Danilo Türk | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

The Prez Floats Banker As Possible PM Nominee

In what was something of a surprise, president Danilo Türk said in a press conference earlier today that he asked Marko Voljč if he’d take on the nomination for the post of the Prime Minister. Formerly CEO of Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), the largest bank in the country, he was forced to step down in 2003 in the wake of the so called Sigma Affair, when the bank entered a prolonged period of epic fails after implementing a new IT solution called Sigma which wasn’t all that was cracked up to be and wrecked temporary havoc with people’s bank accounts. Voljč moved on to become head of the regional division of the Belgian KBC which bought 34% of NLB in 2002. But today is not Voljč’s first foray into politics.

Marko Voljč in the middle (source: Vijesnik.hr via Delo.si)

Way back in 1992, when it became obvious that the first democratically elected government of Lojze Peterle was more or less in disarray, Marko Voljč (who was until then with the World Bank in Central America) was put forward as a challenger to Peterle in a no-confidence vote but lost by five votes. Eventually Peterle was ousted by Janez Drnovšek and soon thereafter Voljč became CEO of NLB where he stayed until 2003.

Testing waters

The President’s announcement today doesn’t mean that Voljč is nominated. What The Prez did was floated Voljč’s name for the political parties to consider whether the 44-44 stalemate between left- and right-wing parties could be broken. Specifically, this puts the spotlight on DeSUS of Karl Erjavec and DLGV of Gregor Virant. The former is apparently under pressure from party ranks not to join a possible Janša coalition, whereas Virant said more than once that a third person should be put forward, i.e. someone who is neither Janez Janša nor Zoran Janković.

While on the surface the Prez’s suggestion might seem bi-partisan and an attempt to break the political impasse, it could very well backfire. Sure, Virant will have a hard time explaining how or why he wouldn’t support someone from outside the immediate political field, but since his ratings are on the low end of the single-digit territory, his clout is all but gone and he seems to be already in Janša’s pocket. OK, so anything can happen and Virant is more than capable of shooting himself in the knee repeatedly, but reneging first on Janković and then on Janša will only speed up his political demise.

But as things stand, Virant may actually stand a chance of skipping Voljč and living to tell about it. Namely, what President Türk did today was not the most brilliant of political moves. True, the PM need not first be elected to the parliament to take the post, but nominating someone who did not even run, much less got elected while there’s a potential PM nominee on the political right is not exactly kosher. Sure, Janez Janša faces exactly the same problem as Zoran Janković did, in that he can only count on 44 votes and then lure “rats” from the left side of the spectrum across the isle, but if Zoran Janković was extended the privilege of being nominated, the same courtesy should be extended to Janša.

Speak now or forever hold your peace

In round two of the “find the PM” reality show things admittedly get much more serious. This is the final round where an absolute majority is needed and a reasonably stable government can be formed. Should this round give us no PM, however, a third round is possible, where only a relative majority is needed. In pengovsky’s opinion, president Türk should have waited with his “outside of the box” solution until then.

Regardless of the outcome, it would be only fair to let Janša have a crack at forming the coalition. It was also due to his actions that round one failed and leader of the SDS should be allowed to try and pick up the pieces. Namely, if he failed (something that depends heavily on Karl Erjavec and DeSUS), he’d be hard pressed to do anything but forever hold his peace and press the “yes” button during votes. Optimistic, I know, but there you have it. But what the President did was go head to head against Janša, who now only needs keep Virant in check, thus undermining Voljč as a nominee (the banker-man apparently said he’d want bipartisan support) and politically humiliate President Türk, who would thus score his second strike-out.

Zoran Janković said minutes ago that his PS would support Voljč, but that only means 28 votes. Luckily, Türk didn’t officially nominate Voljč, but the damage is done. Shitstorm continues.

President Türk Nominates Janković for PM Post

A few hours ago President Danilo Türk nominated Zoran Janković for the post of the Prime Minister. With this the first stage of a post-election political wrangling is concluded and the relevant players now move to stage two, which is not all that different except for the fact that we now know who gets to have the first crack at forming a government. This was of course already known on election night, but due to a combination of inflated egos, cloak-and-dagger politics and naiveté, the last month can only be described as a fiasco bordering on a snafu

The PM nominee in the parliament (photo: Boštjan Tacol/Žurnal24)

In all honesty, it was painful to watch how Zoran Janković fumbled (with a little help from outgoing PM Borut Pahor) the early stages of coalition negotiations, allowing lesser players to cash in while the political left was locked in a senseless dick-measuring contest.

Post-election powerplay

A quick recap: immediately following his upset victory on 4 December, Zoran Jankocić intitiated what later turned out to be a preliminary round of negotiations with prospective (and slightly less so) coalition partners. Being a man of action and all that jazz, the “immediately” part should be understood literarly. While the rest of the political arena was still reeling from the shock of the result, Janković called at Borut Pahor the very next morning and was more or less given a cold shoulder, with the leader of the Social Democrats adding a thinly veiled insult or two, saying that he would rather have nothing to do with Janković and even went on the record that he disapproves of the (supposedly authoritarian) leadership style of the PM presumptive. This later erupted into a full blown war of words just prior to the inaugural session of the parliament, where – if all things were equal – the coalition would be at least broadly already agreed upon and a president of the parliament would be elected from the ranks of (future) coalition partners.

Apparently, Janković was quite blunt in telling Pahor there’s no place for him in the new government, which is what probably prompted Pahor’s furious response and things went downhill from there. At first Pahor was urged to run for president of the parliament but refused, then changed his mind at the 11th hour and ran anyway, in a move that appeared to have been coordinated and aimed at sealing the deal between PS and SD. Only it wasn’t and it didn’t. In fact, Pahor went solo, catching off-guard both SD and PS parliamentary groups. In retaliation Janković – who isn’t the one to let other people have the initiative – put forward his own candidate for President of the Parliament, Maša Kociper (Ljubljana City Councilwoman and first time MP), thus creating an insurmountable impasse, as the votes on the left were split between the two candidates.

It was all very basic political mathematics, in fact. Janković who (mistakenly, as it turned out) thought he had his back covered with Gregor Virant‘s DLGV and Karel Erjavec‘s DeSUS, could simply not let Pahor steal the momentum in the opening stages of the game, because that would inevitably mean the outgoing PM would gain the upper hand in any coalition negotiations, quite possibly forcing himself into the position of Foreign Minister. Admittedly, this was the pundint’s consensus early on, but it soon emerged that in a Janković-led government, there is room for only one ego: that of Zoran Janković, who – instinctively or otherwise – knows better than to let a potential challenger into his inner circle, especially if this person is also an expert in a field where Zoki is lacking.

Jay-Z gets screwed over

With the impasse being created, the (imagined) consensus between PS, DLGV and DeSUS for the latter two to support whomever Pahor and Janković agree upon, broke down just as Pahor backed down and SD agreed to support Kociper. Virant and Erjavec went rogue and formed an ad-hoc coalition with Radovan Žerjav (SLS), Ljudmila Novak (NSi) and Janez Janša (SDS) and elected Gregor Virant to the post of the President of the Parliament, nominally the second most senior position in the country.

Obviously, all hell broke loose. Whether or not this was a pre-meditated move or was indeed just aimed at ensuring the constitution of the parliament and adopting the emergency financial legislation before the year’s end (as the official line went) will probably never be known for sure. Pengovsky believes that it was a mixture of both. Namely, if the right-wing MPs were concerned with the legislation that much, they might have just elected Kociper and let things stand. But there was more to it.

With Zoran Janković being both the new kid on the political block as well as having the delicate approach of a buldozer on steroids, the rest of the political honchos were itching to teach him a lesson in humility. So the old boys made a quick deal and ganged up on Janković, screwed him over and effectively stalled the already protracted two-stage nomination process. That this was indeed the case, was shown beyond a shadow of a doubt in the last three weeks. That and the fact that there are still Top Gun references to be made in Slovenian politics.

Namely. Ever since his ascent to the top of the parliament, Gregor Virant became increasingly obnoxious and started taking his role of the king-maker way to literally. In fact, he began raising the bar for his entry into a coalition almost daily, as well as negotiating with Janković and Janša simultaneously and trying to form a “third block” of smaller parties to prop up his own position. This third block at first included DLGV, DeSUS and SLS and now includes NSi as DeSUS dropped out.

Virant’s fall from grace

If Virant didn’t already get the message, he will. That’ll in all likelihood become painfully obvious in the coming days. He made huge bets left and right, putting his people (namely Janez Šušteršič, also a possibility for the post of finance minister) as “a compromise PM candidate”, forgetting that he already won plenty, especially in light of the fact that he didn’t bring a lot of chips to the table to begin with (8% of the vote ain’t much, really). But a month has passed and President Türk did what everyone expected him to do from Day One, so Virant will definitely pay the price for his behaviour.

But turning to the president’s decision: OK, so he didn’t rush things, but separation of powers should not be taken lightly. The Constitution is clear on this issue and it instructs the president to make a nomination after conferring with parliamentary groups. The Prez did that, gave some more time for negotiations and then nominated Zoran Janković. Could he have done things faster? In hindsight, yes. But in hindsight Janković probably wouldn’t have left Virant and Erjavec to their own devices two weeks ago and would have had his “chief whip” Jani Möderndorfer keep close tabs on both. OK, so Möderndorfer should have done that in any case and that he didn’t is a #fail on his part.

#fail is all around us

Speaking of fails, US Ambassador to Slovenia Joseph Mussomeli made a bit of a faux-pas the other day. While visiting PM Pahor, who spent most of the last month in hospital with what was officially described as a serious ear infection, he was a wee bit too candid regarding the political situation and described – without naming names or political parties – what kind of a coalition he’d wish for Slovenia. It later emerged that various (but not all) party leaders discussed the situation with the ambassador with Ljudmila Novak of NSi rambling on about how the US wants a coalition which includes NSi.

Now, while pengovsky is more than happy to entertain thoughts about US hegemony, this is too rich even for my own perverted mind. Seriously, to think that there’s a Slovenian desk somewhere in the State Department, which advises the US ambassador on which parties the only world superpower would like to see in the ruling coalition in Slovenia? It seems Gregor Virant is not the only one whose ego is writing checks their body can’t cash.

BTW, Mussomeli earned himself a slap on the wrist by both President Türk and Slovenian foreign ministry for that one.

Do I hear 60 votes?

At any rate, the deed is done. Zoran Janković is nominated for the post of the PM and it is now entirely up to him to form a ruling coalition. Pengovsky believes things will go relatively smoothly from now on, at least compared with the last four weeks. The way things stand now, a coalition between PS, SD, DLGV and DeSUS seems the only viable option. In my opinion SLS is still in the picture, despite the fact that Radovan Žerjav said in no unclear terms that he will not support Janković for PM. But not supporting Janković does not mean not supporting the government or at least certain key government policies. And with SLS as a backup, Janković comes interestingly close to the 60 votes needed to amend the constitution.

Great things could be afoot. But note the conditional…

President Türk To Call Early Elections Today

The deadline to nominate a candidate for Prime Minister has passed at 0000 hrs this morning. President Danilo Türk had until then to pick a candidate and submit his or her name to the Parliament for a confidence vote but did not do so. Equally, parliamentary groups (or ten individual MPs) did not put forward a candidate of their own, which means that the ball has dropped and early elections will be called today.

The Prez in discussion with army officers earlier today (photo by yours truly)

Truth be told, a candidate who would try to form an interim government until autumn next yeas was mulled, but these were only half-hearted attempts. First, Andrej Magajna (independent, formerly of SD) floated the idea of a grand coalition between the still ruling SD of Borut Pahor and SDS of Janez Janša, with Julijana Bizjak Mlakar, MP for SD and Prime Minister. The idea was rejected flat-out by both parties as well as Bizjak Mlakar herself. Magajna’s move was widely perceived as an attempt to extend this parliament’s term and – by extension – his own income (5k per month plus benefits ain’t peanuts). Hence, Magajna was slightly more cautions when professor of political sciences and author Gojko Stanič announced that he’s preprared to form a government given enough political backing. But since Stanič recently published a book on how to solve the economic and social crisis Slovenia is experiencing, the good doctor was probably spot-on when she tweeted that Stanič’s move was more for publicity than anything else.

But all of the above were just sideshows. The main act was with the President who consulted all parliamentary parties on Monday on how to proceed. Well, not exactly “all”. As per their custom as of late, Janez Janša’s SDS skipped their appointment, saying they hold The Prez partly responsible for the mess Slovenia is and basically said they’ve nothing to say to each other, especially since The Prez said in an interview that politics of Janez Janša should be rejected.

What SDS conveniently forgets to add is that President Türk said this in an interview for Mladina weekly, amid a scandal where SDS tried to implicate him in the 1979 Velikovec bombing in Austria and then even ~~forged~~ creatively copied archive documents to “prove” their claims. The scam was uncovered and all hell broke loose, but nowadays the issue is barely mentioned. But hey – the party that is poised to win elections doesn’t give a shit about the Office of the President (or any other elected office), unless of course, a cooperative person is in charge there. Cases in point being every President to date. This of course will not prevent Janez Janša to happily accept the nomination for PM when he presumably win the elections the Prez is about to call.

The announcement is scheduled for 1400 hrs local time but hints were already given on Twitter by former president of the parliament Pavle Gantar of Zares that elections will be held around 19 November. Given that 19th is Saturday, this was probably just an educated guess, after all, Gantar has had some experience calling elections himself -local elections in his case. But the constitution stipulates that elections must be held no later than two months after the parliament is officially dissolved (although it technically remains in power until the first session of the new parliament). Thus the window for election opens on Sunday, 30 October (a month long election campaign is expected) and closes on Sunday, 27 November. Thus it seems plausible that President Türk will go down the middle and pick either November 13th or 20th as election dates.

We’ll know in a couple of hours, ~~so watch this space~~ 🙂

EDIT @ 14.30: President called election on 4 December 2011, while dismissal of the parliament is effective on 21 October 2011. This way the shortest possible deadlines were given while the parliament was given the chance to wrap up any outstanding issues.

Early Elections Just Got Canceled

As of yesterday, there’s no doubt what so ever that Slovene Democratic Party of Janez Janša has absolutely no interest to actually call early elections, despite making a lot of hoopla about it.

The Constitution (source)

Amid an atmosphere of growing popular discontent with this nation’s elected representatives, a dog-eat-dog climate and a government which increasingly has to deal with its own problems, calls for early elections are getting ever louder. In fact, the only party which is directly opposing the early elections are (how predictable) Zmago Jelinčič‘s nationalists for whom the elections are always a gamble, although Jelinčič made the cut every time. True, if one were to disregard party affiliation one would quite possibly find that few MPs are keen on cutting their term, but since most of them adhere to party discipline, they seem to be supporting early elections. On surface, at least. Truth be told, next to Jelinčič, the ruling Social Democrats still have to make up their mind, but as long as Borut Pahor stubbornly continues as prime minister, they can more or less successfully dodge the question.

However, even if the SD were to make up their mind and take the plunge, it would amount to very little. You see, under current constitution, early elections are next to impossible. Not completely impossible, but close. To call early elections now, PM Borut Pahor would have to resign, the President would have to nominate a new PM and then a majority of MPs would have to be disciplined enough to vote down this person who would have to be willing to take a dive on an open parliamentary stage. The whole procedure would take a month and a half or so which means that extraordinary discipline of an absolute majority of MPs would have to be maintained for six weeks, not to mention that what was just described is in fact an abuse of democratic procedure.

To circumvent that, ideas were floated to change the constitution and make it easier for the parliament to be dissolved and thus bring about early elections. Pengovsky already wrote about President Danilo Türk threading on thin ice on this issue. There’s also Zares of Gregor Golobič, which floated ideas about amending this part of the constitution as early as January this year and expanded on them later on. Not that theirs is a perfect solution. If pengovsky understood correctly, Zares wants the president – upon resignation of a sitting MP – to be able to either appoint a new candidate for MP or dissolve the parliament and call early elections. This idea has one major problem: if the PM and his government atr elected by the parliament (which is the case now), they can only tender their resignations to the parliament. If Zares really wanted to bring the President into the picture, they would have to revamp the entire system of separation of powers. Which is probably a good idea, but would probably require much more careful consideration. Taking powers on one end and putting them on another end of the systems checks-and-balances can have unpredictably massive effects.

But if Zares’ proposal is something to consider and work on because it may yield beneficial results, the proposal which the SDS of Janez Janša submitted to the parliament ~~today~~ on Monday is a piece of bullshit deluxe. What SDS did was propose an amendment to Article 81 of the Constitution, basically saying that an absolute majority of MPs (46, to be exact) can vote to dissolve the parliament and thus hold elections within two-months-time.

What sounds lovely at first glance, is in reality a huge piece of political crap. If a majority of MPs were able to dissolve the parliament, they’d be doing it all the time, Every time the government would consider that its ratings allow, it would be able to call early elections with little or no warning whatsoever, get re-elected and win another four year term, long before the first one would end. It would also equip the ruling party with an unfair advantage as it would be able to control the election schedule rather than the situation which we have now, when everything is more or less clear in advance. Furthermore, empowering 46 MPs with a power do dissolve the institution which represents the sovereign of this country (the people), goes against every political and legal theory. If election laws need 2/3 majority to be confirmed and if the ~~government~~ constitution needs a double 2/3 majority to be changed, it is simply not logical for such a strong and far reaching instrument to be invoked by only an absolute majority.

SDS of course know all of the above. They did the math and they know that they have neither legal grounds nor political support to pull off a stunt like that. However, being masters of procedure that they are, they’ve effectively hijacked the procedure for changing the constitution and have in effect blocked any attempts to indeed change it. Namely: their motion takes precedence and it means that the procedure constitutional will have to go full circle, probably all the way from debate in the constitutional committee to the plenum vote. Given that we are just about to enter the summer break, the SDS have thus ensured that this procedure will last well into the autumn, possibly winter. By then regular elections would be practically around the corner, Zares’ motion (even if it entered the parliamentary procedure) doesn’t stand a chance of even being debated on, much less surviving a vote.

Thus the largest opposition party made sure that nothing will change and that early elections will definitely not be held. Which is precisely what they wanted. Despite the fact that prominent SDS members are running rather naive sounding on-line petitions, early elections are bad for the party, since it has no election platform and seems to be convinced that the more beating PM Pahor receives, the easier SDS and Janez Janša will reach their goal of 50+ (percent of votes in the new parliament).

The proposed amendments to the constitution by the SDS are therefore nothing but a stalling manoeuvre aimed at prolonging the life of this parliament for as long as politically possible.

The Prez Was In Surgery. Why Wasn’t Anyone Told?

President Danilo Türk underwent a surgical procedure on Tuesday, removing malignant tissue from his prostate, the Office of the President said earlier today. According to the statement the procedure was successful and the President is expected to make a full recovery, returning to his duties next week.

The Prez was under the knife (source)

Wishing good health and speedy recovery to The Prez, pengovsky is somewhat troubled by the post festum announcement of presidential medical woes. The issue in itself is nothing new and has been debated time and again: to what extent is the public entitled to know medical details of their elected officials?. Slovenia has a patchy history on this. First Slovenian president Milan Kučan was relatively free of medical problems (at least those we know of) and during his two-and-a-half terms in office was admitted to hospital only once, due to kidney stone problems. Before Kučan, the first Slovenian Prime Minister Lojze Peterle had his appendix removed while in office.

More known and widely reported was medical condition of the late Janez Drnovšek. In 1999, while still PM, Drnovšek was admitted to hospital and had a cancerous kidney removed. Three years after the operation he ran for president and was elected to the office despite confirming that he was “of slightly weaker health”. His embracing of alternative medicine to combat cancer caught international attention and his changed lifestyle was an inspiration to many in Slovenia and abroad. Nevertheless, Drnovšek died of cancer in late 2007, shortly after leaving office.

And of course, let us not forget the glorious fuck-up years ago while Janez Janša was Prime Minister, when he had his hernia operated. Then, as now, the media were informed post festum, but the fun began when his spokesperson (some say deliberately) made a typo and wrote that the PM had ligament (Slovene: kita) instead of hernia (Slovene: kila) surgery. However, “kita” is also slang for cock (or penis, if you prefer) and you can imagine the roaring laughter that echoed for weeks on end.

And while we’re on the subject, rumours are circulating of Janša being of ill health. Whether or not that is true and if true, what is the exact nature of his medical condition, no one save Janša and those closest to him know. Which brings us again to the question: How much should the public know?

For better or for worse, I think that there is indeed a limit to that. True, there is a certain logic in politicians presenting a clean bill of health before assuming and during their time in office. It’s nice to know that the people we trust to run the country as physically capable of performing the task. If a person in office has a debilitating illness, or a condition which is impairing him or her from doing the job effectively, then the public has the right to know and the politician in question most likely has to step down (hat tip: John Morrow on Quora)

But good health is no guarantee whatsoever that they will execute their office in the public interest. Case in point being President Drnovšek who (in my opinion) was one hell of a president after he changed his lifestyle on account of his disease. I’m not saying he was a bad president before that or even that he was a bad prime minister (his track record remains unbeaten), but fact of the matter is that his presidency has had a profoundning and extremely positive effect after he “turned alternative”.

But there are legal and political issues to consider as well. In case of president Türk’s surgery this means there should be at least some kind of announcement made. True, Slovene president does not have nuclear codes, nor are we at war (save with ourselves, but we don’t need a president for that). But despite everything, the President still is the Commander in Chief. Furthermore, the Constitution stipulates that in case of temporary or permanent incapacitation of the President, his powers are transferred to the President of the Parliament.

I imagine President Türk was under narcosis during surgery which means that for the duration of the procedure the powers would have been transferred to President of the Parliament Pavle Gantar. Hopefully, the necessary paperwork was filled out, but a public announcement was definitely lacking. Some would say that it’s not such a big deal, given the fact that the president’s powers in Slovenia are limited and that it’s a more or less routine procedure. But what if – Bob forbid – something went wrong?

Despite his limited powers, the President has some relatively important duties and obligations regarding the functioning of democratic institutions. For example, he nominates candidates for judges of the Constitutional Court. In fact, it was only yesterday when his nominee for a vacated post at the Constitutional Court Rado Bohinc was not approved by the parliament meaning Türk must go through the entire selection process again. What if he were unable to and the public were to find out through this that the presidential powers were transferred to Gantar?

I realise this looks like nitpicking but normally President Türk is such a stickler for constitutional details that this is quite a serious slip-up on his part and the part of his office. Again: I assume the powers were formally transferred but in the name of transparency, accountability and all the of-the-people-for-the-people-and-by-the-people shit, it would be nice if they would let us know that the Commander in Chief is going under the scalpel.

The same goes for the Prime Minister. Agreed, the PM wields more executive and less formal power, but in his case there is not even a clear line of succession as there is no formal Vice-PM (or something). Technically, the PM can decide which of his ministers can run the daily government business, but should the PM become incapacitated, there is no-one with parliament-mandated powers to run the executive branch. And the situation in Slovenia at the moment is so fragile that PM Borut Pahor reportedly cannot afford to be out of the country for more than three-or-so days.

However, most of these constitutional nuances are lost on general Slovene media. They are more concerned with why The Prez went to Innsbruck, Austria to have the surgery when he has professed his faith in Slovene health system. Well, that’s bullshit, methinks. The Prez can have him self opened up wherever he damn pleases, if he pays for it out of his own pocket. Which he has done in this case. And were he to choose a Slovenian hospital (apparently only Celje hospital is capable of performing a similar robotic surgery), he would be accused of jumping the queue.

Expressing How Dumb That Was In Words Just Doesn’t Work

(original image: Blaž Samec/Delo)

After a failed attempt to fight off accusations of forgery, Slovene Democratic Party of Janez Janša issued an “Apology and clarification to visitors of our website” where it stated that “upon revising the entire procedure of collecting the archive documents a year ago, we cannot claim that all documents were sent to all addressees [as implied by the published document]“.

The party goes on to state that it now “allows for the possibility that due to (dis)organisation of the SZDL archives in the Archive of Slovenia, the particular archive included documents which were not part of the letter of July 2 1980. Should this really be the case, it was an error on our part because we did not check the document thoroughly enough and in that case we apologize to our readers“.

However, the party explicitly refuses to apologize to President Danilo Türk, and now says that the president “was member of the highest circle of Slovenian leadership at the time and was informed about the Velikovec case. Those documents, which were without a doubt addressed to him, report on trial of UDBa [general moniker for SDV secret service] operatives. He was privy to the background unknown to ordinary citizens. He knew the background in 1980 and he knew them in 2010 when he gave a medal to protagonist of the bombing Tomaž Ertl“. SDS concludes that the whole thing is only one more reason for the secret archives to be declassified.

Wow. No, seriously. Wow! Cornelious said it best in his comment yesterday: this really is a non-apology. Something along the lines of “oops, we fucked up, but we proved our point regardless”.

Well, SDS didn’t prove their point. Far from it. The party and its president only proved that they are willing to take unfathomable liberties with publicly accessible archive material. Bob knows what they would do with classified documents. And even if those documents were declassified (the government keeps them secret invoking interests of the national security), SDS lost any and all justification to interpret them. Not only are they playing dumb. They’re taking everyone else for dumb as well. I mean, the documents were in their possession for a year. A year! And it is only now that they discover a “mistake”? What other “mistakes” did they make in the past?

All Janša and SDS had to do to win the 2012 elections is to sit back, look pretty and keep their mouth shut for the next eighteen months. Instead they’ve proven beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no limit to what they’re willing to do to regain control of this country.

Expressing how dumb that was in words just doesn’t work, hence: facepalm.

Creative Photocopying Leads To Creative Interpretation

After Janez Janša and his Slovene Democratic Party (SDS) were caught indulging in creative photocopying of archive material trying to implicate President Danilo Türk, the shit hit the fan yesterday, when Delo newspaper revisited and expanded the story it initially broke on Saturday. Delo’s exercise was relatively simple. It entered the state archives and compared the file SDS published against actual records.

(original image source: 24ur.com)

In what was a hugely embarrasing day for SDS and its leader it was sort of funny to see how the usually vocal SDS MPs and other party members were conspicuously quiet, running to their hidey-holes and avoiding media attention, even distancing themselves from the actions of the party (and by extension, their leader). The evidence against SDS was irrefutable, especially after the state archives published the complete set of documents completely confirming Delo story. However, just about that time SDS leader Janez Janša posted a lengthy reply on his party’s website.

And by lengthy I mean what-the-fuck-long. Ten pages of, well, the shit. It’s got everything: communism, Depala vas, arms deals, persecution, revolution, political intrigue, power struggle, secret services, media manipulation, arbitration agreement with Croatia and personal vendetta. Everything you ever wanted to know about Janša’s universe but were unable to comprehend. I really hope SDS will translate the text and post it on their new-and-improved English website. Either that, or I just might translate it myself. However, the text and subsequent Janša’s media appearances send a message other than the leader of the largest opposition party will have us read.

Bottom is that Janša took responsibility for the whole thing, basically admitting that he was fully aware of what was going on. He denied any wrongdoing and maintained that a) there was no forgery, not even “misinterpretation” and b) the president is lying when saying that he was not directly informed about Velikovec bombing. This means that whatever the fallout of this spectacular scew-up, it will land directly in Janša’s lap. By yesterday late afternoon this seems to have dawned on Janša, who predictably survived his first interview on Kanal A‘s trashy news programme, where the host was no match for the illustrious SDS leader. Things got worse later in the evening, when Janša appeared on state television and started changing the story and its highlights.

Thus the latest version of the truth behind “Archivegate” (moniker courtesy of the good doctor) as interpreted creatively by Janez Janša is that Danilo Türk was given information other than media reports about the background to Velikovec bombing some time after the attack. Conclusion: as of yesterday (according to Janša) being “directly informed” means getting any information (other than media reports) at any date after a particular event, even though the information in question is nothing but a non-problematic diplomatic cable.

Janša also went on to add that the whole thing only reiterates the need for the secret archives to be declassified. Regardless of the fact that the documents published were found in already declassified batch of documents. In other words, one has nothing to do with the other, except in Janša’s universe. That particular universe took a big dent yesterday. So big in fact, that Janša saw it fit to spread the blame, going out of his way to point out that it was “assistants to SDS parliamentary group” who sifted through the archives and came up with the documents. You know, just in case he starts to really feel the heat and he needs scape goats. The party faithful will come more than handy.

But still, why would Janša go after Türk in the first place? Pengovsky partly answered that question on Sunday. This was a ploy that back-fired on a massive scale and the collateral damage to SDS in general and Janša in particular will be considerable. It is very tempting to simply say that SDS leader has issues. In fact, the whole thing was most likely premeditated (after all, it was hinted at during impeachment attempt against Türk).

It is worth noting that 2012 will be the year of both parliamentary and presidential election and that a lot is up for grabs. Janša was making noises about a strategy called “50+”, probably meaning that he will attempt to secure absolute majority in the parliament. Given the (un)popularity of the government of Borut Pahor he might even have a chance (albeit a very slim one). But one area where he and his party are seriously lacking, is a credible presidential candidate. Other than again persuading Prosecutor General Barbara Brezigar to have another go at it (she lost to Janez Drnovšek in 2002 presidential campaign), there just isn’t a person with enough clout to run for that particular office. Especially with Danilo Türk probably running for re-election

Unless, of course, the incumbent president’s reputation is tarnished beyond repair.

Objectively speaking, the presidential race is a battle Janša can afford to lose. The president wields no executive authority and Janša (should he become the next prime minister) could easily govern with Türk in office. However, Türk was already in office during last year of Janša’s 2004-2008 government and made life rather difficult for the right-wing. Also, before Türk, the late Janez Drnovšek (he died on this day three years ago) also has plenty of not-so-nice things to say about Janša (calling him the Prince of Darkness), especially when Janša’s government went head-to-head against Drnovšek and his foreign policy exploits.

In short. Janša is only comfortable with total governing, controlling most if not all branches of power. And this is probably the gist of it. Archivegate is in fact an attempt to clear the field of a credible adversary ahead of what Janša hopes will be regaining the control of this country. Janša concluded his 10-page-essay hoping “that this will be done by elections and not by street protests”.