Pengovsky did his share of music parodies, most notable of them being this one. But this one by David Bizjak takes the cake so far. Slovene Twittersphere was abuzz yesterday with Borut Pahor (Barbra Streisand), which combines the recent hit by Duck Sauce with some of our dear prime minister’s better rhetorical bravuras 🙂
Enjoy!
Borut Pahor (Barbra Streisand) by davidbizjak
In what appears to be an overwhelming defeat for the government of Borut Pahor, Slovenians today rejected the law on menial work by an 80/20 vote against. The turnout percentage was in the very low thirties, which makes it one of the more attended referendums in recent history (save the Arbitration Agreement referendum). That is in itself a sad fact, but there you go.
Lost. Ministers Katarina Kresal, Aleš Zalar, Ivan Svetlik and PM Borut Pahor (source: RTVSLO)
Politically, this is a slap-in-the-face for PM Pahor and his government that will hurt more than they will be willing to admit. True, the upcoming referendum on the pension reform is much more important and – if rejected – could even cause the government to step down. However, the law on menial work was a key part of labour market reform which will now still see plenty of tax evasion and companies which exploit students full time without guaranteeing them any social security whatsoever.
PM Pahor and labour minister Ivan Svetlik played down the result saying that people apparently are not yet aware of importance of reforms. On the other hands, there are calls for the PM to step down (even over at the wonderful Drugi dom blog, which generally gravitates to the left). Predictably the opposition, spearheaded by SDS of Janez Janša are interpreting the result as a no-confidence vote for the government, even though this time around the opposition just tagged along in what pengovsky still maintains was an unholy alliance of special interest. Anyways, there’s no reason for the government to resign. Elections are a year and a half away and even if the government resigned today, elections could not be held sooner than in autumn this year, not to mention that we’d probably have to go through a period of extended political crisis, since the MPs are about as likely to recall the parliament as they are likely to, say, ratify Slovenia becoming part of Croatia. Point being, that resignation of the government would most likely cause more problems than it would solve. Especially, since the other guys are not even close to being ready to take over. In fact, despite their vocal calls for Pahor to back his bags, the current situation suits them just fine, because they have yet to substantiate their claims of 50+ result in 2012 elections.
This is also yet another defeat for pollsters. Public opinion polls did in fact forecast victory for the no-vote, but no single poll detected a 80/20 distribution. Not one. Sure, it was a beautiful day today and with low turnout the margin of error increases substantially, but how the fuck don’t you detect an electoral freight-train coming in your direction? But perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps they did detect it but no-one published it, since the law forbade it. Days ago, the Constitutional Court ruled that this particular provision is unconstitutional and in the future we can look forward to last-minute polls on Friday nights :).
The way things stand now, people with ideas don’t have the authority, and people with authority don’t have the ideas. Expect turbulence ahead. We’re in for a bumpy ride…
This Sunday Slovenia votes on referendum on menial work, courtesy of student organisations backed by the unions. The law, which is primarily aimed at reforming student work in Slovenia had seen some well organised and stiff opposition both from the student organisations and the unions, who were joined by the right-wing parties of the opposition, thus creating an unholy alliance of special interests aimed at shooting down whatever reform attempts this government undertakes. After the law on menial work we’re up for a referendum on pension reform and as of yesterday Janez Janša‘s SDS and Zmago Jelinčič‘s SNS teamed up on the law against black market labour.
Last year’s violence makes any argument against menial work null and void
But we’ll deal with those in due course. Today we’re three days away from a vote where campaign brought us a shitload of misinformation, fear-mongering and outright lying on the part of those who oppose it and (it needs to be said) a somewhat lacklustre campaign on the part of the government. In case you haven’t done so yet, it is high time for you to pop over to drfilomena’s who put together an awesome post on the issue (Slovene only) and you can see why, despite certain drawbacks, we’d all be better off if the law were indeed enacted.
Going biblical on their asses
Having said that, pengovsky has a couple of axes to grind. First and foremost: if all were good and fair in this world, after what happened on 19 May last year when the anti-menial-work demo went bad, student organisations and everybody who assisted them in that sordid enterprise (unions included) would be hiding under a rock somewhere.
As far as I’m concerned, anyone who indulges in senseless violence and destruction has no legitimacy whatsoever to be a part of the public debate. I honestly don’t give a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys if last year’s demonstration just got out of control or whether the three-hour-long rampage was premeditated and planned. Organisers and supporters of that particular rally failed to assume responsibility for the mayhem with people in charge actually fleeing the scene. Without a sincere apology and financial and/or legal consequences, any and all arguments against menial work are null and void. If those who oppose the law cannot face the consequences of their actions, they are in no position to judge actions of others.
But since going biblical on their assess is of little use save venting off some extra steam, let’s look at the reasons for this unholy alliance forming in the first place.
Special interests
As things stand now, student work is in fact unfair competition to regular labour market. Being a student entitles you to work within a very broad framework virtually without limit either in labour hours or monies earned (at some point you get taxed, but the ceiling is set so high no one really worries about that). On the other hand however, student work spiralled out of control and is becoming mainstream, not the “alternative” labour market. Given the near infinite supply of students workforce (which is performing even the most complex and responsible tasks), there is precious little incentive for employers to take on people full-time. Thus students find themselves in a viscous circle where they are actually forced to keep studying (at least formally) for as long as possible, since losing student status also means losing your job and only gets you a one-way ticket to the dole office.
And this is precisely the reason why labour unions are against the new law. Menial work disbands the student-only labour market and brings in pensioners and the unemployed, endangering the status quo that exists in the job market. Not that things are rosy in that department at all, but rather than being proactive, Slovene labour unions chose to defend the current (unsustainable) situation at all costs. And that includes the pension reform. Their goals are short term and so are their actions.
Student organisations, who in theory should have a vested interest in students finding jobs as soon as possible have instead become used to the substantial income from commissions on student work. They take a ten-percent cut out of all earnings students make under the current system. How that money is spent, no one knows, because there is no oversight, neither internal nor external. In fact Student organisation of Slovenia (the student umbrella institution) has so much autonomy that it can rightly be called a state-within-a-state. Obviously, they are keen on keeping the status quo as well.
And the opposition… Well, they follow a brutally simple logic: whatever is bad for this government is good for them, future of the country be damned.
The honest ones
Just about the only honest criticism of the new law goes long the lines that the new law fails to address problems of the existing system and will still enable abuse by some, forcing others to pay for those excesses. This post by Zloba (also in Slovenian) also writes to that effect. Personally, I think this is a flawed logic. Not just because the new law provides for a centralised database of who’s working where and for how long, but also because it imposes (in my opinion) effective limits both on duration and amount of menial labour an employer can engage. Anything above the limit and the employer in question will have to find other alternatives to get the job done, not just rely on cheap student workforce whose social and health insurance is paid for by the taxpayers.
Namely, under the new law people the time on menial work would count towards people’s retirement age and provide them with social and health insurance as well as additional stipend funds, all of which would be taxed off their income. Given the fact that it will no longer be a student-only labour market, this automatically means more funds for those particular ends.
What if…
However, there’s an alternative: if the law on menial work is rejected on Sunday, the government might just as well abolish the student labour market, forcing students to either make it on their allowances and/or stipends or compete in the real job market, working on contracts or as private entrepreneurs with full benefits and taxations thereof. The current situation is unbearable and is in fact working against students’ interests.
Politically, there is a lot riding on this. The few polls that were made on the issue suggest, that the law will be rejected on Sunday. Should this really happen, it will be a substantial blow to the already beleaguered government of Borut Pahor which again got only about 20 % approval rating. The possible rejection of the menial work will not bring down the government, but it will be a bad omen for the upcoming and way more important referendum on pension reform. Should that particular piece of legislation also be rejected, then Slovenia will really find itself in deep shit. In that case pengovsky would not be surprised to see PM Pahor tender his resignation.
President Danilo Türk underwent a surgical procedure on Tuesday, removing malignant tissue from his prostate, the Office of the President said earlier today. According to the statement the procedure was successful and the President is expected to make a full recovery, returning to his duties next week.
The Prez was under the knife (source)
Wishing good health and speedy recovery to The Prez, pengovsky is somewhat troubled by the post festum announcement of presidential medical woes. The issue in itself is nothing new and has been debated time and again: to what extent is the public entitled to know medical details of their elected officials?. Slovenia has a patchy history on this. First Slovenian president Milan Kučan was relatively free of medical problems (at least those we know of) and during his two-and-a-half terms in office was admitted to hospital only once, due to kidney stone problems. Before Kučan, the first Slovenian Prime Minister Lojze Peterle had his appendix removed while in office.
More known and widely reported was medical condition of the late Janez Drnovšek. In 1999, while still PM, Drnovšek was admitted to hospital and had a cancerous kidney removed. Three years after the operation he ran for president and was elected to the office despite confirming that he was “of slightly weaker health”. His embracing of alternative medicine to combat cancer caught international attention and his changed lifestyle was an inspiration to many in Slovenia and abroad. Nevertheless, Drnovšek died of cancer in late 2007, shortly after leaving office.
And of course, let us not forget the glorious fuck-up years ago while Janez Janša was Prime Minister, when he had his hernia operated. Then, as now, the media were informed post festum, but the fun began when his spokesperson (some say deliberately) made a typo and wrote that the PM had ligament (Slovene: kita) instead of hernia (Slovene: kila) surgery. However, “kita” is also slang for cock (or penis, if you prefer) and you can imagine the roaring laughter that echoed for weeks on end.
And while we’re on the subject, rumours are circulating of Janša being of ill health. Whether or not that is true and if true, what is the exact nature of his medical condition, no one save Janša and those closest to him know. Which brings us again to the question: How much should the public know?
For better or for worse, I think that there is indeed a limit to that. True, there is a certain logic in politicians presenting a clean bill of health before assuming and during their time in office. It’s nice to know that the people we trust to run the country as physically capable of performing the task. If a person in office has a debilitating illness, or a condition which is impairing him or her from doing the job effectively, then the public has the right to know and the politician in question most likely has to step down (hat tip: John Morrow on Quora)
But good health is no guarantee whatsoever that they will execute their office in the public interest. Case in point being President Drnovšek who (in my opinion) was one hell of a president after he changed his lifestyle on account of his disease. I’m not saying he was a bad president before that or even that he was a bad prime minister (his track record remains unbeaten), but fact of the matter is that his presidency has had a profoundning and extremely positive effect after he “turned alternative”.
But there are legal and political issues to consider as well. In case of president Türk’s surgery this means there should be at least some kind of announcement made. True, Slovene president does not have nuclear codes, nor are we at war (save with ourselves, but we don’t need a president for that). But despite everything, the President still is the Commander in Chief. Furthermore, the Constitution stipulates that in case of temporary or permanent incapacitation of the President, his powers are transferred to the President of the Parliament.
I imagine President Türk was under narcosis during surgery which means that for the duration of the procedure the powers would have been transferred to President of the Parliament Pavle Gantar. Hopefully, the necessary paperwork was filled out, but a public announcement was definitely lacking. Some would say that it’s not such a big deal, given the fact that the president’s powers in Slovenia are limited and that it’s a more or less routine procedure. But what if – Bob forbid – something went wrong?
Despite his limited powers, the President has some relatively important duties and obligations regarding the functioning of democratic institutions. For example, he nominates candidates for judges of the Constitutional Court. In fact, it was only yesterday when his nominee for a vacated post at the Constitutional Court Rado Bohinc was not approved by the parliament meaning Türk must go through the entire selection process again. What if he were unable to and the public were to find out through this that the presidential powers were transferred to Gantar?
I realise this looks like nitpicking but normally President Türk is such a stickler for constitutional details that this is quite a serious slip-up on his part and the part of his office. Again: I assume the powers were formally transferred but in the name of transparency, accountability and all the of-the-people-for-the-people-and-by-the-people shit, it would be nice if they would let us know that the Commander in Chief is going under the scalpel.
The same goes for the Prime Minister. Agreed, the PM wields more executive and less formal power, but in his case there is not even a clear line of succession as there is no formal Vice-PM (or something). Technically, the PM can decide which of his ministers can run the daily government business, but should the PM become incapacitated, there is no-one with parliament-mandated powers to run the executive branch. And the situation in Slovenia at the moment is so fragile that PM Borut Pahor reportedly cannot afford to be out of the country for more than three-or-so days.
However, most of these constitutional nuances are lost on general Slovene media. They are more concerned with why The Prez went to Innsbruck, Austria to have the surgery when he has professed his faith in Slovene health system. Well, that’s bullshit, methinks. The Prez can have him self opened up wherever he damn pleases, if he pays for it out of his own pocket. Which he has done in this case. And were he to choose a Slovenian hospital (apparently only Celje hospital is capable of performing a similar robotic surgery), he would be accused of jumping the queue.
(source)
After the Archivegate fiasco, Janez Janša and his SDS took a noticeable (and predictable) dip in the polls. It was just too obvious for anyone but the most hardened SDS supporters to believe that the whole thing was just an honest mistake. But the effect will probably not last beyond a couple of months, although it is highly likely that this will become the proverbial gift that keeps on giving, at least whenever Janša will question the credibility of his political opponents.
Ghosts Of Independence Past
However, the leader of the largest opposition party remains on the defensive. It just so happened that parallel with the Archivegate claims of Janša’s involvement of illegal arms sales resurfaced (yet again) with people who claim (or are claimed) to have been in on it saying that Janša took cuts (or at least knew of cuts being taken) from arms sales to Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Now, this is highly complex subject and features Janša, his fellow political travellers and a number of other former high ranking Slovenian politicians, including former presidents Milan Kučan and late Janez Drnovšek.
At some point pengovsky will probably (have to) write a blog-post on the issue, but I admit this is a daunting task, as books have been written about it and still it remains unresolved. The thing is that twenty years after independence, wherever there’s a shady arms deal, Janša is not far away. He is definitely not the only one, but he is one of the few names that pop up every single time. And right now the question-de-jour is whether or not he had a part in what seems to be a 10 million euro difference in cash between what buyers from Croatia and Bosnia paid to Slovenia and the amount that was officially registered by defence ministry while Janša headed the department.
It should be noted that throughout the last two decades, give or take a year, Janša denied taking any illegal activities and that he was never convicted of anything (whether or not he was charged with anything escapes me at the moment). It should also be noted that of the four parliamentary inquests, none filed a final report, thus only adding to the confusion with partial information being leaked and interpreted in a zillion different ways. But one thing seems certain. Twenty years on, Janša is looking increasingly lonely in professing his innocence. People are starting to point their fingers and they point them dangerously close to Janša.
Meanwhile in the Batcave…
On the other hand the dark magic that is being called “handling the crisis” and which is being practised by the government of Borut Pahor seems to be making at least partial headway. Nothing dramatic yet, but those same polls which noted a dip for Janša, saw a slight bounce in the government’s ratings.
Somewhat more surprisingly, however, the reform legislation – at this point the pension reform and the law on menial work – seems to have a fighting chance in the upcoming referendums. In fact, according to polls by yesterday’s Delo newspaper, a majority of voters support the law on menial work (reforming the area of student labour), while those opposing the pension reform have only a couple of percentage points’ lead over those who support it. And that’s before campaigning started for real.
Much work remains to be done before PM Pahor and his coalition can claim another crucial referendum victory, and some would argue these are not really reforms but more of a patch-me-ups, plugging only the biggest leaks and not really kick-starting the economy. In all honesty pengovsky wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more substantial pension reform, but until we get a working model of basic income, every reform will be limited to plugging leaks. Not to mention the fact that the ruling coalition again suffered a minor hear attack due to controversial (and harmful) plan to build bloc 6 of Šoštanj coal power-plant, where the costs have apparently risen for additional 300 million euro, at the moment totalling at 1.5 billion euros.
In other news…
Combination of perceived political and economic gridlock on one hand and the inherent inability of a capitalist social order to correct errors caused by its own design flaws together with reaping all the “benefits” of wealth distribution which comes as a result of a transition from a socialist to a capitalist society, is a bitch. But one is still amazed at how the above leads highly intelligent and academically accomplished individuals into having the most wonderfully absurd ideas.
The latest one, launched by Žiga Turk, formerly minister of development in Janša’s government, currently a Ljubljana city councilman and a fellow twitterer, who floated the idea of a “reset”. Days ago his thinking was beefed up by two other former ministers, Matej Lahovnik who served as minister of economy in governments of Tone Rop and Borut Pahor and Marko Pavliha who served as minister of transport in Rop’s government, former head of the Government Institute for Marco-economic Analysis and Development Janez Šušteršič and Rado Pezdir, the bad boy of Slovene economics (and I mean that in the kindest possible way).
Together they expanded on the idea of “resetting Slovenia”, basically saying the whole country and most if not all of its subsystems are FUBAR and that we’re better off starting all over again. Only this time we’ll do it right.
Now, I’m oversimplifying things, to be sure. Their text is substantial and it has been already taken apart by Drugi Dom and the good doctor (all links in Slovenian). But on the issue of fixing problems of capitalism with more capitalism pengovsky said all he had to say some time ago. But as things stand now, this is a valid issue in a public debate.
At any rate, the entire quagmire that is Slovenian political landscape just got a bit more murky and opaque in the past week. Fun times! 😀
Gitmo, Big O, and Lil’ B. (source and source)
Just as detailed in the now-infamous Wikileaks cable, Slovene PM Borut Pahor and US President Barack Obama discussed the possibility of Slovenia taking in a Gitmo detainee. The discussion apparently bore fruit as the government is mulling changes to the Aliens Act, expanding the possibilities of allowing temporary settlement of individuals for “political, cultural, economic and other reasons”. Political being the operative word, obviously.
Just as obviously, the possibility of a Gitmo detainee in Slovenia raised hair on the backs of defenders of all things Slovenian. Things like “al-Qaida in Slovenia” were being said with some people practically expecting a pair of 757s being parked into the Twin Towers of Nova Ljubljanska Banka across the street from the parliament and similar bullshit.
That resettlement of a Gitmo detainee is closely connected to the general state of Slovenia- US relations is no secret. At first glance it can be considered as a good-will/kiss-up gesture by Prime Minister Borut Pahor to President Barack Obama. After all, the US manhandled Croatia into signing the Arbitration Agreement with Slovenia and is the one player which decides how much clout Slovenia can have in the Balkans. Not to mention the fact that Slovenia is wooing US investors big time.
The fact that recent exploits of Slovenian economic diplomacy in the Arab and North African world have, for the time being at least, turned into desert dust since dictatorships of the area are being revolutionised, only adds to the necessity of being chums with people who still have money.
But I digress. The point is that both Slovenian government and the US Ambassador to Slovenia Joseph Mussomelli are bending over backwards to point out how this is a humanitarian gesture on Slovenian part and how we are helping out our American buddies to clean up this big pile of human rights abuse they’ve accumulated on their door step and with which they would have nothing to do any more, thank you very much.
If this really were the case, then Slovenia would be quite right to flip the bird to Washington, tell the Americans to fuck off and sort Gitmo out for themselves. I mean, why is it that US allies all over the world must now take in people who were denied fair trial, presumption of innocence and every other goodie of Habeas Corpus, whereas the US is now playing dumb and continues to promote democracy and human righst al over the world?
However, the case for Slovenia taking in a Gitmo detainee(s) is quite simple. Courtesy of the once-eternal Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel Slovenia signed the Vilinius Letter, effectivelly joining the Coalition of the Willing and supported the illegal and unjustified US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Slovenia later sent military and police instructors to that country, further involving itself in the mess of George W. Bush‘s making. It is only fair we contribute in resolving the mess too.
We helped fuck it up. We should also help clean it up.
(original image: Blaž Samec/Delo)
After a failed attempt to fight off accusations of forgery, Slovene Democratic Party of Janez Janša issued an “Apology and clarification to visitors of our website” where it stated that “upon revising the entire procedure of collecting the archive documents a year ago, we cannot claim that all documents were sent to all addressees [as implied by the published document]“.
The party goes on to state that it now “allows for the possibility that due to (dis)organisation of the SZDL archives in the Archive of Slovenia, the particular archive included documents which were not part of the letter of July 2 1980. Should this really be the case, it was an error on our part because we did not check the document thoroughly enough and in that case we apologize to our readers“.
However, the party explicitly refuses to apologize to President Danilo Türk, and now says that the president “was member of the highest circle of Slovenian leadership at the time and was informed about the Velikovec case. Those documents, which were without a doubt addressed to him, report on trial of UDBa [general moniker for SDV secret service] operatives. He was privy to the background unknown to ordinary citizens. He knew the background in 1980 and he knew them in 2010 when he gave a medal to protagonist of the bombing Tomaž Ertl“. SDS concludes that the whole thing is only one more reason for the secret archives to be declassified.
Wow. No, seriously. Wow! Cornelious said it best in his comment yesterday: this really is a non-apology. Something along the lines of “oops, we fucked up, but we proved our point regardless”.
Well, SDS didn’t prove their point. Far from it. The party and its president only proved that they are willing to take unfathomable liberties with publicly accessible archive material. Bob knows what they would do with classified documents. And even if those documents were declassified (the government keeps them secret invoking interests of the national security), SDS lost any and all justification to interpret them. Not only are they playing dumb. They’re taking everyone else for dumb as well. I mean, the documents were in their possession for a year. A year! And it is only now that they discover a “mistake”? What other “mistakes” did they make in the past?
All Janša and SDS had to do to win the 2012 elections is to sit back, look pretty and keep their mouth shut for the next eighteen months. Instead they’ve proven beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no limit to what they’re willing to do to regain control of this country.
Expressing how dumb that was in words just doesn’t work, hence: facepalm.
