Tag: Janša

President Pahor As Commandant Lassard

It seems that the only gauge of the state of the, errr, state these days is the yield on Slovenian bonds on international markets. Whenever it starts nearing seven percent, media and the political right-wing go apeshit and start blaring big fat headlines about impending doom. And whenever it starts dropping, the left-wing goes talk-to-the-hand-cause-the-face-ain’t-listening-biatch. But fact of the matter is that the yield on various Slovenian bonds is going up and down like a cork in the water. And that ain’t good.

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Borut Pahor, Eric Lassard and their, well, fishes (source and source respectively)

Which is part of the reason government of Alenka Bratušek is on a charm offensive these past few days. With limited success, might I add. AB went on CNN the other day and apparently she didn’t do a particularly good job. That seems to be the prevalent opinion of the commentariat, anyways. Truth be told, PM’s performance was somewhat lacking, both in substance and in style. While she was mostly ridiculed on account of her thick accent, the problem was that she repeated the same old mantras of Slovenia not needing outside help in dealing with our problems. While that may be true (indeed, the OECD report released this week suggest so, as does an otherwise gloom report by the European Commission), Bratušek failed to shock & awe.

You talkin’ to me?

But it is important to remember Bratušek wasn’t taking to the home crowd. In fact, she wasn’t really talking to Richard Quest either. For what it was worth, she was talking to foreign investors. At the very least, to moneymen buying Slovenian debt. And from what pengovsky hears from abroad, she did an OK job. And just to put things in perspective, while the local economic honchos were reportedly impressed with the way the new finance minister handled the OECD, the non-natives (a.k.a. the real world) were apparently left unfazed, to put it mildly. (full disclosure: pengovsky is quoted in the linked article). On the other hand, The government did manage to sell some 900 million of debt today (after failing to sell 100 million days earlier) and won a little breathing room to put together what everyone is waiting for: an actual plan.

In that respect it is somewhat ironic that Bratušek is continuing with the basic outline set up by Janša’s administration, meaning bad bank and state sovereign holding company, augmented by further cuts in the public sector. Moreover, parliament is apparently close on enshrining the fiscal rule in the constitution, the very thing which sent both left and right to the barricades a year ago. And that’s now, when the reasoning behind austerity was completely and utterly debunked. On account of an Excel error, mind you!

Where is Janša hiding?

Speaking of Janez Janša, he went below radar, more or less. (Self)demoted to being a mere party president, forfeiting his MP seat as well as ex-PM benefits, he is running around courtesy of the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, giving lectures on human rights. Last week it was Iceland, next month it will be Berlin. Strange animal, this institute, mind you. Apparently, they take on interns to send spam. Also, their website bears strangely close resemblance to English pages of both SDS and Janez Janša. Or is that the other way around?

At any rate, Janša is apparently up for re-election as Party leader and with less than a month to go, he has yet to officially announce his bid. While former minister of infrastructure Zvonko Černač already said Janša is running, the man himself remains mum. And for a reason, pengovsky imagines. Sentences were passed in the Austrian branch of the Patria Affair and the court in Vienna concluded bribes were paid in that particular arms deal. Initially it was reported the Austrian judge said in her ruling that without a doubt Slovenian politicians were bribed. SDS went full throttle against this line of reporting, issuing a steady stream of denials, either directly or via friendly press. Be that as it may, Janša has a lot to worry about in that department.

The downfall of Žiga Turk

Speaking of SDS-friendly press, former minister of education, science, sports and culture Žiga Turk quit all party functions (but, it seems, not the party itself) citing an increasing gulf between his own convictions and party directives. Which was quite a bombshell, since Turk was widely perceived as the austerity hawk who went about dismantling as much of public sector within his purview as possible. He was also seen as the second most prominent man in the SDS, right after Janša. Maybe he became too strong and that was part of the reason that Party-friendly press tore him apart and practically labelled him a traitor to the cause.

This is not the first time Janša brought down a would-be political heir when the latter became too strong. Something similar happened to Milan Zver who was removed to Brussels as MEP soon after he started showing signs of independence. That’s the way Janša operates. He picks men (politically) lesser than himself, builds them up and then brings them down at the very moment they could have made a difference in the Party. This is also an indication that Janša is by no means leaving politics. At best, he went underground hoping to be missed. His only gamble is that he will stay underground for so long that the political landscape will have changed to the point of making him obsolete.

Commandant Lassard

Speaking of being obsolete, President Borut Pahor is increasingly starting to look like Commandant Eric Lassard of the Police Academy series. Namely, last week his office tweeted about Pahor keeping a goldfish in his office. Yes. In the midst of the crisis, when the country is just a panic-attack away from a bankruptcy and the troika descending, the president is busy fooling around with a goldfish. And drawing criticism from animal welfare organisations to boot, since at first he was keeping the poor thing in a bowl of unfiltered water. His office has installed a proper aquarium since then.

OK, so Pahor did partake in the charm offensive, visiting France today and going to Germany next week. Which is yet another proof of the fact that the prez and the reality are further and further apart. The “Franco-German train” he so vigorously promoted while he was the prime minister and was clamouring for Slovenia to get on-board, apparently still exists in his mind. But only in his mind. Which is bad enough. What’s worse is that Pahor is visiting France first, giving precedence to “mon ami” Francois Hollande, brother socialist who didn’t support Pahor in last year’s presidential campaign, despite Borut claiming otherwise (Slovene only).

Thus President Pahor snubbed Angela Merkel who (despite not being a particular favourite of pengovsky) still runs the country which just happens to be Slovenia’s largest export partner. Instead he went to see this guy who snubbed him. Looking for some tough love, are we? Anyhow, that’s just diplomatic gaffes. For all his experience in foreign relations, Pahor apparently is no stranger to them.

More worrying is the fact that the president – if his website and Twitter account are anything to go by – to date failed to make any kind of statement on the bombing of Boston Marathon, let alone offer condolences to victim’s families. It was up to Foreign minister Erjavec to save the face of this country.

 

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Awaiting Virant’s Call, Bratušek Mulls Minority Government

While caretaker PM Janez Janša was busy signing a memorandum on Ljubljanska banka (LB) bank with his Croatian counterpart Zoran Milanović, his likely successor Alenka Bratušek was busy hammering out a deal that would see her cabinet sworn in on Thursday. And while the deal between two Balkan states is to delegate the problem, indeed the very decision what in fact constitutes the problem, to the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements (and got a perfunctory pat on the back for it), Bratušek is seeing her problems shape-shift, forcing her to come up with plan B, that is to say, the possibility of forming a minority government.

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(source)

Plenty of people fretted about the Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SDH) and the bad bank which were seen as the main sticking points between Igor Lukšič‘s Social Democrats (SD) and Gregor Virant‘s Citizens’ List (DL). The brain-child of outgoing finance minister and DL’s no. 2 man Janez Šušteršič these issues were seen as possible deal breakers, especially since Šušteršič was adamant about how bad bank collecting bad debt and then covering it by selling assets concentrated in SDH is the only way to go about solving the crisis.

But some days ago, while he was in a head-to-head with his predecessor of social-democratic persuasion Franc Križanič, he made a seemingly off-hand remark about how there will still have to be some form of bank recapitalisation directly by the state (i.e. taxpayers). Which goes along the lines of his being adamant how not an euro of taxpayers’ money will be spent on recapitalising the NLB but did precisely that only months later. Križanič, on the other hand, was in his merry-go-happy mood and went on how state recapitalisation is cheaper and more transparent and is basically just an accounting operation as the state already parked vast amounts of cash in the banks. If it’s so easy and effective, why hasn’t it been done yet, then? Preferably while Križanič was the head-beancounter in the country?

However, that seems to be water under the bridge. For all its importance, the SD/DL spat was apparently solved fairly easily. But the bill is being presented to Bratušek personally. The deal with SD brought DL on the verge of a schism. The Šušteršič-led faction in the party fell out with Virant-led part over leaving Janša’s coalition and those wounds haven’t even begun to heal when the bad bank/state holding compromise was reached, further alienating the Šušteršič wing. Which means Virant has to give them something fast, lest he sees his party break into two for good. That “something” is, predictably, the energy department.

Under existing government organisation, the said department is within the portfolio of ministry of infrastructure. It is to be a part of DL quota, but Bratušek was looking to move the energy department into a PS-ran portfolio (possibly economy). Latest reports indicate that Virant won that particular round and got Bratušek to back down. While no details have emerged yet, pengovsky is speculating Bratušek agreed to Virant’s demands on condition that she gets to veto a nominee for that particular ministerial post.

But while the horse-trading session is still on, PM-designate Bratušek is being dragged through the mud by the more rabid part of the right-wing (i.e.: the Party and its media entourage). Riding on the coat-tails of several high-profile plagiarising cases recently discovered in Slovenia, an anonymous (!) letter circulated the interwebz, supposedly revealing that Bratušek did not write her master’s thesis according to academic standard. The university had initiated proceedings in establishing authenticity of her work, but the story stuck and the damage was done.

This allowed Virant to be righteous yet again (after walking out on Janša over the anti-graft report) and demanded Bratušek resign all positions should her thesis be shown plagiarised. Apparently, Bratušek agreed. But the thing is that for the more fervent part of the right-wing, she is already guilty beyond any reasonable doubt and will be dogged by this for the entire duration of her term. That the Party faithful are serious banging this particular drum for the foreseeable future is obvious by the fact that they’ve even set up a Wikia page, citing alleged academic transgressions of the would-be prime minister.

In case you’re wondering about SDS connection into these plagiarism accusations: Party-friendly media reported that, university inquiry aside, the “lead investigators” in this matter are Bernard Brščič, a never-realised economic wunderkind of Hayekian persuasion and Janez Janša’s recent edition to his ever-increasing number of staff-appointees and Matej Makarovič, former head of SDS youth organisation, dean of FUDŠ, a right-wing-friendly university and a regular talking head when the cause of the Party needs to be advanced. Not only does the academic Duo Fantasticus not instil confidence in their work, they’re doing it at the behest of the Party which – as we know – doesn’t really have a clean bill of health when it comes to handling of archive material.

EDIT (12/03/12@1000hrs): SDS youth organisation just announced on Twitter it will deliver an annotated copy of Bratušek’s M.A. to every parliamentary group, supposedly proving plagiarism accusations. Of course, potentially different findings of the university committee will be dismissed as a conspiracy.

This is the setting in which Bratušek is waiting for DL to make the call. If Šušteršič wing prevails, she will have to put forward a minority government, which could be confirmed with an absolute majority with the understanding that DL or any other party or parliamentary group will consider its support on a case-by-case basis. Alternatively, the whole deal can still go down the drain, with the PM-designate being blocked to name even two thirds of her ministers in three consecutive votes, thus triggering early elections.

At any rate, until a new government is sworn in Janez Janša is still very much holding the reins of power since there is no legislation on dos and donts of a caretaker government. More will be known tomorrow, so watch this space.

P.S.: Apologies for being mum for a week. Things to see, people to do and all that jazz…

 

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Alenka Bratušek Ousts Janez Janša as PM

Earlier today Alenka Bratušek was sworn in as Slovenia’s first female Prime Minister. In what was mostly lack-luster but long (10+ hours) debate which picked up only in the latter stages, the parliament voted 55:33 to have Bratušek replace Janez Janša as head of the government. Thus Bratušek became the first woman in the history of Slovenia to have been designated PM and only second individual to have ascended to the position in a “constructive no-confidence” vote. The last time the prime minister was replaced in this particular manner was in 1992 when Janez Drnovšek replaced Lozje Peterle.

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Alenka Bratušek signing her oath as PM-designate (source: rtvslo.si)

While momentous in its own right, this event is only the first step in a treacherous process of coalition negotiations between parties that have considerable history between themselves. Although technically ousted, Janša’s government remains in a caretaker role until a new government is confirmed by the National Assembly which must be done in 15 days starting tomorrow. Failing to do so in three attempts, her designation is voided and the procedure to nominate a new PM kicks is with president of the republic front and centre. In this case that would translate into early elections. And, truth be told, this is not an altogether unlikely scenario.

The key players in this particular game of political poker are Igor Lukšič‘s Social Democrats and Gregor Virant‘s Citizens’ List. While Bratušek announced that she – provided her cabinet is approved – she will seek a confidence vote in a year’s time, setting the stage for elections in early 2014, both Virant and Lukšič made noises today and in the past few days that early elections within a few months time are a viable option, especially if no deal on agenda of Bratušek government is reached.

While Virant is probably bluffing, Lukšič knows his current good fortune in the polls can not last. Also, if the SD enter the government, they will necessarily see their ratings plummet and within a year their current popularity will be but a distant memory. Therefore it is entirely possible that in the world of Slovenian cloak-and-dagger politics, Lukšič (or Virant) would engineer a disagreement which would allow them to derail coalition negotiations and still make it look as if they did everything they could. And since early elections would present Janša with a good chance for a comeback, he wouldn’t mind having them as soon as possible either.

This was the easy part, especially since even part of the SLS voted in favour of removing Janša. Hard work begins now. As of today and without SLS onboard, PM-designate Alenka Bratušek will need just about every vote she can muster and hope that (primarily) Lukšič isn’t in this simply to double-cross her at the very end.

 

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When It Rains It Poors For Janša

MPs are gearing for a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Janez Janša tomorrow and the heat is on. Positive Slovenia nominated acting party leader Alenka Bratušek for the post and if things don’t change too much until tomorrow, Janez Janša will have been voted out of office in about 18 hours.

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(source)

That things undoubtedly went south for Janša became obvious yesterday, when both SLS ministers, Radovan Žerjav and Franc Bogovič (who is to replace Žerjav at the helm of the party) tendered their resignations. In response, Janša tweeted about Žerjav that “the worst minister of economy this country ever had left the post”. A classic poor-me-fuck-you response by Ivan, the reason for which became obvious a bit later in the day, when Žerjav said he’s in favour of the no-confidence vote. This probably clinched the deal for Bratušek, since any vote without SLS on-board would be tricky, especially since not every MP of the hastily assembled coalitions (PS, SD, DeSUS, DL and now SLS) will vote for Bratušek and (by extension) against Janša.


The said tweet

Now, the problem with Janša’s tweet is many-fold: First and foremost and for the umpteenth time, this is no way for a prime minister to communicate. I mean, ferfucksake dude! I realise you’re convinced everyone is out to get you, but have some self-respect. Second: While it is true that there’s precious little to be said about Žerjav as minister of economy, it was Ivan who nominated him. OK, so there was a fair amount of horse-trading involved when Janša was forming his coalition, but it’s not as if anyone held a gun to Ivan’s head while he was picking ministers. Quite the opposite, one would think. Thirdly, tweeting in this fuck-you-very-much attitude makes him an ever more sore loser than he already is, especially after Žerjav replied via SLS’ twitter account thanking Ivan for the assessment of his work and wishing him all the best in the future.


Who knew: Žerjav is capable of sarcasm

But tomorrow’s no-confidence vote is not the only fall from grace which befell the stricken PM. Adding insult to injury, the Slovenian PEN club is set on ruling whether to expel Janša due to his “public statements in violation of PEN’s charter to defend freedom of expression”.

When it rains, it, well, poors

Despite writing his first book in 1992 (Premiki, Mladinska knjiga), Janša was made a member of PEN in 1988 immediately after his arrest by the Federal Army. At the time, the PEN club stretched its rules a bit, but since it was all for a good cause, no-one really minded. Well, a quarter-of-a-century later, the tables have turned and those same people who stood up for him are now standing up to him. Problem is, Ivan don’t take that too well. In fact, he blasted PEN saying it had degenerated into a den of informants of Yugoslav secret police (see here for Google translate)

Nor did he take it well when the Supreme Court (not to be confused with the Constitutional Court) denied him an injunction against the anti-graft commission. Janša disputed the report and sued to have the anti-graft report removed from the web pending the ruling. The Administrative Court denied the last request and when Ivan petitioned the Supreme Court to revise the decision, citing violation of his human rights (“I am at the peak of my political career”, he wrote), he was denied again and told that “his human rights were not violated in any way, shape or form, since being a prime minister is not an individual’s human right“. Ouch. Basics, of course, but… ouch.

Ivan response was predictable: “The decision was expected. The PM has no human rights. Bull mastifs do, if they belong to the right owner” (Google translate here). Lovely, innit? Bringing back the drummed-up scandal which basically wiped out Katarina Kresal and where every single charge was dropped, because there simply was no proof. But that of course did not stop Janša from bringing it up. And the list goes on. Recently, his daughter was in the media after the anti-graft commission concluded t she and son of Jože Tanko, SDS’ parliamentary chief landed jobs at the state-controlled gas company after undue pressure was exerted. Not a full week had passed when the Party-friendly media started clamouring that anti-graft’s commission second-in-command Rok Praprotnik had landed that particular job not on merit but because he knew the right people.

By now you’re starting to see the pattern, right? Whenever Ivan or the Party land in deep shit, they start throwing it around in every direction possible, hoping that some will stick one way or another. That they are brazen in mixing fact and fiction in doing that doesn’t bother them one bit. Thus they’ve launched an “anonymous letter” alleging the PM hopeful Alenka Bratušek plagiarised part of her masters thesis. This comes after a string of high-profile revelations of MPs, elected officials and managers stealing academic work of others and claiming it as their own. Or simply forging academic credentials. It’s not that the SDS would be the only party with such a credibility problem, but theirs were among the most problematic cases, as Branko Marinič was forced to forfeit his MP post after receiving a suspended sentence in a criminal case, while Alenka Koren Gomboc was forced out by a procedural trick by her own party, after a long running scandal. And today yet another SDS MP was faced with allegations that his masters thesis is not entirely his own. So when the “anonymous concerned citizen” found out Bratušek mistyped the title of an otherwise credited source, they made it into an affair of practically biblical proportions. Indeed, it seems nothing but bad news for poor Ivan. If if rains, it poors. Pun very much intended.

Non-interpelation

We’ve come all this way and the vote hasn’t even been taken. One person who must feel slightly miffed about all of this is the super-minister Žiga Turk, who wrote up a 60-page response to the ill-conceived interpelation proceeding initiated by the SD. Pengovsky wrote back then that was one of the stupider moves SD made lately (and there were no shortage of them) but added that the stupidity was matched by Turk’s initial reply. Well, the full text only furthers the image.

The self-styled “humble engineer who sometimes just doesn’t get modern culture” went all out against SD, calling it a relict of the past, reeking of naphthalene and not even having come as far as Deng Xiaoping had in the 60s with his “it doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white” doctrine. A classic text which would make Dick Cheney and Karl Rove proud not only disputes everything SD holds against Turk, but extols some of those very same things on the grounds of market economy. Also, at first he claims to have fought vigorously for this budget which was slashed almost 20% due to austerity policies, but a bit further down admits that there’s nothing he can do if there’s no money. Well, it seems there’s lack of money and then there’s lack of money (if you catch my drift).

Also, he extols President Pahor’s political leadership while he was running the SD, while at the same accusing his government of being the worst there ever was (he must not have gotten the memo about Žerjav, though). All this did not stop him from taking credit for projects that were pretty much near completion before he took office. Indeed, there wasn’t such an ideology-heavy text in Slovenian politics since, well, since he was writing about “re-communisation of Slovenia” or indulging in Haidt’s pseudo-science. Again, a pattern. Who would have thought, eh? Too bad Janša will probably get voted out of office first, denying Turk from standing front-and-centre, telling those fucking Commies off. It would have been quite a sight.

Bring popcorn

Not that there will be any shortage of fun in the next few weeks. Bratušek looks poised to oust Janša, but that only means Janša is in a care-taker capacity until she forms a government. And that might prove harder than it looks, since SLS will not be joining that particular party and both SD and DL are making noises about early elections sans an interim government not being such a bad idea.

Tomorrow will be ugly. Bring popcorn.

 

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Alenka Bratušek To Mount PM Bid Againts Janša Amid Row Over Sexist Tweet, “Left-Wing Fascism”

Demokracija weekly, the semi-official Party magazine (think Pravda or People’s Daily) ran a lovely cover today featuring Adolf Hitler and captioned “I’m a socialist”. Now, truth be told, a magazine cover featuring or alluding to der Führer is all too an often occurrence in Slovenia and the left-wing press is no exception. Really, someone should explain the finer points of Godwin’s law to them (yes, I’m looking at you, Mladina). However, this particular cover comes on top a PR and media frenzy over “left-wing fascism” launched by PM Janez “Ivan” Janša who labelled the protest movement as such when addressing the faithful on a pro-government rally two weeks ago.

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PM-hopeful Alenka Bratušek (source)

Interestingly enough, the Hitler-was-a-socialist line comes from a blogpost on The Telegraph’s website by Daniel Hannan MEP, a member of the splinter conservative AECR group. You will also note the visuals are the same in the said blogpost and on the cover of Demokracija.

Super-minister Turk and left-wing fascism

Additionally, Hannan’s post showed up on Slovenian radars last weekend when super-minister Žiga Turk tweeted about it (and was, curiously, RT’d by Jos Douma, Dutch ambassador to Slovenia). But the phrase itself, that is to say “left-wing fascism”, entered the political orbit some months ago, via Alan Johnson in – you’ve guessed it – a blogpost on the Telegraph’s website.

Slightly off-topic: Hannan’s silly litte post was picked apart quite thoroughly over at Zero Street blog, but for the sake of historical clarity it must be written that Hitler said he was a socialist to Otto Strasser mainly to ensure the loyalty of Otto’s brother, the able Gregor Strasser, who was tasked with organising the Nazi party in Northern Germany and who indeed was a left-wing revolutionary and who was instrumental in the party’s rise to the top. But as soon as Hitler won the power, he got rid of the Strassers, with Otto in exile and Gregor murdered in the Night of the Long Knives. Just so you know.

Yay, sexism!

Speaking of which, the issue seems to have ignited furore over in the UK as well. But you see what I’m getting at? In this day and age, when these things are easily googlable, the Party takes whatever it can from wherever it can find it, not bothering to do even the most basic of checks to avoid embarrassment (not unlike what happened with some of their MPs, mind you). Indeed, it’s a sad day, when a ruling party (let alone The Party) picks its defamatory talking points from the blogging section of a conservative newspaper. Nor is this good reference for the newspaper in question.

It seems that left to their own devices, the Party and Ivan himself have run out of steam and can do little more than insult everyone who crosses their path, demand obedience and indulge in conspiracy theories. Case in point being yesterday’s tete-a-tete Ivan had on state television where he basically repeated what he told the crowds on 8 February, only in a slightly more civilised manner. But the odds were evened by the Party’s official Twitter account with an overtly sexist tweet against acting president of Positive Slovenia Alenka Bratušek who only hours ago was nominated challenger to PM Janša in a no confidence vote.

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The sexist tweet (source)

Tweeting that Bratušek will last as PM only as long as her skirt is and her memory of [the ill stricken] NKMB bank activities are (Bratušek was member of the supervisory board for a time), the Party dug a new low in an already decrepit political environment. But the no-holds-barred approach probably signalises increasing frustration by the SDS leadership in pretending to be in control of the situation.

Challenger

Which they are not. In the last week or so we’ve seen a heightened level of activities in searching for a challenger to PM Janez Janša. Positive Slovenia took the lead in searching for such a person and at one point Bratušek came up with Miro Cerar, jr. But he turned the offer down, citing lack of a clear majority. In the mean time, however, DL, DeSUS, SD and PS held their respective pow-vows and decided to support a no-confidence vote against Janša with Bratušek as a challenger.

Now, it has to be said this agreement was achieved after much political wrangling, with each party more or less issuing a particular set of demands. The winners this time around seem to be Igor Lukšič‘s Social Democrats, who managed to coax Gregor Virant into ditching Janez Šušteršič from being re-nominated as finance minister, citing major differences over issues of bad bank and state sovereign holding. This apparently opened up a rift within the party pengovsky wrote about some time ago and a break-up of the party can not be excluded at this point (or, rather, a massive defection over to SDS camp).

Also a winner is – how does he do it? – Karl Erjavec, who is capitalising on his recent row with Janša over solving Ljubljanska banka issue and ratifying Croatian EU entry. But Teflon Karl is still up for his major battle as he is facing serious leadership challenges within the party and his recent anti-Ivan stance can and should be viewed from this perspective.

Janković “re-resigns” with a sunrise clause

This left us with Positive Slovenia, where both DL and SD (and to an extent DeSUS as well) demanded Zoran Janković officially and unequivocally quits leadership of the party. This already was a marked softening of positions, as these parties initially demanded Zoki quit as Ljubljana mayor as well. This put quite some pressure on Positive Slovenia, as Janković maintained he only “froze” his leadership position, while unofficially senior party people conceded Janković had for all intents and purposes resigned. Regardless, the would-be coalition wanted to cover all the bases and after a long session Jay-Z did indeed produce a hand-written letter of resignation, but left the date blank, saying that he’ll date it when Alenka Bratušek sees her government sworn in.

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Photo by Roman Jakič (source)

In pengovsky’s opinion this was yet another awkward move by Janković, not unlike the initial “freezing”. Would it really be so hard to simply say “I’m resigning effective swearing-in of Bratušek-led government”? You see, with “official” resignation Janković lost nothing. He had indeed removed himself from state politics and by giving the SD and DL what they in fact already had (although unofficially) he could have landed a sweet little parting shot and see Bratušek off to a better start. Bob know’s she’ll need all the help she can get.

Instead, he fumbled with blank-dated-but-signed letter of resignation, which was seen as a farce by many. Not to mention the fact that what we have here is a signed letter of resignation and a know date of its creation, so one could argue this entire hubbub is horse-shit and that we have a valid letter of resignation which has a perfectly valid sunrise clause. And the “sunrise”, that is to say swearing in of the new government can become a reality as soon as early March.

Turk gets away with it

One side effect of this is that Žiga Turk, the super-minister who conveniently dug up the silly blogpost on left-wing fascism may not even see his interpelation proceedings take off as the government may fall before that. Lucky escape for him if it did.

 

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