec Council meeting or something like that. And for once, he may not be lying through his teeth to get out of a court date.

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Janša Deflects And Denies As Covid-19 Makes A Comeback

Covid-19 infection and mortality numbers in Slovenia are at a high not seen since the worst of the second wave. The 7-day average is the highest it has even been. If this goes on, one in every 400 Slovenians will have died of Covid-19 in a matter of weeks. Such is life in Muddy Hollows these days, where the government of Janez Janša bet the house on vaccines and then proceeded to fuck up the vaccination campaign.

A tweet by Slovenian PM Janša commenting on internal Dutch politics.
Slovenian PM doing some casual homophobia

Then again, rule by decree, liberal use of tear gas and general incompetence don’t help either. As a result, prime minister Janez Janša is now forced to contemplate the one thing he explicitly said he would not do. Reimposing the lockdown. But to do that and survive politically, he is resorting to the only three things he is really good at. Diversion, denial, and deflection.

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Keeping The Eye On The Ball

Pengovsky was about to write up the fifth (and possibly last) installment of the Clearly, No-one Was Thinking series, when Angelika Mlinar was somewhat unexpectedly not green-lighted as minister for EU cohesion funds by the relevant parliamentary committees.

Angelika Mlinar during her committee hearing (source: Matija Sušnik/Nat’l Assembly)

The one thing that stood out as a sore thumb was the fact that it was not her credentials that were debated but rather her national loyalties. In fact, what we witnessed in the committee hearing on Tuesday was a mix of latent nationalism and sexism, with some internal party strife to boot.

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