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Slovenian Election: One Battle After Another

Slowly at first and then all at once. Parliamentary election in Muddy Hollows is less than 72 hours away and the shit-show went from zero to 11, inside a New York minute. For all the polls and TV debates, it now open warfare and a general melee.

Election time. A composite image of Europe Elects opinion poll results and a photo from tonight's debate on RTVSLO, before Sunday's election in Slovenia. — *Debate on RTVSLO this evening, combined with the latest post by Europe Elects (source, source)*

The last six to twelve months have provided us with plenty of rendering of garments, strategizing and positioning to maintain status quo. SDS was in the lead, GS second, then nothing for a very long time, and then everyone else. But the moment ball started rolling, it was all just, well, one battle after another.

SDS Throws A Pension Tantrum

In a surefire sign that election countdown is well underway in Muddy Hollows, the SDS of Janez Janša launched an all-out offensive against the Golob government. It all has to with pensions and the ferocity makes the Battle of the Bulge look like a walk in the park.

An upside-down SDS placard, a leftover from the protest last week. All because PM Golob said words about pensions on national telly. — *Leftovers from the SDS pensions rally*

In short succession, The Party called for a referendum on pension bonuses for exceptional artists, staged a mass rally, filed to dismiss a National Assembly VP, demanded a public apology and moved for interpellation of the government, simply because the PM said words on national telly.

PM Janša Declares Trump Winner, Starts A Dumpster Fire

It doesn’t take a lot to do a horribly bad take on Twitter these days. But to do a bad take, have it go viral internationally and then double down on it, only to get slapped with a disinformation label, that takes special skill.

This, you know by now, is exactly what PM Janša has done on Wednesday after US presidential elections, when – to the disbelief of many – congratulated Donald Trump on winning the vote. Only that Donald Trump by then hadn’t won the vote. And it doesn’t look good for him at the time of this post, either.

Slovenian Lessons for Trump’s Election Delaying Antics

The collective hand-wringing on Twitter that followed Donald Trump’s tweet about possibly delaying election due to potential voter fraud with mail-in voting is – as per usual – more or less unnecessary.

As enraging as it is, Trump’s tweet is only the latest in the long line of distractions, a crude attempt to divert attention from his car-crash of an interview on Russian bounty for US soldiers and the fact that US GDP in Q2 dropped off a cliff.

If You Don’t Like The Way The Table Is Set, Turn Over The Table

To say that today’s resignation of prime minister Marjan Šarec and his call to early election took everyone by surprise would be a gross understatement. It is, in fact, more akin to yelling “fire!” in a crowded theatre, lobbing a canister of mace in the crowd and letting an alligator loose.

*PM Šarec during his resignation address (source)*

Šarec clearly demonstrated that he gives a grand total of zero fucks about how all of this plays out. Such lack of political self-preservation instinct is a rarity in Muddy Hollows nowadays. That said, however, one must consider the immortal words of Francis Underwood: If you don’t like the way the table is set, turn over the table.

Bashing Luxembourg, Janša Goes Off At The Deep End

You may have missed it, but Luxembourg held its legislatives Sunday last. The politics of the tiny European country are not all that important for this blog (although pengovsky does dabble in Luxembourg over at Luxventures podcast, do check it out), but for some reason the Grand Duchy did catch the attention of the SDS leader Janez Janša the other day and made him fire off this pretty amazing tweet:

Janša bashing Luxembourg (source)

For those not versed in the Slovenian language, the Glorious leader tweeted, verbatim: ‘These people want to lecture us on the “erased”. About half of Lux residents do not have citizenship because they don’t speak Luxembourgish. They don’t have access to public sector jobs and are not allowed to vote. There are 256,000 people eligible to vote, which is less than 43 percent of the population.‘ If your mind was just blown, you’re not the only one….

Continue reading Bashing Luxembourg, Janša Goes Off At The Deep End

2018 Parliamentary Election: Gifts That Keep On Giving

T-14 days and the election campaign in Muddy Hollows is now seeing increased use of heavy artillery, pengovsky did some punditizing on the telly and the debates are about to start coming in thick and fast.

Debate on POP TV on Monday night (source: screencapture)

But before we go into all that, the story that dominated the past week was one this scribe had briefly covered here and has to do with Slovenia turning out to be much more of a banana republic than its indigenous population is willing to admit

Continue reading 2018 Parliamentary Election: Gifts That Keep On Giving