Zoran Janković | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Police Raid Zoran Janković

Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković got raided by law-enforcement agencies early this morning. The CrimPolice knocked on his door at about 6 am, produced a search warrant and searched his place, places of eight other individuals and fourteen places of work. While Janković himself was apparently not detained during the course of the investigation, six people were. This includes his two sons (one whom was in hospital, where his wife was having a C-section) as well as Uroš Ogrin, general manager of Gradis G, the principal contractor in the Stožice Complex project (and several other construction projects in the city).

Cop cars in front of the City Hall earlier today (photo: The Firm™)

Officially, the primary focus of the investigation is the Stožice complex and the flow of money surrounding it. The commercial part of the complex still isn’t finished, allegedly because GREP (a company established by Gradis G and the other contractor Energoplan for the purpose of constructing the complex) can’t secure a final credit line of about 15 million euro in what is essentially a 350 million euro project. Specifically, the police suspect (among other things) money laundering, abuse of office and fraud.

Right now no charges are filed. They usually aren’t in cases like these. It will take the cops over at National Bureau of Investigation some time before they sift through the pile of papers they’ve confiscated but it seems inconceivable that the prosecution would not press the case all the way to the court. Regardless of how watertight the case against the mayor really is.

Because even though everyone was loath to look at the case from the political point of view, it is obvious that the ramifications of this case go beyond mere questions of legality of Janković’s actions. With him being the president of the largest party in the parliament this somewhat levels the political playing field in Slovenia, since his arch-rival Janez Janša is knee-deep in the Patria Affair. Somewhat being the operative word here as no charges are pressed as yet against Janković, while Janša is standing trial. Since the investigation was apparently opened a year and a half ago it would be unfair to say that the whole thing is purely political, but there are too many coincidences here to just brush them off.

First, as with almost every other big story in the last year, the whole thing broke while PM Janša was out of town. This time around he was in New York, attending the UN General Assembly, calling for a world without genocide (I’m sure everyone else went: Hey, why didn’t we think of that?). Second, this happened after the State Prosecution was transferred under the portfolio of Ministry of the interior, now ran by Vinko Gorenak of Janša’s SDS. And third, the fact that the raid happened on the same day Jankovič’s daughter-in-law was in hospital, giving birth via a C-section, reeks of intent to humiliate. These procedures are planned in advance and while pengovsky is not pointing any fingers, it looks as if someone was looking to add insult to injury.

But even if these are pure coincidences, fact remains that the spotlight is now firmly on Zoran Janković and this will be exploited by his political opponents in every way, shape or form. Indeed, it wasn’t long since president Danilo Türk was called upon to “publicly denounce” Janković, who was Türk’s first PM nominee after 2011 elections and whose party Positive Slovenia supports the incumbent president in his re-election bid. Funnily, no-one calls on SDS presidential candidate Milan Zver to publicly denounce Janez Janša due to him being tried in a court of law. And you can be sure Borut Pahor will try to jump on that particular bandwagon as well.

But while the right-wing will howl about how this is the beginning of an end of Jay-Z and the “entire left wing”, there is an issue that will have to be dealt with mostly by Positive Slovenia and sooner rather than later: as things stand right now, the party appears united behind their man. But in the past members of this party and other notable left-wing politicos claimed that Janša should resign the moment the court accepted the charges against him filed by the State Prosecution. With regard to their leader, the SDS maintains that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. As expected, they are not willing to extend this luxury to Janković. But Positive Slovenia claimed an altogether different criteria, which is definitely more in line with the concept of a modern democracy. Thus it will be interesting to see how they respond if charges against Janković are indeed formally pressed.

On the other hand, however, there’s always the possibility that Jay-Z will spare them the grief. Tonight he categorically denied any possibility of him resigning, but then again, you never know…

Has Janković Had Enough?

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

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

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

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

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

How Borut Pahor Is Turning Into A Slovenian Joe Lieberman

Slovenian Social Democrats are up for a long-overdue post-election convention on 2 June and all signs point to a bloodbath. Borut Pahor is facing multiple challengers and the next two weeks will probably see precious few punched being pulled. Of the three, Pahor’s main rival is Igor Lukšič, party heavyweight and ideologue who used to be the brains behind Pahor’s rise to power and served as minister of education in the previous government. Lukšič was removed from Pahor’s inner circle quite unexpectedly in a small scale party purge soon after the 2008 election victory and little love was lost between the two since then.

Borut Pahor never really came to terms with the results od 2011 parliamentary elections. What by any measure was a defeat of epic proportions, he strove and still strives to present it as a “good enough” result, saying that the SD got 10 percent even though some pre-election polls showed as little as three-point support. But fact of the matter is that the SD would score in the vicinity of ten percent even if it were led by a ventriloquist’s puppet Which, incidentally, is how many people see Pahor in the first place.

Pahor was not a bad Prime Minister. In fact, he and his government had the right instincts and addressed the correct issues. The arbitration agreement with Croatia alone is enough to give the man a Medal of Honour. The fact that he tried to offset the first onslaught of the worldwide economic meltdown by raising the minimum wage while the business sector cried murder was a gutsy move. And to his credit, his government came up with a set of sweeping labour market and pension reforms, which – as both of you readers know full well – went down the drain courtesy of the unholy alliance between the right-wing opposition and the labour unions. But good ideas are a dime a dozen and after suffering the traumatising defeat on the super-referendum vote, Borut Pahor was never able to recognise that the buck stops with him and never took responsibility. Yes, the unions fucked him over (paying dearly for it under current Janša administration). Yes, the then-opposition went to epic lengths to undermine any and all policies he came up with and relentlessly beat the drums on various cockamamie scandals which turned out to be nothing but elaborate character assassinations. But at the end of the day, it was Borut Pahor who was at the helm of the country and he counted on everyone else to help him steer the ship while he was running out of ideas on what to do next. And this is where he reached the point of no return.

When Pahor Met Merkozy

When his tenure was nearing the terminal stage, he liked to use the phrase “Franco-German train” which was suppose to mean that Slovenia should follow France and Germany in their economic policies. In fact, he’d often say “either we’re on that train or we are no more”. This Franco-German railway arrangement soon thereafter became known throughout Europe as Merkozy, shorthand for hardcore austerity and an all-out neoliberal agenda. Which is what Pahor bought into as the lack of vision on his part settled in completely and he became preoccupied with his legacy and immediate political future. Bottom line: No matter how often he quoted Churchill, unlike the old English fart Borut Pahor was not a PM fit for a time of crisis.

This became painfully obvious just prior to elections, when (against many an advice) Zoran Janković went national and the obviously-outgoing PM went ballistic, concocting a phrase “behind-the-scenes uncles” which supposedly handled Janković, instructing him to take over the reins of the political left-wing from Pahor. This line of reasoning conveniently forgot to take two things into account: a) that Pahor never really steered the left wing (although he wanted to) and b) that by that time Janković was way beyond anyone’s control including that of former president Milan Kučan who (pengovsky has it on good authority) privately advised Janković not to enter national politics. Such reasoning pushed Pahor ever more towards Janez Janša and – augmented by his chronic and notorious need for compromise – played a key part in him not lifting a finger when Janković was tripping over his own legs trying to clinch the PM post (and failing miserably).

Step by step, inch by inch, Borut Pahor was nearing a position where his positions were becoming very similar to those of Janez Janša and his government. Most notably on the fiscal rule, which apparently was the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused a very public rift within the party and its parliamentary group. As a result. the constitutional amendment enacting the fiscal rule does not have the necessary 60 votes in the parliament, but staying true to his reality-denying self, Pahor maintains that eventually he’ll deliver the necessary votes, allowing the government of Janez Janša to pass the amendment.

Falling Down: “I’m the bad guy?!”

Now, whether or not this is just a matter of political physics (distancing from one object inevitably draws you nearer to another object) or a carefully executed masterplan remains to be seen. With Pahor’s modus operandi to date, this would indeed seem more like an accident and I can totally see him as Michael Douglas in Falling Down, when he finally realises what he’s done and says “You mean, I’m the bad guy!?” But he’s not there yes. In fact if one were to draw a parallel, one could compare Borut Pahor to Senator Joe Lieberman, who – as you’ll remember, used to be the next Vice-President of the United States, but then gradually gravitated towards the Republican party, at one point actually addressing the GOP convention in 2008, supporting John McCain against Barack Obama. Interestingly enough, Pahor did in fact make several appearances at various right-wing pow-wows but thus far limiting it to addressing think tanks and affiliate organisations. Why?

Well, our why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along-and-love-me top-tier politician is widely expected to run for President of the Republic in the upcoming election. Which is somewhat weird, given that the incumbent Danilo Türk is of left-wing provenance and was more than once a target of a smear campaign, case in point being Archivegate concocted by the SDS. Given that Janez Janša already put forward his candidate Milan Zver, MEP, Pahor running for the highest office in the country seems illogical. But then again, nobody ever accused him of being logical.

You Want Me In That Office. You Need Me In That Office!

You see, Pahor was on the brink of running for that very same office in 2007 and went through a very tragicomic and very Pahor-like episode of public soul-searching including admitting on live television that he simply doesn’t know what to do. He was eventually persuaded by his inner circle to take a pass and go for the PM spot a year later. Which he did and succeeded. But his overtures to the political right wing, provided that there is at least a tiny bit of logic behind them suggest, that he wants a crack at the job and he wants it now. Which is why he is reluctant to criticise Janša with anything harsher than “we don’t always see eye to eye”. This would also imply that he has (or thinks he has) some sort of a deal with Janša on this issue.

But if that is the case, his clinging to party leadership is all the more illogical. True, it doesn’t say anywhere that a sitting party president can’t be the head of state, but of the few high standards that were set in Slovene politics, a non-party president is one of them. Milan Kučan, Janez Drnovšek and Danilo Türk, the three individuals holding the office to date were either unaffiliated with any party (Tűrk) or relinquished their active party roles prior to or upon assuming office (Kučan and Drnovšek). Pahor, on the other hand, is fighting tooth-and-nail to continue as the top dog of the Social Democrats and it would make little sense to quit the job only months after the convention. Provided of course that he’d keep the party job and then win the presidential election.

None of the two are certain, mind you. OK, his chances of surviving the in-party challenge are marginally better, but a lot can change in the two weeks. Fact of the matter is that the party is split, especially those senior party members who can throw some weight around. The parliamentary group and Borut Pahor more often than not appear to be two different items and the two things that work in Pahor’s favour are the fact that there are three challengers: former minister of education and party ideologue Igor Lukšič, former minister of transport and the “cool guy” of the crowd Patrick Vlačič and a former member of National Council Zlatko Jenko. This of course practically ensures that the opposition vote will split at least two if not three ways.

Challenge For The Challenger

Of the three, Lukšič is the only one who is capable of mounting a serious challenge. He’s an old party hand, knows Pahor inside and out and was with the party through thick and thin. Which buys him quite a lot of clout. He’s also a very harsh critic of austerity measures and recognises that the left as a whole needs to reinvent itself. His problem is that he’s no good at sound-bites and sometimes has trouble getting the message across. Which may be Pahor’s second saving grace. The current SD president has neither the results nor the content to continue in his capacity. But he just might. It’s not that Lukšič doesn’t know the inning and the score, it’s just that he has trouble hitting the home run. And as we’ve seen time and again, “close” doesn’t cut it. We’ll see if Lukšič can get his act together in the next two weeks.

As for his implied presidential ambitions, you can bet your ass that Janša will once again try to screw him over and clinch the office for a right-wing candidate for the first time in history of this country. The scenario is farily simple: First, he’d enjoy seeing Pahor take on Türk, splitting the left-wing vote down the middle, thus increasing chances of Milan Zver making it to the second round, possibly facing Pahor. Should that happen, a lot of left wing voters would probably stay at home in protest during the second round of the vote, practically giving the victory to Zver. And even if Pahor won, Janša would be only marginally worse off, since Pahor would (as per custom) go above and beyond the call of duty to indulge Janša over and over again. And if somehow both Pahor and Türk made it to the second round, Janša would obviously support Pahor, achieving the same result.

In fact, the only situation Janez Janša wishes to avoid in the presidential election this autumn is a face-off between Danilo Türk and Milan Zver, be it in the first or the second round. And Borut Pahor seems to be working hard to prevent that from happening.

P.S.: Many apologies for not posting in over two weeks. Again, things to see and people to do…

Administrative Reform Packages, pt. 3: On National Council

It’s been a while since pengovsky wrote up an instance of the constitutional overhaul the ruling coalition went about more or less from Day 1. You can refresh your memory here, here and here if you need to, but the item on today’s menu is the proposal to abolish the National Council. Funny thing is, pengovsky is about to break into the Mipos Dance of Joy over it, although the big honchos are doing it for all the wrong reasons.

National Council (source)

Namely, Gregor Virant‘s DL (formerly DLGV – they’ve dropped ‘GV’ some weeks ago), chief proponent of the move claims that the National Council is an oboslete institution, adding that the second chamber of the parliament is usually found in federal countries and is as such unncessary in a unitary Slovenia, costing money but adding little of value. Well, I’m sligtly sad to say that on this issue Gregor Virant is full of shit.

The current president of the parliament, former minister for public affairs, former state secretary (right-hand man) to the minister of the interior and a professor with the Faculty for Administration know full well that the National Council is not some cockamamie piss-pot institution but a virtually unckecked bastard of an instituion which weild a rather hefty arsenal of powers for which it has no clear mandate. Never has and never will. Among others, the National Council can use the so-called “deffering veto”, by which it can send a law back for another vote in the National Assebly (parliament propper) where it needs an absolute majority (46 votes) to be confirmed, even if it needed only a relative majority the first time round. But even more importantly, the National Council can call a referendum on a law with a simple majority of 21 counclimen (out of 40).

The problem is that none of the councilmen are elected representatives of the people. Rather, they represent special interests. No, really. They literally represent speical interests. Four representatives of employers, four of employees, ditto for farmers, crafts and trades, and independent professions, six councilmen representing non-commercial fields and twenty-two (22!) representatives of local interests. Need I say more? I do? OK…

As with most old democracies (and in this respect, Slovenian democracy is aging fast), the decision making process is ever more initiated and to an extent controlled by some sort of special interest and ever less by the general public. This in it self in not necesarily good or bad. As basic relations in a society are settled, for the time being, at least, other, more specific questions arise, where general public is less keen to take interest (a great manifestation of not-in-my-back-yard-syndrome). Thus special interests come to the forefront, be they local, regional, business, industrial, whathaveyou. The problem is, however, that – when left unchecked – special interest can not only act to bypass the common good (the interest of the public, if you will) but can also act squarely against it. A classic example of this would be drilling for oil in Alaska. Or, if you want sometihng closer to home, liquid gas storages in the Gulf of Trieste, just off the Slovenian Adriatic coast.

Ideally, the parliament acts to limit these particulars or find common ground between special and public interest. Now, we all know that is seldom the case, especially with specific pieces of legislation (case in point being the shooting-down of the media law near the end of the previous term, courtesy of a would-be media baron). But the point is that the parliament can and should act in the public interest. The thing is that in case of Slovenia, the legislative process can be (and often is) plagued by special interest not just at the bottom (during drafting period) but also at the top, after the parliament has passed a law and is up to the National Council whether to confirm it or enact the “deffering veto”. In short, under current system, special interest squeezes public interest from both sides, which is a) undemocratic and b) totaly unhealthy in the long run. Not to mention the fact that over the course of the last twenty years, sucessive National Councils and especially their presidents have tried ever so hard to win the status of a full-blown second chamber of the parliament, if not in theory, surely in practice.

Thus, the National Council is a far cry from an obsolete and unimportant institution as claimed by Gregor Virant and politically icreasingly lonely leader of Social Democrats Borut Pahor. Rather, it is a residual element of a corporativistic mindset which Slovenia (let’s be honest here) has never completely done away with, no matter the political option in power. As such, the National Council is in fact a long-term threat to democracy of this country. It is because of that that it must be abolished sooner rather than later. Sure, the current government (with the notable exception of Radovan Žerjav and his SLS who oppose the move) is trying very hard not to mention the elephant in the room and is making sorry-ass excuses as it goes along, but right now the problem is with the opposition. Unfortunately, Positive Slovenia of Zoran Janković is trying to have the cake and eat it by proposing modification to the role of the Council, but stops short of supporting complete abolishment. Thus one of the few constitutional changes which would have made sense (and there really are only a few of those) both in long- and short-term (I’m sure no-one would mind one less possibility for calling a referendum) looks dead on delivery.

BTW: if Slovenia ever gets around to establishing regions as the definitive layer of local self-government (stripping municipalities of much of their powers), we might consider the parliament getting a second, regional chamber. But we’ll cross that bridge if an when we get to it.

Moves Like Maggie

Slovenian public sector workers are about to go on strike on 18 April, protesting the planned austerity measures by the government of Janez Janša. The gist of it is the fact that the government is looking for ways to cut some EUR 800 million from the budget, mostly by cutting the number of public sector employees as well as their wages. This will be the first general strike in Slovenia since the onset of the crisis and as such represents a turning point in the dynamics of the whole thing. As is usual in the continuous news cycle, the whole issue boiled down to a single question: who will pay for the strike. But the bigger picture reveals a much more dramatic setting. What we are witnessing these days in Slovenia is not just a reshuffle of public finances, but a Thatcherite head-on with the labour organisations and attempted deconstruction of the welfare state as we know it. Allow me to elucidate with references to specifics…

The Iron Lady (source)

First, the unions. Truth be told, they are about as much to blame for the situation we find ourselves in as anyone else. Exactly a year ago, when Slovenia had a bit more wiggle room, the unions helped shoot down reform attempts of the previous government. When that failed, the government of Borut Pahor wanted at least to save some 300 million (save, mind you, not cut) by freezing public sector wages (freeze, mind you, not cut). With that they hoped to placate foreign lenders and keep the cost of borrowing on a sustainable level, thus keeping public finances in some sort of an order. The unions went apeshit and made what pengovsky called “an unholy alliance” with some special-interest organisations and the right wing opposition led by Janez Janša (who is of course now in power), thwarting any and all reform attempts, no matter how feeble, soft or justified they may have been.

You get what you give

As a direct result, those same unions today have to face their former allies-of-opportunity are looking to not only freeze but decrease their wages, lay people off and make across the board cuts. So in a sense it should serve the unions right. Much of their immediate problems are of their own doing and if they’re not too busy putting their foot where their mouth is, they may want to think about that.

By that same token, it should also serve the government of Janez Janša right to have to deal with those pesky labour unions. Janša was busy ridiculing, undermining and thwarting Pahor’s government in every way, shape or form for three years running, often executing text-book Republican manoeuvres, case in point being decrying high gasoline prices (just look at what Speaker John Boehner is tweeting about these days). He could have taken over a country where at least initial reforms would have been passed and Janša would just cross the t’s and dot the i’s and that would be it. But no. Having gone in cahoots with the unions, Janša had this whole pile of financial and economic shit (to which he contributed greatly in his 2004-2008 term) waiting for him to clear up.

To be completely fair: after the initial outcry, the government did draft other measures, aimed at raising additional tax and non-tax revenues. This happened after Positive Slovenia of Zoran Janković made headway in championing raising the VAT by a couple of percentage points. Finance minister Janez Šušteršič half-rejected the measure saying it is a weapon of last resort, but a list of measures was published earlier today by the SDS which includes a tax on financial transactions, additional levels of personal income tax, a tax on luxury automobiles and real estate, property tax, et cetera.

The only problem is that in about half of these measures are worded as “the government will look into the possibility of…”. Interestingly enough, this extremely vague wording applies mostly to those measures which are most sought by the unions. I’m not holding my breath.

So in a sense, Janša and the unions deserve each other. But hey, maybe that was the plan. You see, if basic reforms were already passed, then Janša would be stuck with a) a general path to take and b) probably bitter but already broadly outlined social dialogue with the unions (we’ll leave the businesses out of the equation as they supported both Pahor’s as well as Janša’s platforms). But having to have to start from Square One, Janša can set pace, breadth and direction of the reforms, picking his fights as he goes along. Which is why all of a sudden the pension reform is on the back burner and the public sector finds itself vilified, described as the source of most of not all problems and urged to “share the burden of the crisis”.

While the public sector does indeed have its share of problems, especially in terms of bloatedness and ineffectiveness, it is by no means the parasite being portrayed by some of the more government faithful. Public sector means health and education professionals, cops, judges, civil servants, public hygiene services, vets, even journos for the state radio and television. These people provide critical support systems of any modern society and – contrary to a widely held belief – they are not being paid ludicrous amounts of money. Yes, the average wage in public sector is about 25% higher than in the private sector (links in Slovenian), but average net personal income in Slovene public sector still is only around EUR 940 which isn’t exactly something to write home about. Point being that public sector employees have it just about as hard as everyone else.

A triple whammy: Janša giveth, Janša taketh away

But as things stand now, they are being portrayed as the prime obstacle on the road to the recovery, are being subject to cuts in employees as well as cuts in wages. A triple whammy which, when put together, amounts to nothing short of a deconstruction of several key public subsystems, first in line being the education and child care.

A provision of the “second child in kindergarten is free” is being withdrawn, which will put additional financial strain on young families who are struggling to make ends meet as it is. It will also do wonders for birth rate (note the cynicism). Ironically, this was implemented by the first Janša administration, so in fact Janša giveth, Janša taketh away. Furthermore, the standards for number of children per classroom are to be lowered (more kids per class) which will reportedly make about 1500 teachers, well, redundant. And remember that those, who will remain are to be paid less. Not the best of prospects for a quality education system, no?

So, what’s going on? Aren’t higher birth rate and better education the keys to long-term recovery (the whole thing is expected to last at least a decade anyhow). You know: more kids, more young people to support the pensioners, more highly skilled work-force, more value added, more GDP… stuff like that… Well, remember that these are public services. Everyone’s got more or less equal access to them. What if someone wants to dismantle the education system to the point of screwing it up completely and then all of a sudden and seemingly out of the blue privately owned schools start popping up, enforcing standards previously held by public schools but charging a substantial amount of money for it? What if the same thing is to be applied to the kindergarten level as well?

In fact, if this whole thing is not just a series of gravely unfortunate events, this is exactly what’s going on. Higher education has already been screwed up in a similar manner. Ditto for dental medicine and the same is bound to happen to the rest of health services and other public subsystems. Good stuff for the rich-get-richer, low-standard-low-paid shit for the rest of the sorry lot. Which will increase in numbers as the crisis is wiping out the middle class as it is, while the cuts will only aid the process.

Moves like Maggie

This, ladies and gentlemen, is not just about austerity. It is about Thatcherite state capture. Yes, I know this is counter-intuitive since the classic neoliberal Hayek/Milton discourse preaches less state. But that does not really preclude state capture. Because the leaner (smaller) the state, the harder it can fight off special interest raids on its assets. When politics applies this theory to any given society, it does so predominantly to increase its own power base and shift the paradigm towards the concept of the trickle-down economy.

You see, when Maggie T. went head-to-head with the unions and won, the result were indeed all sorts of liberalisations. Even the disastrous ones (like the British railway system). Sure, The City expanded and the financial sector entered its Golden Age. And look what happened. A three-decades long party, where the state got ever more leaner and the fat cats got ever fatter. All the way to the tipping point.

And just to add some local colour: recently, as a money-saving measure, the government decreed that no part-time contracts and contracts for copyrighted works are to be signed or extended unless the government OKs it. Again, a sensible thing on the outside. But the effect was that a number of people who work for state TV and radio (journos, techies, moderators, authors) as well as artists who work for state- and local-level cultural institutions could not have their contracts renewed which effectively put an immediate stop to whatever projects, programmes and shows they were involved with. Thus a number of radio and television shows were cancelled or are at least severely impeded, some of them openly critical of this government. Now, I’m not saying this was a muzzling measure, but given how effective it was, someone could put two and two together. As pengovsky showed a week ago, you don’t need to cancel stuff. You just need to cut the financing.

And so the unions are not just fighting the labour fight. They are in fact fighting to survive. Because employees struggling to make ends meet are less likely to care about anything else… Until the levee breaks…

P.S.: procedures to enshrine the fiscal rule into the constitution have been formally initiated yesterday. Welcome to the lost ~~century~~ decade indeed…

The Return of the Jay-Z

Zoran Janković is to be sworn as mayor tomorrow and I still owe you a run-down on his victory on mayoral by-elections on 25 March, so here it goes: While the result was a virtual no-brainer, the whole episode is slightly more interesting than it may seem at first glance. As you very well now, the sole reason for these by-elections was the fact that Janković was elected MP on 4 December parliamentary elections and had to relinquish his position as the Big Kahuna of the coty. After being outmanoeuvred by Janez Janša and had the premiership snatched from under the nose, Janković was faced with quite a dilemma: whether he should continue as MP and a nominal leader of the opposition, or whether he should leave the parliament and try to – as schizophrenic as this may sound – succeed himself as the mayor of Ljubljana.

Just to make sure everybody’s on the same page, pengovsky would like to remind both readers again that these were mayoral by-elections which had no effect on the composition of the city council itself with Zoran Janković List having an absolute majority of 25 out of 45 councilmen, so there was a theoretical possibility of a cohabitation. But in all honesty, the result was never in doubt. Ljubljana is Zoki’s turf and with the political right being continuously unable to mount a serious challenge to win since 1994 municipal administration reform which established Ljubljana as a single entity, the question du jour was not if Jay-Z will win, but by rather by how much. In the end the metre stopped at 61%, which is a) a repetition of his election results in 2006 and 2010 and b) still pretty awesome.

Having said that, additional and equally important issues were raised by these elections: a) why can’t the political right put up a decent fight in the capital and why it tried in vain to do so, b) what’s with the left side of the spectrum and c) what will Janković’s move from National Assembly to the City Hall mean for him and for the parliamentary opposition.

The Empire

As you know, right wing parties put forward two challengers to Zoran Janković. Mojca Kucler Dolinar, a joint SDS/NSi candidate and Matjaž Glavan, who stood for SLS. While Glavan scored a neglible 1% which is in line with that SLS got in municipal elections in 2010, Kucler Dolinar scored marginally better than she and Zofija Mazej Kuković did year and a half ago when they ran solo for NSi and SDS respectively.

But the real question is why did Kucler Dolinar run for mayor the second time knowing she’d lose. Pengovsky tried to answer this in his post running up to the elections (hoping for a reward down the road), but there are other factors to consider as well. Most of all the fact that for all intents and purposes Mojca Kucler Dolinar is now a spent force. She lost to Janković twice in a row and although one could claim that she did pretty well, she came nowhere near forcing Janković into a second round, let alone endangering him directly. This does not exactly do wonders for her political career as she has little to show for in terms of achievements. Also, word has it the joint SDS/NSi ticket was her idea but that the SDS had to formally extend the invitation since Kucler Dolinar’s NSi was strongly opposed to what they probably saw as a lost cause.

Bottom line: whatever political ambitions Kucler Dolinar might have had before 25 March are now probably up in smoke. She was probably hoping to re-enter national politics (she served as a higher education minister in the first Janša administration) but given lack of success on her part and the minute role NSi is playing the current Janša set-up, her chances are virtually nil. Ditto for any master plan she might have had to take over the party.

SDS came out of this mess virtually unhurt. From their point of view it doesn’t really matter who made the initial offer, fact of the matter is that by having Kucler Dolinar as a joint candidate they made at least a pro-forma challenge to Janković while not throwing away a name and a face they’ll have to send into battle in two-and-a-half-year’s time.

But even then they will still be faced with the same dilemma: Why can’t they win in Ljubljana? Well, the marginally younger, more urban and slightly more left-wing orientation of the population helps, but the reality is that the political right has been re-active. In other words, they always campaigned on »not doing stuff like the previous administration did it«. And had Zoki not burst on the scene in 2006, that might have just been enough. But he did and it wasn’t. As a result, they (as well as most of the other political parties) are hopelessly aping his platform which is broad enough to have encompassed most of the challenges this city will be facing in the next decade or so, as well as trying to beat him at his own game of setting goals and achieving them (or at least coming close enough). And when that doesn’t work, they fall back again to »promising not to do it like the previous guys did it«. It’s a vicious circle, which will only be broken if and when Janković (again) decides to quit the mayorship. Be it to return to the national lever, be it for good.

The Rebels

On the other hand, things are not exactly dull on the left, either. The suprise of the day was a relatively strong showing by Vito Rožej of Zares, who scored slightly above four percent of the vote, which was quite a feat for a party which barely registered with voters across the country only months ago in parliamentary elections and did only marginally better in 2010 local elections.

But before people start opening bottles of Dom Perignon ’58, we should make a few things clear. To an extent Rožej did get his four percent on account of being a relatively fresh but recognisable face on the scene (he did serve as councilman in city of Kranj and as MP in the previous parliament). Then again he was also active in the campaign for the Family Code, which must have helped. But most importantly, he had the good luck of SD, DeSUS and LDS opting not to enter the race with their respective candidates, so it is safe so say that Rožej got a fair amount of their votes as well. Just so we’re clear on that. No champagne yet, I’m afraid.

And while we’re on it: some of those votes must have gone to the lone ranger on Ljubljana politics Miha Jazbinšek, who scored a record 6 percent of the vote.

The return of the Jay-Z

So, the one last thing that remains to be answered is what will the return of the Jay-Z mean for the situation on the parliament? In the short term, nothing good, really. Sure, Janković didn’t exactly loiter in the parliament and his people had to do without him on occasion. But the fact that he will be physically gone will have its repercussions. If one is to judge by the situation in his city council group upon his leaving, Janković will have to make damn sure that MPs for Positive Slovenia don’t lose focus, motivation and go for each other’s throats. Because once the Big Kahuna is gone, a lot of small and mid-sized Kahunas will try to impose themselves unto their colleagues, despite the fact that the parliamentary group is headed by Janković’s former vicemayor and still-serving Ljubljana councilman Jani Möderndorfer. He will have his work cut out for him once Zoki is gone.

As for the left wing in general, things will become much more interesting. It is no secret that litlle love is lost between Janković and leader of SD Borut Pahor. That much became plainly obvious after the SD gave a cold shoulder to Zoki when he tried to rally all left wing parties some days ago and everyone save the Social Democrats and SMS-Green Party attended. The SD implicitly accused the re-minted mayor of trying to take over the left and impose himself unto others and they might have even been correct to an extent. But fact of the matter is that the SD finally started settling in-party scores and is locked in a bitter power struggle between Borut Pahor and Igor Lukšič, with the latter pulling no punches (and having no reason to, sice Pahor sidelined him early in his premiership for no apparent reason).

If Janković really wanted to unite the left under a common banner, he should have waited a couple of weeks, two months at best, for the shit to hit the fan witihn SD and for the defeat on the Family Code referendum to really sink in and he’d have almost all of the left eating out of his hand. But as things stand, he jumped the gun again (just as he did immediately after his election victory) and came out more or less empty handed.

But be that as it may, with Zoki in the City Hall as of tomorrow, a new centre of political power on national level is starting to emerge and it could very well be that the end result will be a situation not unlike in Austria, where nothing happens on the political left unless the all-powerful Vienna mayor Michael Häupl OKs it. And – funnily enough – Janković always said how he considers Häupl to be his role model. I guess he meant it…

Ljubljana By-elections

Apart from the crucial vote on the Family code (more on that tomorrow), Ljubljanchans will vote in the mayoral by-elections this Sunday. The players are known and pengovsky introduced them some time ago, so we’ll dispence with niceties this time around.

Well, there you have it… (source)

While there’s always an outside chance of an election uspet, the result of the vote seems a foregone conclusion. Zoran Janković is poised to be elected mayor for the third consecutive time which will be a bit of a tounge-in-cheek as the by-elections were called because he was elected to the parliament in the first place. But since Janković was denied the premiership even though his Positive Slovenia won the elections, Janković probably won’t hurt in the pols too much.

While some candidates raised the question of apropriateness (after all, it isn’t really customary to cherry-pick positons you run for), the main thing is that this time around it isn’t Zoki’s charm that’s working for him, but rather the fact that – save a couple – all candidates are, well, bland. It’s allways nice to read about the challengers’ platforms, but delivery is just as important. Really, work on it.

The only two candidates besides Janković which did put some back into it, were Mojca Kucler Dolinar (joint NSi/SDS candidate) and Vito Rožej (Zares). Neither really has any chances to win this time around and both recognise the fact (semi-officially, at least). In fact, Janković’s bid nothwithstanding, the candidates are mostly laying groundwork for the regular municipal elections in 2014. Either that or they’re fighting a losing battle for a reward – say a more decent job description somewhere along the road.

At any rate: It looks like Zoki will take this one home in the first round. But paralel to the mayoral by-elections, Slovenes will vote on the refrendum on the new family law. As you’ll see tomorrow, the situation in that particular cesspool is “dramatic”. 😀