Ljubljana | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Katarina Kresal Resigns Over Audit Reports

Interior minister and leader of the junior coalition partner Liberal Democrats Katarina Kresal resigned from her ministerial post earlier today, following two damning reports from the Court of Audit and the anti-corruption commission over the leasing of the building of the newly formed National Bureau of Investigation.

Katarina Kresal in a pensive mood (source)

Kresal was in plenty of hot water over the course of the last three years, some of the ordeals were quite brutal. But she always somehow survived and even fought back. But she has only herself to blame this time around. While she was viled by the opposition (primarily, but not exclusively by the SDS of Janez Janša) for finally righting the terrible wrong this country has done to “the Erased” and dragged through the mud vis-a-vis the Canine Affair where she was guilty-by-association although no accusation or insinuation against her or her partner Miro Senica (a stellar attorney) was ever proven, the president of the LDS seems to have tied her own noose.

WTF?

Having made the establishment of the National Bureau of Investigation a top priority soon after she was sworn in as the minister of interior, Kresal tasked state secretary Goran Klemenčič, her right hand man and the person who initially broached the idea of NBI to the public with making it happen. (slightly OT: Klemenčič was equally instrumental in starting to clean up the mess with the Erased and now, ironically, leads the very commission whose report caused Kresal to resign). The NBI was to be comprised of top notch cops and other professionals, with above-average pay and state-of-the art equipment. In short, top shit. So, where to house these super-cops?

One option was the new building originally meant to serve as the new interior ministry. That particular project on the outskirts of Ljubljana was OK’d by Kresal’s predecessor Dragutin Mate (now Ljubljana city councilman and head of the local SDS branch) regardless of the fact that the building site was across the street of the largest gas storage facility in Ljubljana. It then also emerged that under Mate’s deal the ministry, which was to rent the new building for two decades (and thus pay it off), would be contractually obligated to buy additional real estate, driving the seemingly good price way up into the sky. Additionally, the rent apparently did not include equipment, which would have added substantially to the final amount of monies needed. But if this option was not good enough (or rational enough) for the ministry, then it certainly wasn’t good enough for the flag-ship anti-crime institution.

Enough blame to go around

So, Mate was unnecessarily spending away taxpayers’ money. The Court of Audit said as much in its report, saying that Mate did not follow proper procedures for public tenders and private-public partnerships. It should be an easy one for Katarina Kresal. By axing Mate’s pet project she definitely won some points on the transparency scale, only to lose them the very next instant. Namely, the ministry decided to house the NBI in a yet-to-be-finished building developed by Jurij Pogačar. The latter gained infamy in 2002 during the SIB Bank affair, when the city of Ljubljana (the mayor back then was Vika Potočnik) bought the SIB bank with assets of city-owned Energetika Ljubljana (the city energy company) headed by none other than Pogačar himself. I will not go into details, but the SIB affair was a huge thing back then which even helped bring about the dissolution of the LDS and after the bank tanked shortly after being bought by the city, Pogačar was under suspicion for abuse of office, but never saw trial.

Making a deal with Pogačar, who just happened to be her friend (or good acquaintance, if you will) was a bad call from the start. It was executed even worse. Both the Court and the Commission found that the building which now houses the NBI should have been leased-to-own rather than just rented, with the rent as high as to enable Pogačar to comfortably pay off his own leasing of the building and ensuring him a hefty profit to boot. Not only that. Turns out that the tender was virtually tailor-made to fit Pogačar and that (again) proper public tender procedures were not followed.

Resignation

This thing happened in two waves. First, the Court published its findings on Tuesday, criticising both Mate and Kresal. Since Mate is long out of office, all eyes are on Kresal (although the SDS maintains Mate is in the report only to make Kresal not look that bad). The interior minister offers to resign, but prime minister Borut Pahor does not accept her resignation, instead instructing her to follow recommendations of the Court of Audit. However, by the time the anti-corruption commission published its findings, Kresal was out of ammo. The commission report was just as damning, if not more, for it officially found elements of corruption in the events around the NBI building and Katarina Kresal, having spent her ace in the sleeve (offer to resign), had no choice but to quit her post for real.

With this the political career of one of the few truly new faces of Slovene politics took a nose-dive. What transpired here was (yet again) lack of political mileage of the illustrious LDS leader who arguably did manage to stabilise the party’s ratings and even brought it back to power after only one opposition term (even though it was quite a fall from 30% to 5% of votes). When the canine affair broke out, Kresal went AWOL. She was nowhere to be seen or heard for almost ten days. By the time she finally got her act together, she was already tried and convicted by the public opinion with a little help of the opposition parties which helped fuel the mass hysteria. However, this time around LDS president should have done better to keep quiet for a day or so and – assuming she wanted to survive politically – deal with both reports simultaneously. Granted, it may not have been enough to just “offer to resign” in the light of two highly critical documents, but having played the card after the first report was published, she couldn’t have done it again only twenty-four hours later.

EDIT @ 11 August 0900 CET: The below should be taken with a pinch of salt as there’s one element pengovsky overlooked. For complete picture read the next post as well.

On the other hand, PM Pahor showed much more political skill than his soon-to-be-ex interior minister. Pengovsky is almost positive that the PM knew beforehand at least the contours of both reports and had therefore no problem with refusing Kresal’s resignation the first time around, knowing that she wouldn’t survive the next one. In fact, this is very much according to Pahor’s modus operandi. The PM always (at least) nominally supports his colleagues who in the end resign of their own free will rather than have the PM throw them out of the government. Even Karl Erjavec in the end resigned of his own accord, saying that the PM had suffered enough.

So, how does this play out?

With Katarina Kresal out of office, she will probably be returning to the parliament. She was, after all elected as an MP first. This means that LDS veteran Tone Anderlič, who served as MP in every parliament since 1990 will loose his seat as he was not elected directly, but got into the parliament only after Kresal was appointed minister and Draško Veselinovič (of NLB infamy, who was next in line for her seat) waived the position. This was, by the way, was a fact completely lost on Rosvita Pesek, the TV anchor on state television which interviewed Anderlič earlier tonight. More importantly, Anderlič is also the president of LDS party council, whom Kresal will ask for a vote of confidence to continue to lead the party. We’ll see if an old party hand like Anderlič will be able to look beyond his removal from the parliament or will he do everything in his power to ensure a no-confidence vote against Kresal who, ironically, was re-elected as party leader by a large majority during the recent LDS convention.

Even more ironically, the situation we have now is not very much unlike what Gregor Golobič of Zares proposed months ago: that coalition party leaders return to the parliament as MPs and let someone else run the government with full support of the coalition (hat tip to the good doctor). As of today (more precisely, as of mid September, when the parliament will officially take note of Kresal’s resignation) prime minister Borut Pahor is the only party leader to serve in the executive branch. Every single one of his counterparts in the legislative branch. Janša, Golobič, Kresal, Erjavec, Žerjav, Jelinčič and Žnidaršič (yes, there’s a new party in the works), they are all MPs. Which makes Pahor a bit alone in the government. This means that a year-or-so before the elections, the balance of power has tipped very much in the parliament’s favour and the PM might find himself in a position where others are dictating the terms, especially with him running a minority government and all.

Early elections still not an option

In fact, resignation of Katarina Kresal could very well turn out to have been her one saving grace. With her out of office, right-wing opposition lost an important target which they attacked every time they needed to paint the ruling coalition as a bunch of ruling and inept morons and especially trying to create a wedge between PM Pahor and the rest of the coalition. Just as Gregor Golobič was all over news ever since he re-entered the parliament (he was barely touched by the media unless it was about the Ultra affair), so will Katarina Kresal get the chance to speak on everything from budget rebalancing act to Palestinian declaration of sovereignty. And within a year, the NBI building might be just a faint memory, especially due to the fact that opposition leader Janez Janša himself is to stand trial in little less than a month’s time over Patria affair.

In the wake of today’s events most of the parliamentary parties called for early elections. Even the ruling Social Democrats hinted that maybe they could come to some sort of an agreement. But this is all bullshit. For the time being, LDS remains a part of what is left of the ruling coalition, unless there is a coup in the party. And – even more importantly – even though Kresal is out of office, priorities of individual parties are the same as they were two months ago.

London? Yes, London!

Looking at the rampage and looting in London, I can’t help but think of the Ljubljana student riots last year. Compared to what is going on in the British capital, rioting in Ljubljana was a walk in the park, but remembering how appalled pengovsky was after chairs, stones and bottles were being throw above his head into the parliament building and riot police, I can relate to the many Londoners’ outrage at the senseless violence that engulfed the city.

(source)

Now, it should be clear that – as far as pengovsky gets it – there was a legitimate reason for protests which then spiralled out of control into thuggery and violence. The police shooting of a suspect in Tottenham, regardless of whether it was justified or not, is never peanuts. And if the community feels that police handling of the situation was to an extent racist, this is not something to be brushed aside.

Secondly, one doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to put the rioting next to the recession which is apparently following the worst possible scenario. I submit to you that something along the lines of what we’ve seen in the past few days would be virtually impossible prior to, say, 2008. People, who did not benefit from the economic upswing of the past decades have zero incentive to care about anything save their immediate benefit when times get dire. Add to that the dose of revenge and a bleak future ahead and you can see how we come to a situation where the very fabric of the society disintegrates on 24/7 news. (hat tip to @multikultivator for the last two links)

However, having said that, I should point out that while the initial protests might have had legitimate grounds, anything beyond that point deserves nothing but some well directed police brutality. Minorities and/or socially excluded groups, that’s one thing. A lot needs to be done in that department all over Europe, London included. But teenagers and twenty-year-olds going out to have fun without any regard for property, dignity and fellow man (video via @AdriaanN) deserve nothing but a twice over with a baton and a long session in the courtroom.

But that’s where it should stop. I realise a lot of people are hurting and are enraged. But I must say I got the heebie-jeebies when I heard on the BBC that some people were thinking of bringing in the army. Please, don’t. You don’t want tanks on your streets, no matter how mad you are. As Bruce Willis put it in The Siege: “The Army is a broad sword, not a scalpel“.

I come from the part of the world where there was – not so long ago – plenty of army on the streets of its own accord. Indeed, even after Slovenia won the independence it took a while for the armed forces to retreat from the civilian life fully. The army, no matter how well meaning, doesn’t play by civilian rules. And it’s much easier to bring it to the streets than to take it off of them.

This thing will get sorted out. Maybe Dave and Boris will even be out of a job over it. But it should be solved using civilian means.

Monday Morning Meat #210 (Victory Edition)

To honour today’s Victory Day, when Ljubljana was liberated in 1945 and when Second World War in Europe finally ended after six years of brutal bloodshed, pengovsky gives you Bert Sotlar and Lojze Rozman, two legendary actors who starred in one of the first post-war action comedies, Ne joči, Peter. 🙂

If you don’t mind the lack of subtitles or understand Slovene, you can see the whole fim here

S.F.S.N.!

A Letter To Prime Minister Borut Pahor (Yo B., Wassup!)

Dear Prime Minister!

It’s me again. I hope you don’t mind the quip in the title. It seems that these days almost everyone feels comfortable addressing you on first name basis. Not just your (former) brethren in arms but just about anyone who litters the Slovenian corner of the internets with their more or less half-witted comments. Anyways, it’s that time of the year again and I’m not talking about the December festiveness, if you catch my meaning 😉 No matter how you look at it, it’s been quite a year, hasn’t it? You’ve seen your ratings plummet, the crisis took a turn for the worse and skeletons have been falling out of closets faster than you could say “welfare state”. But, unlikely as it may seem, your second year in office earned you much higher marks in my book.

Finger-pointing PM Borut Pahor (source)

You see, in your first twelve months in office you’ve been more or less all fluff. No need to go into details (besides, you can read them up on this blog), but let’s just say that your chronic searching for common ground was beyond counter-productive. Then, all of the sudden, you seemed to have gotten your bearings, released a few carefully placed “gaffes” and transformed – it seemed as if overnight – into this decisive, no-bullshitting, finger-pointing asshole who will walk over bodies to get what he wants.

First and foremost, I congratulate you on securing, signing and winning ratification of the Arbitration Agreement between Slovenia and Croatia. I for one wholly agree with your assessment that consequences of this agreement go beyond mere here-and-now. To think that things regularly escalated almost to an armed border incident while times were good for both countries, it doesn’t bear contemplating what would happen if the border dispute were to become a convenient red herring for either country in times of economic woes and rising nationalism. Yes, I think that had the issue remained unresolved, we could have even witnessed an armed conflict. Things were that bad and with that in mind I feel that for this alone you deserve utmost praise.

Having said that I’d like to impress upon you is that this is the moment to construct your own piece of Churchilliana. Remember him? The old conservative fart with a cigar in one hand and a glass of brandy in another (brandy, not whiskey as you mistakenly claimed in your inauguration speech) whom we both appreciate? If memory serves, one of his many quotes includes “In victory – magnanimous”. This is how you should go about the arbitration agreement. Yes, you struck it, stuck to it and saw it through. But you were not entirely alone in that enterprise. The government and the coalition were behind you. The majority in the parliament was behind you. A lot of people who needn’t stick their necks out were behind you as well. Yes, if you had failed the blame would fall entirely on your shoulders. And, yes, you can claim all the success as yours. But that would be a bit short sighted, methinks. Not only because the story is not quite over yet, but also because a lot of people would feel better about it if you spread some love. Many a voter supported the deal simply because they were fed up with the whole storm in a teacup. This doesn’t mean that they’re in your bag for good. But they might support you again if you come off as magnanimous enough.

Sir!

Arbitration Agreement aside you seem to have generated some clout with your Balkans initiative which is – as I understand – now seen as a convenient fall-back for NATO and EU ever since the Butmir process more or less failed as did the Spanish initiative during their EU presidency. You were also very active in the Arab world and the much lacked economic aspect of foreign policy now finally seems to be there. Hopefully it is not too little too late. At the very least I’m sure Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković is grateful for your Lybian endeavours, since apparently moneymen from Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya will invest 30 million euros into Stožice Complex.

Foreign policy is your strong suit. Case in point being the cable by US Embassy in Ljubljana which was released by WikiLeaks and picked up by Spanish El Pais daily which detailes how you floated the idea of Slovenia accepting one Gitmo detainee and put it in the wider context of Slovene-US relations. While US charge d’Affairs apparently took the bait, the idea did not bear fruit. It does, nevertheless prove that you know how to play the game, although people whose opinion I value tell me that your performance lacked diplomatic style in this particular episode. However…

If were are to broaden the famous dictum by von Clausewitz and accept that foreign policy is only a continuation of domestic policy using different means, then, my dear Prime Minister, I fear you are on the brink of your ego issuing checks your body can’t cash.

You see, most if not all of your diplomatic exploits will not be worth a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys if you fail in your domestic policies which – as we both know – constitute a rather tall order unto themselves, doubly so in times of economic and social crisis.

Prime Minister!

While it is generally understood that (in Slovenia, at least) left-wing coalitions are fraught with bickering, divisive rhetoric, principles which sometime border on hard-headedness and a plethora of interests with almost every player, no matter how unimportant, convinced that he/she would do a far better job in your place, you must take caution as to not let this state of “organised chaos” dissolve into senseless waste of time. This can happen either by you and your government being spread thin over too many fronts or by you not keeping your coalition partners and (even more importantly) your own party in check. You seem to be going down both paths with gusto.

Challenges (to use one of your favourite buzzwords) you and your government are facing today are numerous, chief among them the upcoming pension reform where you’re bleeding too much too fast and should bring the issue to a favourable close as soon as possible. The longer it takes you to do it, the less positive outcome there will be.

You are most likely facing a referendum in pension reform in 2011. Ditto for legislation on menial work. The same quite possibly goes for the new Family Code. You’re also up for a referendum on the new law on RadioTelevision Slovenia (RTVSLO). These are battles you must win. It is only with political victories at home that you can claim clout abroad. But to win them, you desperately need to get your own house in order. The fuck-up over your former chief of staff Simona Dimic put quite a dent in your armour. Leader of one of your coalition parties is on trial for dereliction of duty in the Patria Affair and has burdened this country with an attack boat Slovenia got as compensation for the so called “clearing-debt” owed to us by Russia. True, Karl Erjavec of DeSUS had a hand in this while he was defence minister in Janez Janša’s government, but fact of the matter is that your government is taking heavy flak over it. Not to mention that it is Erjavec who is continuously giving you the short shrift over pension reform.

Not that it stops there. Your other two coalition partners, Zares and LDS are having problems of their own and I don’t mean just fighting for survival in the public opinion polls. Zares and its leader Gregor Golobič is constantly fighting off ever more silly attempts to implicate him and Ultra company in every half-baked investment in this country while LDS is possibly up for a third consecutive interpelation of one of its ministers, this time of Justice Minister Aleš Zalar (not in the least because is using Twitter, which some find irresponsible)

But all of the above is peanuts compared to the slaughterhouse that is to become your own party if you don’t kick some serious ass soon. Case in point being bloc 6 of Šoštanj Coal Powerplant (TEŠ6), an investment of a whooping 1.2 billion euro with so little oversight that it probably made even tax consultants cringe. While TEŠ6 is more of a “local v. national” rather than inter-coalition feud, fact of the matter is that some very powerful players in your party became very nervous when one of the largest investment in Slovenian history was (finally) starting to be questioned.

Dear Prime Minister!

You yourself often said that your political opponents tend to underestimate you. But you yourself must not underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. Regardless of your (probably intentionally) misleading signals over whether you will seek another term as PM, I think that – barring a disaster – you will do just that. But elections are never won, only lost. And right now you seem poised on losing them not because you’re doing the wrong thing, but because you’re doing too little of the right thing.

Put your own party in order. Roll a few heads. Kick some pensioner butt. Possibly kill TEŠ6. To quote Winston C. again: “If you’re going through hell, keep going“. And stop worrying whether Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković will run for PM in 2012. He won’t.

Oh, and while you’re at it, do make sure Slovenia hosts 2013 European Basket Championship. I know you’re just playing hard-to-get when you’re not (yet) giving it your full support, but really… We could do with a bit of good copy in this day and age.

Kind regards,
pengovsky

P.S.: If by any chance you didn’t get the joke in the title, he’re a hint 🙂

Honey, I Shrunk The Coalition!

My, how the tables have turned! A little more than eighteen months ago Zares of Gregor Golobič floated the idea of some fundamental changes to Slovenian referendum legislation. What on the surface looked like a noble idea, had way to many drawbacks, but for purposes of this post suffice it to say that among other things this junior coalition party wanted to institute a “Referendum Day” or two where all referendum bids filed until a certain date would be voted on (Read The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions if you want to jog your memory).

The Boy with the Flute is a mascot of RTVSLO ever since it was created as RTV Ljubljana (source)

Today the government of Borut Pahor and Zares in particular are in a situation where such provisions (had they been passed in time) would most likely kill one or more key pieces of reform legislation which the coalition somehow managed to squeeze through the parliament despite copious amounts of shit being thrown at it.

Notably this goes for the famed Law on Menial Work (which was, truth be told, vetoed by the National Council hours ago and will have to be voted on again by the National Assembly) and especially for the new law on national radio and television (RTV Slovenija) which was passed last week and which (again) brings sweeping changes to the institution and (according to the Ministry of Culture) is returning the now-state-run media back into the public domain.

State vs. Public

A quick but necessary digression: Soon after Janez Janša won 2004 elections (so soon in fact that the LDS did not yet have the time to fall apart) a new law on RTVSLO was passed by the parliament which turned the former into a full-blooded state radio and television, mostly through changes in composition of supervisory and programming boards and election of its members and (further down) by altering the way Radio and TV chiefs were appointed.

The changes, however, were sold as “more quality programming for less money” since of the more debated provisions of the law was the so called RTV-fee (which was set at EUR 12) held the most tangible value. Everyone who’s ever worked in media knows that you never get more (quality) content for less money, but since RTVSLO was, is, and will be a money-guzzling-bottomless-pit and since quality of programming already at that time left a lot to be desired, it wasn’t a hard sell. And even so the law was barely confirmed on a referendum.

Honey, I shrunk the coalition!

The new law was passed on 20 October with an ordinary majority and immediately caused a bit of a rift in the largest coalition party as Andrej Magajna (leader of non-parliamentary Christian Socialist party, elected as MP on a Social Democrats‘ ticket) broke ranks and gave the crucial thirtieth signature needed by opposition Slovene Democratic Party (SDS) and Slovene National Party (SNS) to call a referendum on the freshly minted law. Furthermore Magajna left SD’s club and declared himself an indpendent.

One vote less in a squabble-prone left wing coalition is quite a price to pay for a single piece of legislation. This proves that the law, which was drafted in the ministry of culture (a portfolio held by Zares’ Majda Širca) has such a strong backing in the government and PM Pahor personally that he was willing to see his majority in the parliament reduced to 47 votes. just a vote above the single-vote majority.

Cynics will obviously say that this is a small price to pay to have RTVSLO shaped according to Zares’ and Pahor’s wishes, and to an extent that is true. The true question therefore is whether RTVSLO will truly be returned to the public domain as the coalition claims or will it be further politicised as the opposition claims. Janez Janša’s SDS crying foul on political influence over RTVSLO is of course a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, but this does not automatically mean that the law is good. But it does provide some basis for gradual comeback of quality content and serious journalism to what supposedly wants to be the Slovenian BBC. But nothing will change just because there’s a new law in place. Just sayin’

Oh, the irony!

Wait. What? Who said there’s a new law in place? The referendum bid was successful, which means that the voters will have the final say in the matter. And this is where we come full circle to the beginning of the post. It is somewhat ironic that today it is the opposition which wants to institute a “Referendum day”, mostly on the grounds that there are numerous referendums being mulled (RTVSLO, law on menial work and pension reform among others) and “since we’re at it, we might just vote on them all in one go”.

We’ll neglect the fact that this is a rather poor attempt at shooting down Pahor’s government at the expense of an overhaul this country badly needs and rather focus on the fact that Zares responded fiercely to the idea. Not just because they see the referendum as a “waste of taxpayers’ time and money” (which is the official party position) but also because holding a referendum on 17 April would a) probably sink the law by default as it would not be voted on on merit but as a protest vote against the government and b) would – if it somehow survived – come into force on 1 January 2012, more than a year from now. Which is precisely one of the drawbacks of Zares’ idea pengovsky pointed out a year-and-a-half ago.

Yes, I am feeling rather smug 😀

From Dubai With Love

While pengovsky was addressing the wider aspects of multiculturalism, a true human resource drama of nearly Shakespearian proportions was unravelling in Slovenia at the end of which Prime Minister Borut Pahor had to say goodbye to one of his closest coworkers, chief of staff Simona Dimic, who could (had this been a different James Bond spoof) rightly be called Pussy Galore on account of her looks. She was accused of corruption and abuse after it was revealed that she took out a EUR 350,000 loan with state-owned Nova Ljubljanska banka to renovate the house, that workers of the embattled construction company Vegrad worked on her project and even took materiel from a larger Vegrad’s construction site and, tangentially, that her partner’s tourist agency had a suspicious spike in turnover since the new government took over. The pressure was mounting and days later Dimic resigned from her post and reportedly took refuge from the media onslaught in Dubai, accompanied by her partner and their child.

Photoshop job by yours truly

The snowflake which started the avalanche was a loan of some 350k EUR which she took out with state-owned NLB to renovate a house she and her partner own in a plush Ljubljana neighbourhood Murgle. This was combined with claims that builders worked on the site incognito and were in fact employed by the embattled construction company Vegrad and that materiel for renovation was taken from one of Vegrad’s nearly-failed housing projects in Ljubljana. This was an explosive enough mix which – combined with some very clumsy PR, a couple of unanswered questions and a few inconsistencies – led to her resignation.

Vegrad and NLB

Vegrad probably deserves a post of its own, but to put in the context, suffice it to say that the company (which recently filed for bankruptcy) became one of the major players in the construction during the construction boom and undertook to build a large housing project in Ljubljana but went under because of if due to combination of the financial meltdown and some gross mismanagement of its CEO Hilda Tovšak (who, by the way, is on trial in the Operation Clean Shovel). As the company started its protracted and painful demise it turned out that wasn’t paying its already miserably underpaid workers, mostly foreign labourers from Bosnia.

With social injustice still (and rightly so) being magnum crimen in Slovenian society, this was and still is a huge story which boiled thrice over, to the point where everyone jumps at the mere mention of the company, almost regardless of the context.

Ditto for NLB, which still suffers from overexposure to bad loans, awarded to various politically or otherwise well connected managers and manager wannabes in the past few years. As a result NLB requires somewhere between 200 and 400 million EUR increase in capital, which will probably come in the form of taxpayer’s money. And since a 350k EUR loan is not peanuts – at least from the point of views of the “ordinary people” (an populist angle Slovenian media are increasingly covering all stories from) – a conclusion that was immediately made (or at least inferred) that the loan was granted without the usual scrutiny and that Vegrad was continuing it’s practice of exploiting its workers – all for beautification of a senior official’s crib.

… the fuck?

It looked bad from the beginning and it got only worse. For all her cunning, Dimic reacted badly and denied allegations but refused to offer further explanations thus only fuelling speculations further. At some point she sort of caved in and presented some documentation. But it was too little to late.

Fair’s fair and it must be said that while big, 350k EUR loan is not impossible. Yes, initially the bank will probably have refused or place some impossible conditions. But since a bank is not a supermarket where you just walk in and pick stuff from the shelf (not any more, that is), there’s always room for negotiations. Especially if your credit is more or less OK.

Furthermore, journalists always pressed Dimic whether it was Vegrad which renovated her house and she continuously denied that. But “Vegrad” is not the same as “Vegrad’s workers”. Pengovsky is not trying to unnecessarily defend anyone, but I can totally see a scenario where a worker or a subcontractor who went without pay for months, simply takes on another job and uses materiel and tools from Vegrad’s construction site to do a quickie somewhere else, cash on the nail. This is pure speculation, but it is somewhat corroborated with inconsistencies in Dimic’s later explanations where it transpired that a) her spouse signed a very loose contract with a small construction company to handle the project and b) there were some cash transactions, possibly to avoid paying taxes.

Escape to Dubai

But that was only the start of a very bad week. An old story about Escape travel agency was revived. This apparently somewhat obscure travel agency is owned by Dimic’s spouse (together with another partner) and is mostly selling Dubai destinations. According to media reports the company’s revenue sky-rocketed after the new government took over and Dimic became Pahor chief of staff, with various government ministries and bodies apparently buying airline tickets directly through Escape. Pegovsky can not say for a fact that there was anything illegal going on, but it does look unhealthy, no matter how you look at it. Especially since there’s a government-wide system for purchasing airline tickets where short-notice tenders are issued and travel agents then bid with the lowest price.

Anyways, point being that the media onslaught was such, that despite expressions of strong support by the PM himself Simona Dimic resigned from her post last Friday by ways of a tearful letter to the Prime Minister, thanking him for all that he’s done for her and the trust he had shown her, but added that it was all just too much and that she can’t take it anymore. The very next day she was on a plane to Dubai together with her son and spouse.

So, what was really going on?

Simona Dimic was one of Pahor’s closest advisers for the past twelve-or-so years, especially during his stint as a Member of the European Parliament. With his ascent to the premiership Pahor picked her as his chief of staff. Dimic was reportedly very effective in this powerful position. Some would say even too powerful, which was probably what caused her downfall. According to media reports her influence over who gets picked to various para-government positions was enormous, but little birdies tell pengovsky she increasingly had a say over various government policies. And with that she presumably overplayed her hand.

There are various competing theories as to what exactly happened:

1) Dimic has outlived her usefulness to Pahor and was starting to reach over his head.

2) The scandal was coalition-induced as a sort of revenge by other coalition parties and their leaders for the shit they had to go through, especially with Ultra Affair and Canine Scandal (Zares and LDS respecitvely)

3) It’s all Janez Janša’s doing, as a warning to PM Pahor that he too is vunerable and that Janša will do everything to destroy Pahor should the Patria Case proceed.

Let’s deal with No. 2 first, as it is highly unlikely. Neither Zares nor LDS at the moment have the capacity to launch a full-scale media offensive on the largest coalition party. In addition, this would require plenty of coordination on the highest levels of both parties, not to mention that it would all have to be planned during election campaign. However, it is highly likely, that all junior coalition parties and their leaders, Katarina Kresal of LDS, Gregor Golobič of Zares and Karl Erjavec of DeSUS just sat back and enjoyed the ride, since Pahor didn’t move as much as a muscle when each of them hit their respective badlands.

But Brutus is an honourable man…

Well, that’s not exactly true. What Pahor did each of those cases is to state very strong support for the embattled leaders of coalition parties. But there’s a twist. Each and every time Pahor publicly supported them but then left them out to dry. It is a shrewd tactic, not unlike what Shakespeare had Mark Anthony say in Julius Cesar but in this case serves mostly to save face and curb his political allies.

I’m not saying that Pahor initiated the whole thing, but if you will look closely, he – publicly at least – didn’t do much to help Dimic either (save the aforementioned expression of support) and not unlike Karl Erjavec of DeSUS she too buckled under pressure and resigned of her own free will, thus diverting at herself all the mud that was beginning to stick to the polished figure of the PM as well. Parallels with Erjavec’s protracted removal from ministry of environment are stunning, in fact.

If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead by now

It was Virgil Sollozo who said that to Tom Hagen in The Godfather, but it is possible that the media onslaught was orchestrated by Janez Janša of SDS who has his ever increasing pile of elephant shit to deal with. The Patria Case is progressing and the prosecution just upped the ante, changing the indictment from “attempted bribery and corruption ” to “complicity in bribery and corruption” which is a notch or two more serious a charge. If we presume for a moment that the prosecution does in fact have a case, then Janša is probably worried sick. And if that is the case, then he might have just sent Pahor a message, basically saying “I can get to you”.

While we’re on the deep end of the conspiracy pool: in 2005 Pahor and Dimic were returning from Brussels by car and it caught fire in a tunnel on Ljubljana-Koper motorway. Officially foul play was excluded, but some people claimed that it was in fact an assassination attempt. It’s more or less a crack-pot theory, but I thought I’d mention it while we’re on the issue 😀

Wrap it up, will ya?

Regardless of what actually happened, even if it was just media sort-of-performing their role in society (although they get no marks for style and only average marks for technical excellence), bottom line is that the PM is now probably better off then he was a month ago, because he removed (or had removed) a powerful courtier whose ego started issuing cheques her body couldn’t cash (to quote another favourite film of mine). And in the final analysis the story was a welcome diversion, steering the public away from other, quite possibly more important issues.

Bossman is not Slovenian Obama

It was reported by The Beebs, The Guardian, AP and HufPo while CNN even did a live interview with the man. Sunday last Peter Bossman was elected mayor of the Slovenian Municipality of Piran and thus became the first black mayor in a post-socialist country in Europe.

Jonathan Mann of CNN announcing interview with mayor-elect of Piran Peter Bossman

Unlike the death of a certain allegedly prophetic mollusc Bossman’s victory most certainly is newsworthy. If nothing else, this is a first and media love firsts. So the underlying question is what (if anything) does electing a black mayor mean for Slovenia, its people and their attitude towards multiculturalism. The answer, I’m afraid, is – not much.

Be the same

A native of Ghana, Peter Bossman came to Slovenia (then still very much part of Yugoslavia) in early 1970s to study medicine and stayed here ever since. He married a Croatian-born fellow doctor with whom he has two daughters and eventually settled in the aforementioned picturesque coastal township where today he runs a private practice and is a respected member of the community.

Bossman ran on a Social Democratic ticket and in the second round narrowly defeated the incumbent mayor Tomaž Gantar, a candidate of Piran Je Naš List (Piran is ours). There’s a story behind the origin and the name of the list, but suffice it to say that the “ours” part is suppose to imply “local and regional” as opposed to “state controlled from Ljubljana“.

Anyways. Point being that Bossman won not on account of the colour of his skin but on account of his electoral platform. Which might be good news. Except for the fact that Bossman did not promote himself to voters as black candidate. He’d have trouble doing so anyway as there as there are not all that many black voters in Slovenia let alone in Piran. And this is the crux of he matter. Bossman is one of only handful of blacks in Slovenia, who do not pose any challenge to the established order of white-catholic-male-dominated society. Thus the colour of his skin was not an issue.

Every country has its niggers

Slovenia – especially its impressionable post-independence-born-MTV-infused-and-capitalism-conditioned youth – was quick to catch on to racial stereotypes of the Western world. Those who tread the soil on the sunny side of the Alps long enough will remember Ariel McDonald, US-born play maker for Union Olimpija basketball club who was at some point awarded Slovenian citizenship. He said in an interview that he was shocked by the fact that during league matches fans of the opposite teams would shout insults such as “nigger monkey” at him and then those same people would cheer him wildly during national team matches.

Insulting as it was, this was just people tastelessly mimicking other people’s prejudices. In Slovenia the role of “niggers” as second-class citizens who should be kept as low on the social scale as possible is (neglecting the Roma people) generally reserved for ethnicities of former Yugoslavia, especially Bosnians and Kosovo Albanians (or Muslims in general). The common derogatory denominator for these people is “čefur”.

Pengovsky vividly remembers 2006 when Zoran Janković ran for Ljubljana mayor for the first time and a lot was being said on account of the tell-tale suffix “-ić” in his surname which generally denotes a Serbian, Bosnian or Croatian origin. And this was in Ljubljana, which is supposedly one of the more cosmopolitan areas of Slovenia. Janković then went to great lengths to demonstrate that he is much more of a Ljubljanchan than most of the other candidates, regardless of the fact that he was born in Serbia and lived there until he was eleven years old.

The general conclusion thus being that the only reason Bossman’s skin colour did not play a role in Piran elections is that there are not all that many Ghanians in Slovenia and that the mayor-elect has integrated in the society well. After all, doctors are still among the most respected profession in Slovenia.

And now for the good news…

Piran and the Istra region in general (both Slovenian and Croat parts) have been at the crossroads of cultural influences practically since the dawn of time, even more so since Empress Marie Theresa had a rail road built between Vienna and Trieste, elevating this provincial little town to the status of a strategic port. With trains and ships came people from all over the region and even the globe. And with this developed tolerance. Perhaps of peculiar sort, but tolerance nevertheless. Pengovsky is only guessing here, but it is possible that municipality of Piran, which includes the resort town of Portorož and is heavily dependant on tourism is one of
few places in Slovenia where a black person can be elected to a high public office.

On one hand this of course goes to show that Slovenia in general is still a far cry from a truly tolerant society, but on the other hand it shows that it can be done.

Bossman is not Slovenian Obama

He said so himself in many of the recent interviews he gave for local and world media. And he is correct. And not just because Obama’s policies would put him right of centre on the Slovenian political continuum. Although definitely one for the books, election of Peter Bossman does not represent a tectonic shift in Slovenian society. That will only be achieved if and when Slovenians elect a president of Bosnian origin who will be a practising Muslim. And if you feel I’m adding insult to injury here, try this on for size: we’ll see just how much of a factor Bossman’s skin colour is, when he will start executing his policies and (by definition) begin alienating voters. If he will be voted out of office on account of his policies and/or party affiliation and not his race, then we will be able to claim some sort of progress.

Further reading: Camille’s posts on Peter Bossman