Slovenia | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Muddy Hollows Seats A New Parliament

Slovenian parliament constitutes for a new term today, kicking off a power-transfer process at the end of which Janez Janša will be looking at the PM’s office from the outside in. When that milestone is reached, Robert Golob of Gibanje Svoboda party will become the tenth person in history with an Outlook footer that says “Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia”.

Inaugural session of the new Slovenian parliament. All 90 MPs were present as were many onlookers. President Pahor opened the new parliament. — *New parliament in session (photo: Matija Sušnik/National Assembly)*

Golob spent the past weeks busily getting all of his ducks in a row. He concluded a coalition agreement with Tanja Fajon of SD and Luka Mesec of Levica. In the process he probably saved the former’s ass and gave the latter a chance of a lifetime. Somewhat surprisingly, SAB and LMŠ leaders Alenka Bratušek and Marjan Šarec get to play along, too.

Robert Golob Wins Slovenian Election: The Fuck Just Happened?

OK, so the “just” in the title is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, seeing as it has been nearly 72 hours since Robert Golob taking Janez Janša to the cleaner’s became global news. But still, Marshall Twito being defeated at the ballot box by a political adversary he himself had created, for the second time, is a big fucking deal.

Gibanje Svoboda led by Robert Golob threw a party after the election results were in. — *Party at Gibanje Svoboda electoral HQ after the results came in (source)*

But, wait, did pengovsky really state that Golob took Janša to the cleaner’s? He did? Well… In fact, the Glorious Leader and (some of his) minions even slightly increased their MP count. It is just that Robert Golob and his newly-minted party Gibanje Svoboda (GS) won basically all the other marbles, ending up with 41 MPs in a 90-seat parliament. Reader, it was a blow-out.

Ukraine War Forces Slovenian Politics To Think Foreign Policy Thoughts

In all honesty, it is a bit self-serving to try and look at Russian war against Ukraine through the lens of Muddy Hollows and its political cesspool. But seeing as this is an utterly self-serving blog, pengovsky will go right ahead. PM Janša, on the other hand, will stay put, as the Russian aggression preempted his photo-op in Kyiv planned for today.

Flags if Ukraine in the government district in Ljubljana. — *Ukrainian flags in the government district in Ljubljana (source)*

This, incidentally, should make the Glorious Leader available for a court-date in a defamation case against him. But he’ll probably claim an emergency NatSec Council meeting or something like that. And for once, he may not be lying through his teeth to get out of a court date.

The State of Muddy Hollows Play, part 1: Party Like It’s 1939

It has been… checks notes… more than a month since pengovsky posted anything on the state of play in Muddy Hollows. There were things to see and people to do and whatnot, but still apologies are in order. So, yeah..

Slovenian PM Janez Janša during a meeting of the coalition that kind of runs the show in Muddy Hollows — *The Glorious Leader at a coalition pow-wow (source)*

But shit did not stop going down in Slovenia and both readers were pleading, nay, screaming for an update. Which turned into an update series. Because who wants to read a five-thousad-words blogpost? Anyway, it so happens that said updates include pigeons, turncoats and rebrandings. They will also introduce a shitload of new parties, suspicious public opinion polls and overt hints to a Trump playbook. Oh, and a letter from the Glorious Leader.

Igor Zorčič Lives To See Another Day

Igor Zorčič just started his second iteration as speaker of the Slovenian parliament. He was appointed to the post as part of the coalition deal Janez Janša cobbled together in 2020. And he remains in the post in 2021 (at least for now) after quitting the SMC days ago, with Janša’s coalition, now deep in the minority government territory, unable to muster the votes to replaces him. This is serious political survival shit.

Speaker Igor Zorčič in a parliamentary session. — *Speaker Igor Zorčič remains at his post (source: Matija Sušnik/National Assembly)*

Things have been picking up pace in Muddy Hollows for some time now. They really accelerated days ago, however, when Janja Sluga, Brane Rajić and Igor Zorčič quit the SMC and joined forces with Jurij Lep who quit DeSUS and formed a group of independent MPs. The ruling coalition (what’s left of it, anyway) wanted its post back for itself and nominated NSi’s Jožef Horvat to take over. Turns out they were a vote short.