Tag: Janez Janša

Has Janković Had Enough?

Days ago Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković for the second time this month dropped a hint in the passing which none of the news media seems to have picked up. Namely, that this will be his last term as mayor of the capital. At the start of a new school year Zoki, while cutting the ribbon at the new building of Ljubljana Waldorf school said that any further expansion projects will be overseen by the new mayor. While there were a few gasps in situ nobody made a big deal about it. Ditto two days ago, when upon unveiling the concept of a new housing project, he announced the new head of City Administration (to take over soonest) and told her that she will have to see that the next mayor will provide funds for the project as well.


Tired? Fed up? Bored? Or just having fun… (photo by yours truly)

Now, Zoki being Zoki, this could mean absolutely nothing. He can change his mind in split second, again full of zest and vigor and carry on as if nothing happened. On the other hand, he does seem a bit, well, fed up. Also, things are not going especially well for him. After being subjected to a year-long tax audit, his case was now referred to the state prosecution which will decide whether or not to press charges. No points for guessing what the decision will be.

The list goes on. In some circles he is constantly being mentioned as a possible “technocratic prime minister”, a sort of Slovenian Mario Monti (but much less sombre), but in pengovsky’s opinion those are just wet dreams of people who still think in terms of getting to the power first and thinking about everything else second. Janez Janša and his government are a fine example of this approach and the disaster it brings about.

All things considered, it seems extremely unlikely that Janković will (again) resign before his term is up. But if he really intends to make this his last term as mayor, political parties in the capital should start getting their asses in gear, because right now not a single one of them can produce a person with enough clout to cover all the bases in the city. Autumn 2014 may turn out to be plenty of fun.

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Janša Giveth, Janša Taketh Away

In a surprise move, defence minister Aleš Hojs (NSi) on Thursday dissolved the contract on purchase of Patria APCs, giving the Patria Affair yet another twist. On the surface the whole thing was declared to have been mutually agreed with both sides calling it even. Slovenia gets 30 out of 135 planned APCs while Patria gets 74 out of planned 278 million euro. But in reality, the whole thing is a mop-up operation which no doubt is overseen by PM Janez Janša.


(source)

You see, Janša giveth and Janša taketh away. While it is true that anyone can rat but only the ingenious few can re-rat, our illustrious PM definitely does not count among them. Janša and his band of merry men had to remove foot out of their mouth on more than one occasion lately. Like with the kindergarten-freebie his government instituted in the good old days but was among the first benefits to be thrown under the bus when the going got tough.

But the Patria thingie is one of definitive moments of modern Slovenian politics. For the first time a dodgy arms deal was prosecuted and for the first time a senior politician is prosecuted for it. Also, for the first time a senior politician was appointed to a top post in the country while prosecuted.

The irony of the situation could not be more pronounced. It was Janša government 1.0 which signed the contract and it is Janša government 2.0 which is dissolving it. The only difference is that the person who actually signed the now-defunct contract (Karl Erjavec of DeSUS) got promoted from defence to foreign minister. In fact one can not shake the feeling that Janša’s main purpose is to clean up after his 2004-2008 power-orgy. As far as the case against him is concerned, this doesn’t change a whole lot. I’m sure some bright soul will try to trump up some sort of legal mumbo-jumbo saying that since the contract is no more, so should the case against Janša be. But in reality the Prime Minister still stands accused of corruption in from of a criminal court.

Politically, however, things are even more funny. Ljubica Jelušič (SD), defence minister in Pahor’s government (the one between both Janša’s tenures, to refresh your memory), said that annulling the contract was a good idea. However, while in office, she was adamant about not annulling the contract, which puts her in a rather awkward position and somehow makes Janša look like a person who can make decisions as opposed to Borut Pahor, who, well, couldn’t.

And this is the crux of the matter. It was Janša and his government who OKd a deal that was fishy from the start and where handsome bribes were allegedly paid. The deal had and anti-corruption clause built-in and PM Pahor had both grounds and ample time to either sue for annulment of reach settlement with Patria. Apparently, it wasn’t that hard.

Truth be told, not everyone is happy about it. Especially NATO is apparently cross with us now, because Slovenia gave a commitment to form a mid-size armoured brigade some time soon. This will not happen now. And it was probably this why then-PM Pahor couldn’t bring himself to kill the deal. His incessant need to be liked by everybody and his brother once again worked against him. The deal was stalled as it was and it was clear that it will not be going anywhere but while Slovenia had the brigade at least on paper, Pahor got the attaboy treatment in Brussels. Which is fine and dandy. The problem is that he probably knew back then this country wasn’t going to deliver. But he chose to dodge the issue rather than tackle it. Which is probably why he’s running for president now (but more on that some other day).

Janša on the other hand cares jack shit about such things. He killed the deal as soon as he got the chance, making his domestic position a little bit more stronger. Which seems to have been his modus operandi ever since he came to power seven months ago. Mostly by trying to keep coalition partners in line with various doomsday scenarios. Even if it means losing whatever credibility this country has left with foreign investors.

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Trouble In Paradise

It’s the silly season and it shows. News is slow and it mostly consists either of Olympics, the continuation of eurozone crisis or wildfires. That and the ever louder coalition quarrels. In fact, days ago things got a bit ugly. And then some.


Picture almost unrelated (source)

While it has become customary for politicos to scuffle on Twitter along the coalition/opposition lines, friendly fire is much less common. An example of the former we could witness today, shortly after Police Commissioner Janko Goršek (the top cop) announced that he was leaving the post on 1 October. What is most probably a case of you-can’t-fire-me-I-quit! was more or less expected ever since Janša 2.0 came into existence. Police is too important a system to be left unto its own devices, no? You gotta have party hacks reliable people running it, if your boss is on trial for corruption charges and was somewhat humiliated by appearing on a TV show whose anchor was arrested a day later on blackmail charges.

Never the less produced a lively exchange between interior minister Vinko Gorenak and his immediate predecessor Aleš Zalar (who was acting minister after Katarina Kresal resigned in August 2011). Zalar tweeted that with this Gorenak is probably ready for interpelation proceedings while Gorenak shot back whether Zalar might be helping the opposition in drafting the document. It went downhill from there, with Gorenak finally tweeting that he only deals with Zalar as a sort of a hobby. Which can come across rather kinky, if you look at it from the right perspective 😉

But this is just a sideshow, albeit one with nasty effects coming later in the year. The real shit was happening between Janez Janša‘s SDS and Gregor Virant‘s Citizens’ List. The two coalition parties entered a bit of a turf war over who gets to appoint whom in various state-owned firms with SDS aiming to share as few spoils as possible. Virant made his displeasure known and earned a retort on official SDS Twitter account saying that “Virant can not pass a microphone without uttering stupidites”. Which is a nasty thing to say to the president of the parliament, especially if he’s your coalition partner.

But the real shocker came a week later. Contrary to all expectations, the government rejected draft budgets for 2012 and 2013, instructing minister of finance Janez Šušteršič (number two honcho in Virant’s party) to go back to the old drawing board. This was complemented with an official SDS tweet asking how can the finance minister be absent for a budget session of the cabinet

Now… In all fairness, the government is fully entitled to reject any draft document. It is what it does. Rejects and accepts. Furthermore, it is unusual for a minister to be absent when his documents are debated. But it has happened before. That’s why we have State Secretaries. To stand in when minister is not available. Also, given that state finances across Europe at this time look more like guess-work than real accounting, the rejection could be considered just a change of plans. However, the fact that Šušteršič is the architect of this government’s austerity plan and knows more about finances than the rest of the government put together (and that ain’t saying much!) combined with the above tweet amounts to nothing less than a public political dressing down of a man whom pengovsky already said is probably earmarked as the fall guy when thing will go badly wrong.

And badly wrong they will go. As you know, Slovenia’s credit rating was cut down recently to just a notch above “junk” which means that we are more or less fucked. Even the former happy-go-merry market fundamentalists the likes of Jože P. Damijan who made a name for themselves by advocating flat-rate tax during Janša 1.0 have come to their senses and are now opposing across-boar-austerity, instead advocating the Krugman-Roubini gospel of jump-starting the economy as the government’s top priority.

There’s trouble in paradise and I ain’t talking an Ernst Lubitsch film, if you catch my drift. Members of the self-styled “coalition to save Slovenia” are slowly but surely going for each other’s throats while the world around them crumbles to pieces. That SDS went after Virant yet again only days ago only further proves the point.

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Remember, Remember, the Eleventh of November

Back to politics. President of the parliament Gregor Virant signed a decree yesterday scheduling presidential elections on 11 November. The fact that the first of expected two rounds of presidential elections will be held on St. Martin’s Sunday, when Slovenes, well, celebrate turning of must into wine – by drinking even more copious amounts of alcohol than usual – caused many a smirk around the country (“so, which of the two ballots do I fill out?”), but will in all honesty have only modest impact.


Gregor Virant doing the deed (photo by yours truly)

In fact, it is unclear at this stage exactly what will have an impact on the presidential campaign. If the trend of the ever more vicious campaigns is to continue, we’ll surely witness many below-the-belt punches, mudslinging and manipulations.

Officially, the campaign starts around 11 October and no candidate has yet formally filed his candidacy. Some weeks ago Zmago Jelinčič, leader of the nationalist party (now ousted from the parliament) withdrew his presidential bid, saying he refuses to be a part of the system which will be this country’s undoing. Again, this drew some cynical laughter, as Jelinčič himself was a member of the parliament for twenty-one nineteen years, from 1992 to 2011 and was very much an integral part of that very same system, knowing full well how to exploit it for his own personal and political gain.

But with Jelinčič out of the picture (although pengovsky would not be surprised if he were to re-enter the game at 11th hour), we are now left with five candidates: incumbent Danilo Türk, Milan Zver MEP, who runs on an SDS ticker and erstwhile PM Borut Pahor who runs on an SD ticket. Additionally, there are two no-name candidates, Marko Kožar and Monika Malešič. The latter made a couple of headlines earlier today claiming that she’s receiving death threats. This, we can more or less safely file under “attention whoring”, since both of them will probably poll between 0,1 and 0,4 percent. Cumulative.

As a side note, Gregor Virant and his Citizens’ List indulged in yet another case of political vanity. Some weeks ago Virant hinted that his party might consider supporting Pahor, which to an extent further alienated Pahor from the left side of political spectrum (where Social Democrats nominally reside). Then, days ago Virant said that they might produce their own candidate with the caveat that this person has not yet given his/her consent and, finally, yesterday he somewhat reluctantly said that they will not put forward their own candidate but will support one of the already running ones. Which basically leaves them with either Pahor or Zver. The thing is that Virant’s party is scoring somewhere between terrible and disastrous right now which is why the whole thing came off as a really bad bluff. Fact of the matter is that – politically speaking – the Citizens’ List has precious little weight left to throw around outside the parliamentary chamber. Practically none.

This leaves the three main contenders for the top political job in the country. According to the latest poll, President Türk is firmly in the lead with 45 percent of the vote, with Borut Pahor trailing at 30 percent and Milan Zver way back with 17 percent. Pahor made some gains recently, but that can mostly be put down to his increased media presence while both Türk and Zver are criss crossing the country, campaigning on the ground.

Ever since Borut Pahor entered the race it seems a given that a second round will be necessary to elect a president. Additionally, it seems safe to assume that President Türk will make it into the second round comfortably (provided there are no serious gaffes), which means the race for second place between Borut Pahor and Milan Zver will be much more interesting. Which makes for ample speculation room as to whom exactly the current PM Janez Janša actually supports.

While not exactly necessary, all three candidates will run with popular support, basically as independents with support of various political parties, collecting signatures and thus avoiding running on a strictly party ticket. Which makes one curious as to why the PM did not put down his signature in support of Milan Zver. True, Janša’s SDS (in cahoots with NSi) supports Zver on, well, corporate level, but given that a lot of high-profile SDS and NSi members put their individual names down supporting Zver makes Janša’s absence from the list all the more curious.

The eleventh of November is still quite a distance away, but it could very well be that it will be the one to remember.

 

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Getting Fired For Actually Doing Something?

Finance daily ran a story yesterday about PM Janez Janša is set to kick interior minister Vinko Gorenak and justice minister Senko Pličanič out of the government come Autumn. While the government communication office denied the rumours (PM Janša remains mute on the issue) the story might actually have legs given its proximity to last week’s scare about the vote of confidence.


In foreground: Senko Pličanič, left and Vinko Gorenak, right (Photo by Matej Družnik/Delo.si)

At any rate, a government reshuffle is quite embarrassing this early in the term of the current administration, but is also far from problematic. In fact, it has become something of a tradition for a Janša administration. Early on during his 2004-2008 stint at the top job Janša had to find a replacement for Jože P. Damijan, who resigned his post as development minister after only three months in office, reportedly due to falling out with then-finance minister Andrej Bajuk over (non)selling of NLB. Slightly off-topic: in hindsight it appears Damijan had a point back then and lost no time rubbing it in the face of his former boss (Google translate here)

It should also be said that neither Pličanič nor Gorenak (offically) have any knowledge of PM’s alleged bad blood, with Gorenak writing up a rather heavy rebuttal (again, google translation) but, interestingly, avoiding the finer points of Finance story. In fact, a lot of it is actually a classic non-denial.

But the gist of the story is somewhere else entirely. A week or so ago PM Janša appeared on Vroči Stol (Hot Seat) programme hosted by Vladimir “Vudu” Vodušek. What was basically a farcical re-run of a similar event four years ago would probably be forgotten soonest , had Vudu (now owner of a financially embattled Info TV cable TV station) not been arrested the very next morning on charges of extortion and blackmail, unofficially of a CEO of a hardware company. It was all highly embarrassing for the prime minister, who – according to the Finance story – went apeshit over not being told that Vudu was a target of a criminal investigation. And this is where things get interesting.

The only thing is that the PM is probably the last person on earth who can be told of an ongoing criminal investigation. In a democratic state politics stays out of police work. It takes the widest berth possible. Which is why Janša’s (again: alleged but not denied) reaction is highly symptomatic of how this administration sees this country: as a top-to-bottom controlled organism with no horizontally or vertically independent sub-systems and with the head knowing everything and making all the important calls. There’s a word for that and it ain’t democracy.

Minister Gorenak maintains that he never spoke to Janša about the investigation. Which is fine, even though one can understand the sentence as if he himself did have prior knowledge of the investigation (which he shouldn’t have, as the police is under his portfolio but not direct control). Which would – bizarre as it sounds – mean that interior minister Vinko Gorenak did something right for a change and is looking down the wrong end of a gun-barrel for it. Go figure. Not that he would be sorely missed, but still…

And as for minister Pličanič, he too is apparently getting the short shrift for doing too much rather than too little. According to media reports the past six months have seen (some sort of) results solely in the areas of financial austerity and public administration, the former being the portfolio of finance minister Janez Šušteršič while the latter is the domain of minister Senko Pličanič (both, incidentally, of Gregor Virant‘s Citizens’ List)

What Pličanič apparently didn’t understand was that he was meant to do as little as possible save perhaps a token effort here and there. He really should have gotten the message when the State Prosecution was detached from his portfolio (justice) and joined with internal affairs (ran by Gorenak). But as things stand, he seems to be poised to play the sad role of collateral damage.

 

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Vote of Confidence: How PM Janša Just Screwed Entire Slovenian Politics Dry

Speculation was rife in Slovenia today that PM Janez Janša will tie a confidence vote to tomorrow’s vote on initiating procedures to enshrine the fiscal rule in the constitution. In less than twenty-four hours the country found itself in the middle of a political cliffhanger, since the government does not have the necessary two-thirds majority to change the constitution. It was obvious from the outset, however, that the whole thing was nothing more than an elaborate bluff, it’s primary goal not being mustering the votes necessary but rather a disciplinary measure, smoking out this government’s “internal opposition” and bringing them back in line for much more crucial votes which this government faces down the road.


(source)

Namely, the government of Janez Janša enjoys a stable majority in the parliament. The coalition has 52 votes (53 if you count the overly-indulging former PM Borut Pahor) and can pass legislation virtually at will. In fact, this is exactly what it is doing, as the parliament only this week passed 20-or-so laws, most of them under emergency procedure. Not that there was any real emergency, but the government asked for multiple quickies and the MPs who support it complied no-questions-asked. Such is the discipline within the coalition and there really is no need for Janša to test whether or not he has the support of the parliament.

That Janša was entertaining the thought regardless shows only that he is willing to (ab)use legal instruments to further his own grip on power. Tying the vote of confidence to a 2/3 majority would create a legal and political clusterfuck of epic proportions because it would mean the fall of a majority government without a viable alternative coalition to replace it. Which would probably suit Janša just fine as he thrives in an uncertain environment and would most likely end up on top again, even stronger. Truth be told, he most likely already got what he wanted and thus screwed the entire Slovenian politics dry.

Namely, earlier this evening an 11th hour compromise was reached, putting the vote on fiscal rule off until September, which places the debate conveniently close to presidential elections. And let us not forget this is not the first time he pulled a stunt like that. Back then he did it a week after Danilo Türk was elected president, this time around he tricked others (namely, president of the parliament Gregor Virant) into placing a debate a few weeks before the elections, possibly hijacking the debate entirely.

As an added bonus, he also forced the hands of Karl Erjavec (DeSUS) who was immediately ready to jump ship saying that he’s willing to be a part of any coalition and of Radovan Žerjav (SLS), who openly toyed with the idea of yet another early elections, excluding up front the possibility of someone else heading the government under the same coalition. Both Žerjav and Erjavec will pay dearly for their political amateurism. Additionally, Igor Lukšič of Social democrats made a bit of a blunder, saying that “if the going really gets tough”, the SD will support the fiscal rule. Well, the going got tough long ago and Janša now has Lukšič by the you-know-whats as well and the newly minted SD leader will have to spend a lot of energy to get out of this particular fix.

Right now, fiscal rule is the least of Slovenia’s problems. While not peachy, national finances are a far cry from that of Greece, Spain or Portugal (public debt in Slovenia right now is about 47% of GDP). This country has other problems: banking sector is cause for immediate concern with pension, labour market and health reforms coming in close second, as detailed here by Edward Hugh of Economonitor

That after six months in office Janša tackled none of the above (even the banks are on hold until Autumn) only further strengthens the point that the whole point of today’s exercise was purely political with the ultimate goal of not relinquishing power, but tightening the already firm grip on it. After all, why would someone who six months ago went to great pains to clinch the PM spot, suddenly just give it up. Especially since he has this huge millstone hanging around his neck…

 

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Janez Šušteršič, Meet Reality

Reality seems to have caught up quite fast with finance minister Janez Šušteršič. The man who headed the government macroeconomic office (the aptly named IMAD) during the first Janša administration and refused to pick up the pieces after Jože P. Damijan, the would-be wonder boy of Janša 1.0 jumped ship after only 91 days in office, was forced to fork out EUR 381 million to recapitalise Slovenia‘s largest bank, the state-owned NLB.


Janez Šušteršič and NLB (source & source)

Well, to be honest, the state directly recapitalised the bank with EUR 320 million, while the remainder was coughed up by para-state funds KAD and SOD which is almost the same as if the state gave the money, only it looks better on the balace sheet. KAD and SOD entered the clusterfuck that is the NLB at the eleventh hour, after Belgian KBC bank refused to partake in the operation (after initially agreeing to the deal) and has thus seen its share in NLB shrink from 25 to 22 percent. The funny thing is that only months Šušteršič claimed that not a single euro from the budget will be used to recapitalise NLB. Which means the realisation that no-one will touch NLB with a ten-foot-pole must have come as a rude shock to our austerity-oriented finance minister.

In fact, given the ferocity with which Šušteršič and the rest of the sell-them-all-market-will-know-its-own gang were championing the “market approach” means that what we have witnessed vis-a-vis the NLB was nothing less than an about-face of epic proportions. In other countries, ministers get heavy flak for much less.

OK, fact of the matter is that NLB at this time is about as attractive as three-day-old road-kill and Šušteršič was basically looking down the barrel of a gun, faced with either pumping cash into NLB or hanging it dry. And we’ve seen what letting a bank go bust does, right? But there’s more: Not only did NLB need 380+ million of Tier 1 capital, it also has about three billion of bad loans on its books. And while Šušteršič maintains that most of these loans can and will be repaid, that is more or less eyewash. The bank will never see this money returned, because there is no way for companies who took out these loans (by far and large during the first Janša tenure, when the government encouraged expansionary economic policies) to return them. They don’t have anything to return them with. No competitiveness, no markets, no income, no way to pay the labour force, not even state contracts to offset the above and – finally – no earnings to finance their erstwhile debts.

So, yes, NLB will probably have to suck up losses of about three billion euro. Or about 8,5 percent of entire Slovenian GDP. That’s a lot. And that’s just the biggest bank. Other banks have bad loans on their books as well. Thus the finance minsiter and his boss, the prime minister can assure the country and the world, until they’re blue in the face, that Slovenia will not ask for a bailout of its banks. But the reality is that there will be a call made to Brussels sooner rather than later.

And if the U-turn on NLB recapitalisation wasn’t reason enough, the moment this country asks for a bailout will also be the moment when finance minister Janez Šušteršič will have to ask himself whether he’s fit to continue in this government. In other words: a request for a bailout should be accompanied by a letter of resignation.

The reason for this is painfully simple. Šušteršič positions on the issue, indeed his entire economic platform was about removing the state as a majority owner in key companies. This plan fell apart on the first rock it hit. Yes, NLB needed to be recapitalised and yes, the state is not necessarily a bad owner (although NLB was mismanaged time and again by politically appointed management). Having a the biggest bank in the system limp forward is preferable to letting it sink. But Šušteršič’s political positions which won him the mandate as an elected official, are in direct and blatant opposition with his actions. The two can hardly be reconciled which means that Sloveinan finance minister has a huge credibility problem. And a finance minister with a credibility problem is not something to be looked kindly upon. Just ask Franci Križanič.

But Šuštešič’s biggest problem is not his (lack of) credibility, but the fact that he is, unbeknownst to him, probably earmarked as the fall guy if things go badly wrong. This, at least, would appear to be case since Positive Slovenia announced it will start interpelation proceedings against the finance minister. Technically, an interpelation does not have to end with a vote on minister’s dismissal (although it often does). Instead, it is an instrument of ministerial accountability per se, forcing the minister to explain and defend his or her action.

Now, PM Janez Janša already called starting interpelation this early in the term “nonsense” and at least technically backed Šušteršič up (again, a lovely case of double standards as his party filed an interpelation against Katarina Kresal less then three months after she took office in 2009). But since DL and SDS found themselves on opposite sides on quite a number of issues in the past few days (mostly stemming from the “red star issue”) Šušteršič can be sure that he’ll be made to pick up at least part of the tab.

It seems that the finance minister started this term knowing what his priorities are and falsely assumed that these are other people’s priorities as well (we’ll neglect that these priorities are dubious at best). When challenged about past economic policies of coalition parties in a recent interview with Mladina weekly, Šušteršič answered that he doesn’t care about who did what in the past but is rather interested in what this government will do. And this is the gist of it.

Šušteršič naively assumes that somehow it’ll be different this time around. He really should know better than that. The prime minister is the same. Most of the coalition parties are the same. Most of the key players are the same. Even the problems are the same. How then could results be any different? Remember: I’m not saying that either state or private ownership are inherently bad or good. But the speed at which stated goals of this government and its financial minister have disappeared into thin air is somewhat breathtaking.

 

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