To put it succinctly, as a result of Serbian election thoughts and prayers are needed across large swaths of Slovenian political class. Both nationally and locally, politicians of various persuasions have lost either a dragi prijatelj or a garant stabilnosti. Again, barring predsjedniće pulling an authoritarian rabbit out of his shopping cart, things could get at least somewhat dicey for a number of people around here.

pengovsky writes this blog for free. And he knows there’s a backlog of stuff he promised to write about on Slovenian politics. But sometimes, stuff happens that is only Muddy-Hollows-adjacent but still requires immediate attention of this here blog. Usually, this requires even larger quantities of coffee than usual. So, if you like what you read here, or if you just want to help pengovsky support the coffee industry with his consumption, buy him an espresso by clicking on this link.

Some time ago, pengovsky wrote that the Slovenian left-liberal bloc sees (saw) Aleksandar Vučić as someone they could do business with, while the (far-) right bloc saw him as an illiberal fellow traveller they could do business with.

Which is why the results of yesterday’s election in Serbia will have ramifications that will go beyond just who gets to be the new Serbian ambassador to Muddy Hollows.

Muddy Hollows wooing Vučić

Ever since the fall of Slobodan Milošević, 26 years and 20 days ago, relations between Slovenia and Serbia have been steadily improving. Obviously, some of this was just the usual diplomatic song and dance, but Ljubljana always kept an eye on what was going on in the region. Even if ineptitude sometimes got the better of would-be Slovenian statesmen. But since interests were had, invites were extended, smiles were put on and hands were shaken. Also, photos were made. Lots of photos.

From Miro Cerar onwards, every high-ranking Slovenian politico made a point of schmoozing with Vučić. Of course, there was always an angle, be it economic, migration-related or otherwise, but there was schmoozing.

To her credit, the one person who at least partly refused to play that game was president Nataša Pirc Musar, who during her first (only?) official visit to Serbia, publicly broke with Vučić over his treatment of journalists, during a live press conference. Former PM Golob also ultimately soured on Vučić, but only after the Serbian strongman used some choice language against Slovenians in April 2024.

The other occasion when a Slovenian politico really took Vučić to task was then-outgoing president Borut Pahor launching a tirade in 2022 against his counterpart in Belgrade, admonishing him to not start any wars. Which was weird as fuck but also widely considered to be Pahor auditioning for the role of NATO secretary general. Needless to say, he didn’t get the job.

Janković and Janša inhabit the Vučić-verse

But the two politicians who illustrate just how interconnected Slovenian political landscape with Vučić-verse really is, are Janez Janša and Zoran Janković. Because of course they are. For a pair of old white dudes who hate each other’s guts, Ivan and Zoki really have a lot in common. Including an affinity for one Aca Vučić.

The former, because there are only so many people around who are not complete crackpots and are still willing to indulge your lamentations about cultural Marxism, dangers of migration and woke LGBT ideology. But also because Republika Srpska of Milorad Dodik, who falls squarely under the suzerainty of Aleksandar Vučić, is a useful workaround for various Slovenian financial shenanigans, including circumventing campaign finance limitations.

The latter…. well… where do we begin? Even though both Vučić and Janković seem to have a soft spot for one Vlad Putin of Moscow, the pair could not be ideologically more different. And yet, ideology at least for Janković is something that ought not get in a way of a good business deal. And nowhere did this become more apparent than in his relationship with Vučić and (by extension) Dodik.

In fact, it was Janković’s uncharacteristic tone-deafness with regard to Serbian student protests which alienated a lot of liberalish voters from Ljubljana mayor. And when the city Big Cheese fumbled his response to the rumour that he might end up running for Serbian presidency or prime-ministership, his until then very lively goose started its trek to the kitchen.

Harbinger of things to come…

Whether it will be cooked in local elections in three week’s time remains to be seen, but let’s just say that this time there’s people hanging around to check if there’s leftovers.

But even if the fall of Vučić presages the fall of Janković, surely both of them have fallback plans. One wild option is that Janković, should he lose the municipal vote (at this time an unlikely but not an impossible scenario), could end up running for Serbian president in December. I mean, Vučić is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, and if a loyal friend like Janković ends up looking for a job… Who know what might happen.

The person rapidly running out of fallback plans is Janez Janša. Many moons ago, Glorious Leader bet it all on Lord Protector And Saviour Viktor Orban. When the Round-legged Tartar chose Moscow over Kyiv, Janša broke with him and stuck with Vučić and Benjamin Netanyahu.

As of last night he is down to Bibi only. And by Wednesday morning even that might change. And then there’s the US midterms…

… but Mr. Muscles has other problems

Point being, that Aleksandar Vučić was a good and/or useful buddy to large swaths of Slovenian political landscape and that his absence will be felt. Sorely by some, gleefully by others.

The one person who probably doesn’t know what had happened and how to react is Speaker and Resnica leader Zoran Stevanović. Since he took over as parliament boss, Mr. Muscles has made a great show of palling around with characters from Vučić-verse. He even made a pilgrimage to his ancestral village in Republika Srpska, flanked by Dodik himself.

Only weeks ago, there were all these nice people who spoke so kindly to him and were shoving protein and drinks into his hands and kept telling him what a great guy he is. But now, no-one is answering his DMs and his Instagram statistics have taken a dip. Do they not like him anymore? Could it be that he is not as important as they kept saying he is? Surely not…

Then again, maybe the Bodybuilder-in-Chief doesn’t have the time to think about any of that. He has more than enough problems finding someone to serve as a replacement MP, so his universe got really small really fast as it is, Vučić, or no Vučić.

More on that soon…

Crucially, however, the NO camp won the all-important vote on removing safeguards of a parliamentary inquiry and abolition of RTV SLO fee. The margins of victory are thin as fuck, but they do exist. And the resulting panic in the right wing coalition of Janez Janša suggests that his government is much shakier than he would like you to believe. Today’s shakeups and resignations in the parliament support that notion.

Coffee is like turnout. It is problematic if there’s too little of it, and suggest a huge problem if there’s more than a 100% of it. What modern democracies and pengovsky have in common is that they both thrive at “just about right” levels of turnout and coffee. So, if you’re not a third-country national in Slovenia, go help with the turnout. And help pengovsky thrive by buying him a coffee.

The mother of all cliffhangers

Hoo-boy… To say that the results of the Sunday referendums were a cliff-hanger would be an understatement of galactic proportions. This was Best Of Both Worlds episode from Star Trek: The Next Generation material.

While the binding vote on parliamentary inquiry had flipped from yes to no at about 11pm, the non-binding vote on RTV SLO fee (the only other vote the NO campaign worked on), came close but didn’t flip even by midnight. But to virtually everyone’s surprise, by 6am the following morning, when the counting continued, the NO vote prevailed on RTV SLO fee as well.

With 0.02 % of outstanding ballots to be counted (at this point it’s just votes from abroad), it continues to hold the lead by about 550 votes, out of 924,000 cast. Kids, never let anyone tell you your vote doesn’t matter.

And the turnout? Sweet Jesus on a pogo stick. 55% in a referendum? Outside of the independence and EU/NATO votes, this country has never seen anything like it. True, the trend of a rising referendum turnout has been picking up steam for a couple of years now. But still. Fifty-five percent? Ferfucksake, we’ve had elections with a lower turnout than this. Pure awesomeness, that’s what it was.

Why the long face?

The shock on the government side was palpable. There were long faces galore, and the naturally long faces were even longer than usual. Yes, pengovsky is looking at you, prime minister.

But after the initial shock has subsided, the question remained: what happens next? And the way this scribe sees it, there are at least two ways to skin this crocodile.

On one hand, the result, as dramatic as it is, doesn’t really change anything. The coalition will continue to undermine and defund RTV SLO. To this end, it has already drafted a new law to that effect, results of the consultative referendum results be damned.

In line with this, Janša started pushing a stupendously dishonest interpretation of the result. Some-fucking-how this character came up with an interpretation saying that some people want to pay the fee while others don’t. and that the government will “respect the will of the people and act accordingly.”

The will of the people

Not missing a beat, minister of culture Ignacija Fridl Jarc stepped in front of the cameras to say that her ministry will “try to take into account all views expressed in the referendum”. Which in standard Slovene translates to “because we got our asses kicked we will now exact revenge and prioritise political takeover of RTV SLO even more.” Not that any of this is surprising, but it is vile, nevertheless.

And as for parliamentary inquiry, the majority regularly ignored existing legal and constitutional provisions on this subject. Which suggests they don’t really need a new law to continue refusing the formation of an opposition-led parliamentary investigation. They will be just as happy breaking the old one, too.

So yeah, on one hand the Sunday result changes nothing. But on the other, it changes everything.

First and foremost, the Glorious Leader was once again shown to be anything but the grand strategist and rational player that some people paint him to be. He and his people fucked up a perfectly winnable vote, and did it only four months after he was sworn in. And when he realised that he had his ass handed to him, Marshal Twito went apeshit.

Brooding Janša is back, baby

Gone was the cool and calculating Janša of Spring this year, who seemed positively zen compared to the chaotic aboutfuckery of Logar, Stevanović and even Vrtovec. In his stead, we got the dark, brooding and conspiratorial Janša we all know and, well, love. In a weird and toxic way, but still…

Basically, Janša is now claiming that there were massive irregularities with the vote, that the state electoral commission (DVK) is guilty of gross incompetence and should be prosecuted and that the entire organisation of the election and DVK will be overhauled, pronto.

Basically, what Marshal Twito is saying here is that it doesn’t matter what the votes were, it matter who counts them.

pengovsky hates to repeat himself, but if there is a Stalinist heaven, comrade Dzhugashvili is smiling down favourably upon his disciple.

A weak and unstable government

More to the point, the result has also shown what this blogger has been droning on about ever since Janša got the top job again. This is an inherently weak and unstable government. It was made even weaker by some really stupid and shortsighted tactical decisions, which in turn were made due to a lack of anything resembling a strategy.

To illustrate this point, let’s take three things that happened in rapid succession in the days after the vote: Tea Košir, the would-be returning MP of Demokrati, who threatened to go independent, and Boris Mijić, the brazenly corrupt Resnica MP, who said days earlier that he will not resign his post, both suddenly saw the light and resigned their positions.

And then Janša went on the record and said that he will take a NO vote on the next referendum (the one on the Logar-Vrtovec omnibus bill) as a vote of no-confidence in his government. Threatening people with a good time, are we?

Janša sucks at defence

Basically, the PM was forced to clean the stable to keep his tight-but-functional technical majority (remember, officially his is a minority government) from falling down to a single-vote majority technical of 46 MPs. He then he threw a hissy-fit and a good dose of emotional blackmail, just to remind his coalition partners they’ve got plenty to lose.

Manhandling HR issues in partner parties, threatening election officials with criminal prosecution, attempting to tamper with election apparatus while claiming to be doing to prevent tampering with election apparatus, and blackmailing his allies by opening the prospect of resignation. You’d think that Janša has a lot riding on the events of the next couple of weeks.

And, in a way, he does. It’s just that suddenly he’s playing defence and he’s not very good at that.

You see, a month from now Muddy Hollows will vote in local elections. Which is generally good news for right wing parties. And while 212 mostly rural municipalities still mean that the field is generally tilted in right wing’s favour, there seems to be more voter enthusiasm on the left-liberal side of the spectrum right now.

More referendums, yay!

This will be crucial not only for the municipal vote, where Janša’s SDS can probably kiss goodbye any hopes of making inroads into liberal urban bastions, but also for the upcoming referendum on the omnibus law. The very vote Chairman Janša said will interpret as a vote of confidence in his administration. To which the coalition will apparently attach three populist consultative referendums. Sounds familiar?

So, come early December, the good people of Muddy Hollows will get to vote on the Logar-Vrtovec omnibus shenanigans, but also on a burqa ban, a forced downsizing of the public sector and a reduced VAT rate for fuel and energy.

This, of course, is literally the same basic pattern we saw this past Sunday. A politically important legislative vote supported by a populist vote aimed at cultural and ethnic minorities, the amorphous “parasites on taxpayers’ money”, and a vote that promises to leave more money in people’s pockets.

On balance, Janša is right that the December vote will be even more crucial than the one this past Sunday was. And given how the latter went, it seems clear that the coalition is no longer automatically favoured to win the December vote.

Making the same mistake twice

But it also seems that despite having this strategy blow up in his face, the Glorious Leader has no choice but to try again using the same basic setup and hope for a different result.

And if it fails, minister of health Tadej Ostrc might not be the only government official who will be out of a job come 2027. The really seems to be a bit of a panic at the right wing disco these days.

In addition, results of a consultative referendum are, as the name suggests, wholly legally non-binding. In theory, they are politically binding, but going on recent experience, a popular vote suggesting a certain policy direction is not worth a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys, if it doesn’t align with a per-existing government agenda.

Not only does pengovsky write this blog for free, sometimes he published posts back-to-back, like in the good old days. If you would like to see more of this, you can chip in for a coffee or two, because apparently that is what this blogger runs on nowadays. If you can, buy him a brew on this link.

The political (non)bind of a consultative referendum

The above is why the most clear expression of voters’ preferences, that is to change the voting system so it incorporates preferential voting for specific candidates, never really got off the ground. Even though that petition was approved by a whooping two thirds of all votes cast back in 2024.

On the other hand, because hippies of the 1960s have now become old hippies of the 2020s, legalising and deregulating recreational pot is still considered a liberal talking point despite barely eking out a majority in that same set of referendums.

The 2024 consultative referendums episode also provides important context for Sunday vote on the whole. Back then, the Golob coalition came up with a ver Karl-Rove-esque idea of luring their base to the polls with easy-to-call votes in order to drive up the turnout at the EU election held that same day.

Old dogs and new tricks

Basically, back then the EU vote was the headliner and the consultative referendums were supporting acts. Taking a page from Golob’s playbook, this is precisely what Janša and his coalition did this time around.

And they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

The difference being that Golob’s coalition at least tried to come with with issues that have actually been part of the public debate for years or even decades (legalised pot, assisted dying, preferential vote). Bibi’s Best Buddy on the other hand went straight for the jugular and called referendums on abolishing the RTVSLO fee, curbing welfare benefits “for lazy people”, and disenfranchising third-country nationals in local elections.

These, of course, are not so much legitimate policy issues as they are culture war mainstays, albeit with a distinct Muddy Hollows twist.

Defunding RTV SLO

The idea of abolishing RTV SLO fee is of special importance, of course. Not just because this is a zombie policy issue that simply refuses to die, but because everyone still remembers Janez Janša’s assault on the public broadcaster during the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020. And the one, during the economic crisis in 2013. And the one during his first government in 2005. Basically, the Glorious Leader hates RTV SLO in its public media form with the heat of a thousands suns.

This, of course, is not because he would be some dyed-in-the-wool neoliberal hell-bent on privatising public services. Sure, he did have a neoliberal phase, but that was a means to an end. The end being pure, unadulterated power. And in order to gain and maintain this state of affairs, one needs a fully functional agitprop apparatus that reaches most Slovenian households. And the only institution that can provide the backbode for such a sprawling propaganda machine is RTVSLO. But in order to achieve that, it needs to be defunded first and then made dependant on state budget, to make sure it toes the Party line.

If there is such a thing as Stalinist heaven, Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili is smiling down upon his faithful student.

Obviously, if the pro-government YES campaign wins this vote, Janša and his administration will move with lightning speed to enact “the will of the people”. And if by some miracle the NO vote prevails, you can be sure the Aspiring Autocrat will point out that the vote is, in fact, non-binding, and that the coalition already has a new law on RTVSLO in the pipeline anyhow.

Defunding RTV SLO regardless

Which is true. Including the bit about a new law, designed to undo the changes enacted in the Golob-era law on RTVSLO which strengthened the public broadcaster’s independence. Janez Janša and his minister of culture Ignacija Fridl Jarc are hellbent on undoing all of that and bringing the outlet firmly under government control, one way or another.

Now, the people at RTVSLO are not taking this lying down. Sure, the institution has its share of problems, systemic and otherwise. And somehow it has not really used the lull of the last couple of years to put its best foot forward, so to speak. To an extent that’s on the Golob government as well, because it passed and defended the law and then failed to provide the financial framework RTVSLO needs (such as approving a timely raise of the fee). But nothing unites people and focuses minds more than an existential threat from the outside.

And, once more, Janez Janša and his regime are the existential threat to the only public broadcaster in Slovenia, which is why Muddy Hollows has seen a nearly-unprecedented activation of civic minded people, activists, NGOs, creators, influencers and artists, all pleading for the voters to turn up at the ballot box and vote NO.

And even though it might not be enough – and might very well not be – the stage will have been set for the real showdown which will follow when the ruling coalition passes the new RTVSLO legislation and attempts to bring the broadcaster under direct government control. Expect fireworks, probably even from the direction of Brussels.

Disenfranchising third-country nationals

Speaking of passing legislation, perhaps the weirdest of the three consultative referendums is the one on disenfranchising third-country nationals in municipal votes. Long story short, almost a quarter a century ago, when Slovenia was harmonising its legislation with the EU, it had to enact the ability of EU nationals to vote in local elections and referendums, as is the EU standard.

But back in 2002, Slovenia went half a step further and also gave the same right to third-country nationals with permanent residence in Slovenia. This franchise has been on the books ever since and has caused exactly zero problems.

And yet, virtually out of the blue, the ruling gang came up with a change to local elections law, blindsiding everyone and passing it under an expedited procedure, claiming that it the change is minor. Which would be weapons-grade bullshit under any circumstances, but especially so coming from a bunch on nationalistic and jingoistic fuckwits which are thick on the ground in SDS, NSi and Resnica.

The latter is especially ironic since Mr. Muscles himself is of Serbian extraction. But expecting populists to be coherent and make sense is like expecting Anže Logar to find his spine. You know it is technically doable and yet you have zero expectations in that department.

But, pengovsky, I hear you say, if the law is already on the books, why is there a non-binding referendum being held? Reader, that is an excellent question. And the answer is – or rather, are – culture wars.

Stephen Miller meets Slovenian nativism

There are two distinct aspects to this issue. First it is the sheer chauvinism and political cynicism of the move. As pengovsky notes, in nearly 25 years since third-country nationals were enfranchised in local elections in Slovenia, there was a grand total of zero issue with this. Either on principle or in practice. According to government data, there are about 100.000 third-country nationals who would have been eligible to vote in November local elections.

Historically, however, only about 10% of these choose to do so. Meaning that there is virtually no chance any of these votes would tip the result in any way, shape or form. Which in turn means that SDS, NSi and Resnica uncorked this one purely for the love of the game.

Then there’s the fact that the referendum is basically taking a page out Donald Trump’s and Stephen Miller’s playbook. This is about scaremongering and villifying the Other, claiming migrants come here to vote illegally and turn the country into a Sharia theocracy/Orthodox enclave/Hindu retreat or whatever the fuck the non-Catholic bugaboo of the day is.

This pairs well with the general anti-migrant rhetoric that has been adopted wholesale by conservatives and nativists (as well as some right-wing liberals) all over the world. But it also pairs well with the Slovenia-specific strain of ethnic supremacy, where large parts of the majority population don’t need to be asked twice when given the chance to do some light (or not so light) nationalism and punching down.

Schrodinger’s Migrants and Welfare Queens

And since most of these people are SDS and NSi supporters (with some Resnica characters in there, too), the logic is painfully simple: if they vote YES on this question, they are likely to vote YES on the other three. Especially on the legislative referendum, which is the point of this whole fucking charade.

In the mind of the populist- and/or far-right, migrants are, of course, also parasites of the welfare state. You know, the classic case of Schrodinger’s Migrant, who comes here to both bleed the welfare and take our jobs (and women and elected offices, see above). Which is why pengovsky actually wonders why it took these heartless manipulative bastards as long as it did to come up with such a vile-referendum idea.

Of course, this isn’t billed as an anti-migrant vote, but as an “anti-lazy-people” vote. Even though Janša personally saw it fit to single out Kosovo migrants to Muddy Hollows as “not providing added value”.

Other than being a straight up racist remark, this is also very untrue, as half of this country would grind to a halt if somehow migrants from former Yugoslavia would be sent packing. Like literally, there would be next to no-one wiping old people’s noses and feeding them, or feed us burek and ice cream. Or give Janez Janša honorary Ph.D.’s, for that matter.

Is Janša secretly Albanian? (No he isn’t, but it’s funny as fuck)

Glorious Leader singling out Kosovars is also funny as fuck because of this silly little conspiracy theory, that JJ is, in fact, an ethnic Albanian. I mean, look at him, would you?

At any rate, not only is this one more vile thing on the ballot on Sunday, it is also a page right out of Ronald Reagan’s playbook. St. Ronnie build an entire policy plank on the false notion of welfare queens, and Janša simply repurposed it for domestic consumption.

There was a reason pengovsky opened yesterday’s post by saying that the fourth Janša government ran out of ideas about two weeks after it took office. And it things will not get better any time soon.

Local elections are a month away and some time around there we are also up for another legislative referendum a month from now,. That one will be on the Logar-Vrtovec omnibus bill. And seeing as the government has a lot riding on that one, Janša came up with another consultative referendum. That one on whether the government should sack about a fifth of the public sector employees.

Basic human decency

But we’ll get there in due course. For now, we should note that yes, both current and previous government have used consultative referendums to increase turnout on votes that actually mattered. Which sucks either way.

But on one hand, socially awkward liberals were asking should we legalize pot, and on the other rabid conservatives are asking whether we let people suffer and forbid them for partaking in the decision-making process.

Remind me again, of the two options, which one claims to be closer to the teachings of Jesus? Dunno, I’m sure the carpenter’s son said something about loving thy neighbour and feeding the poor.

I mean, in terms of basic human decency, the three consultative referendums are a no-brainer. You are either for letting people suffer and keeping them in informational darkness, or you’re against it.

And that basic yardstick gives away the game on the legislative referendum, too.

pengovsky will see you on the other side.

And thirdly, whatever coherent policy they had is locked up in a referendum bid against the Logar/Vrtovec omnibus bill. And having apparently hit “empty” in their ideas tank about two weeks after taking office, the Glorious Leader and his ilk are doing the one thing they always knew how to do. Wage culture wars. Which is why the good people of Muddy Hollows will vote in four referendums this Sunday, each more damaging to democratic values than the other.

pengovsky writes this blog for free and not nearly as often as he would like. But when he does, he keeps going mostly by ways of sarcasm and coffee. Seeing as he is fluent in the former, you can help out with the latter, by buying him a couple of espressos. Any support is greatly appreciated.

Legislative belle of the referendum ball

With three, nay, two days until the day of the vote, it seems beside the point to explain what these referendums are nominally about. And yet, according to some polling data, almost a third of the voters are still undecided. So a brief explainer is in order.

The belle of the referendum ball, so to speak, is a legislative referendum on an updated law on parliamentary inquiry. TL;DR: the version of the law the new parliament passed soon after being sworn in removes virtually all procedural safeguards for both witnesses and people under parliamentary investigation. The powers of a parliamentary inquiry committee were always great, but if the law is allowed to stand (and if it survives a near-certain constitutional challenge), they will be almost limitless.

Specifically, civic-minded NGOs and journalists fear they will be investigated six ways to Sunday on the flimsiest of pretexts simply because they will rub the government the wrong way. And under the new law, they will have no recourse to dispute or challenge the committee investigators rummaging through their finances, personal correspondence or other private matters. They will only be able to dispute the findings once the committee had finished its work and the parliament had adopted its conclusions.

Referendum against political police

However, seeing as more than two thirds of parliamentary investigations to date never adopted any final conclusions, a scenario where activists, journalists and political opponents are dragged through the mud, see their personal details strategically leaked in the most embarrassing way possible, is not just likely, but highly possible. In fact, in light of what NSi leader and the man who still needs a bumper seat at a grown-ups table Jernej Vrtovec said months ago, this might well be the primary motivation behind the change.

Which is why the NGOs and the opposition have billed this referendum as a vote against political police. A bit dramatic, to be sure, but on the whole, not entirely unreasonably.

In the interest of fairness, pengovsky should note this is the second revamping of the law on parliamentary inquiry. Back in 2024, when the balance of political power was tilted very much in favour of the left-liberal camp, then-leader of the opposition Janša was doing his fucking best (or was that fucking worst?) to drum up a parliamentary investigation into then-PM Robert Golob.

Janša’s fishing expedition

But since there was little he could pin onto Golob that was not already pinned by then (most prominently both anti-graft investigations which keep biting the Apex Avian into his, well, tail), Janša wanted to go onto a bit of a fishing expedition and open an inquiry into Golob’s time as head of Gen-i energy company.

Either because he was feeling his oats or because he was afraid the inquiry could actually come up with shit on him, Golob had the coalition change the law and strengthen procedural safeguards favouring witnesses and people under investigation.

Most controversially, however, the 2024 revision made it way harder to launch an inquiry in the first place. As a result, the SDS filed a constitutional complaint and just before the the new Janša-era law was passed, judges threw out the most problematic provision of the Golob-era law and have yet to rule on the rest.

But rather than wait for the resolution of the constitutional challenge they launched when in opposition, the new ruling majority started feeling their oats and passed a law that removed safeguards across the board, allowing them to walk roughshod across anyone they deem politically undesirable.

Ignoring the law wholesale

Not that the Janša-Vrtovec-Logar-Mr. Muscles coalition needs such quaint things as a legal basis to get away with shit in the parliament. One of the first things the newly-minted opposition wanted to do, was to call a parliamentary inquiry into the Black Cube Affair (link).

And remember, under the Golob-era law on parliamentary investigation, which at the time was fully on the books, the right-wing kids on the block could have approved it (as required by the constitution, parliamentary rules, the law and custom), and then – perfectly legally – slow-walked it for fucking ages.

These jokers, however, straight up refused to approve the agenda for that month’s parliamentary session (link), making the procedure to open the Black Cube inquiry null and void. And when all hell broke loose, the opposition tried again in the next session, but the coalition voted to remove the items from the agenda.

Leninist heaven

That happened even though the rules clearly state that upon presenting 30 MP signatures, the Speaker must approve a parliamentary investigation. So, why are the Glorious Leader and his believers eve bothering with the new law? pengovsky can only guess that a veneer of legality, however disingenuous, is better than no legality at all.

If there is such a thing as Leninist heaven, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov must be smiling down upon his equally hair-deprived, but just as goal-oriented student.

Of the four Sunday referendums, this is the only one to have immediate and direct legal ramifications. If the NO vote prevails, that is, if the left-liberal opposition and the NGOs get their way, the Janša-era law will become null and void and – perhaps most importantly – the parliament will be barred from touching this part of the legislation for a year. So, even outside of prospects of a semi-police state, there is a lot riding on Sunday vote.

So, you’re saying there is a chance?

However, in order to win it, the NO campaign will have to clear two hurdles: win more votes than the pro-government YES campaign and have the total count of NO votes exceed 20% of all eligible voters, or around 340,000 votes. In all likelihood, this will be a steep hill to climb.

But if two weeks ago it all seemed a Quixotic campaign at best, some late polling and early voting turnout suggest that maaaaaybe the NO camp can eke out a win. It is still an outside chance, but in the immortal words of Jim Carrey in Dumb And Dumber, “so you’re saying there is a chance?“

Only one way to find out.

Tune in tomorrow for pengovsky’s primer on the sad trio of consultative referendums.

If Stevo had a band, it would be a cheap pop wall-of-sound act. In mono. Much like his party. And like Phil Spector, wall-of-sound inventor and music industry’s biggest asshole by a country mile, Stevo is cranking up the volume and compression. All in an attempt to hide the fact that Resnica are a bunch of lying insignificunts who took the most toxic and corrupt traits in Muddy Hollows politics and ran with it. Unsurprisingly, it turns out they suck at that, too.

The content of this blog is free because pengovsky likes it that way. Sometimes it even makes people ask follow-up questions, on- or off-line and pengovsky does his level best to answer all of them. You can support any or all of that by buying this blogger a coffee. If you already have, thank you for my next espresso.

Over the last couple of days, it was a petition to remove Mr. Muscles as Speaker that got the most eyeballs. Doubly so because the initiative is spearheaded by Miha Brejc, a former Janša loyalist and the first head of Slovenian spook service. But the thing got derailed by some pretty basic online ratfucking, so we’ll get there in due course.

Making Logar and Mesec agree on… something

First, we need to deal with the fuckup that in pengovsky’s opinion contributed the most to Resnica tanking in public opinion polls like it was Donald Trump’s crypto currency.

A couple of weeks ago, a story (rather, stories) broke about Resnica MP Boris Mijić and his construction business shenanigans. Apparently Mijić has, in turn: failed to report a conflict of interest and the fact that he was still at his old job; has, in said job as a construction foreman, stiffed a number of his employees out of their paychecks and social security contributions; dodged taxes; had major construction companies that rely on government projects pay said taxes; evaded all sorts of oversight by either singing up relatives to strawmen managerial positions or working through their firms which have nothing to do with construction; and finally offloaded said indebted firm to Rok Snežič, PM Janša’s cellmate back in 2014 and a purveyor of shady SDS finances in 2018.

This last part is so sick that even Anže Logar agreed with Luka Mesec saying that such shit is simply beyond the pale. And we all know how difficult it is for Logar to take a firm position on, well, anything.

Zoran Stevanović has 40k EUR lying around

Obviously, this sort of Mijić-pulation didn’t go down well with Resnica rank-and-file. These people joined and supported the party precisely due to the (not entirely unfounded) belief that corrupt politicians were protecting corrupt business-people in Muddy Hollows and vice versa. And now one of their own turned out exactly the same, the moment he got elected to a national office. I mean, who could have predicted that, right?

Also unsurprising was the way Mr. Muscles tried to handle his wayward MP. His first instinct was to influence the shit out of it, posting even more reels on Insta and TikTok than he usually does, and pretend he’s got things under control.

When that didn’t work, he forked out the money Mijić owed these people. Allegedly out of his own savings. Which made some people ask how the hell does a newly minted Speaker have 40k euros just lying around. Which is a fair question and stick a pin into that one.

Taking liberties

But this was all put aside when he marched the poor construction workers in front of cameras for a photo op and declared that he and Mijić will handle things privately.

It was as if Stevo saw Godfather one too many times and pengovsky really hopes Mijić doesn’t have a horse in a barn somewhere. But then the story got even more bizarre. Turns out Mijić lied about his formal education and did not, in fact, ever graduate from university.

As an aside, while listing the level of formal education is a requirement on the candidate form, the state electoral commission (DVK) does not check whether the information is correct. So, theoretically, Mijić could have put down a PhD and get away with it, had no-one bothered to check. But check they did. Albeit three months after the election and it was at that point when Mr. Muscolo blew his brain cell.

Tricking and swindling other people is apparently fine. After all, that’s how Resnica’s anointed understand politics. But trick the leader and make him look like the fool that he is? Well, that’s just taking liberties, innit?

Power to the people-ish

There is immense pressure for Mijić to resign immediately. Levica, rediscovering their penchant for labour rights, has been screaming for his head since the story broke. And the rest of the opposition was not far behind, either. For his part, the embattled MP continues to do his best Nick the Greek impression, with that what’s-going-on-here look slapped all over his chevy chase. But Mr. Muscles, not being a complete idiot, realised (albeit somewhat slowly) that Mijić is dragging him and the party down. So he started to look for ways to cut him loose.

The problem is that the law says that an MP’s resignation within six months of the election, triggers an automatic by-election for that seat. A by-election that Resnica would surely lose, thereby loosening Stevo’s grip on the speakership. And Stevo likes his speakership.

To that end, Zoran Stevanović turned himself into a knot that would make any self-respecting pretzel jealous as fuck and declared that Mijić is finished, but only come October, after the six-month limitation will have lapsed. Apparently, the will of the people is to have corrupt MPs representing them. But only as long as they don’t get caught.

Power to the people… -ish.

Boris Mijić has the chance to do the funniest thing…

But here’s the kicker: no-one can actually force Boris Mijić to resign. Slovenian constitution does not provide for a recall procedure and specifically says that MPs are representatives of all citizens not just those that elected them or live in the precinct or voting unit an MP was elected in. Additionally, MPs are specifically shielded from having to conform to any instructions and from having to face sanctions for not obeying said instructions.

Point being, that Zoran Stevanović may huff, puff and try to influence the shit out of this thing, but come late October Boris Mijić will have an opportunity to do the funniest thing…

Not that Stevo will not have his strong, muscular hands full of other shit he brought on himself until then.

In fact, Boris Mijić was not he only Resnica MP who is facing calls for resignation as of late. Zoran Stevanović just survived a motion of dismissal as Speaker, also tabled by Levica. But as Stevo’s transgression was just garden variety breaking of parliamentary rules and procedures (by refusing to call a vote on two opposition-led parliamentary investigations), his position was never really in danger.

Stevo and the Bear

But maybe, that could change if someone took another look at those 40k Stevo pulled out of a hat to cover for Mijić and the backpay the MP owed to his workers. Obviously, pengovsky is speculating wildly here but the proximity of those 40k appearing and Zoran Stevanović openly and formally starting to cozy up to Russia sticks out like a sore thumb.

You see, about a week ago Russian state news agency TASS reported that Zoran Stevanović is now in contact with his Russian counterpart Vjačeslav Volodin and that that it all happened at the initiative or Mr. Muscles.

Of course, this could all be a coincidence. After all, Stevo has signalled his pro-Russian and pro-Putin sentiment before. And word on the street has it that he used to be a regular at the Russian embassy, so it’s not like he woke a week ago and realised that he loves borsch, Masha and the Bear.

But the clumsy way in which the press release states that “the exchange of messages between the speakers of the Russian and Slovenian parliaments – the first such exchange after a four-year hiatus that, we recall, arose at Ljubljana’s initiative” looks like Moscow is trying very hard to show they had nothing to do with writing this letter. Maybe too hard, if you catch my meaning…

A petition is born

The whole thing obviously stinks to high heaven. So much so in fact, that Miha Brejc, the former head of Slovenian intelligence service (then known as VIS) and a former SDS faithful, launched an online petition calling for dismissal of Zoran Stevanović and the formation of the two blocked parliamentary investigations: one on campaign financing, and the other on Black Cube Affair about Janša’s Israeli friends meddling in Slovenian elections.

Given that you can’t really throw a stick in Muddy Hollows and not hit a petition of one sort or another, this one somewhat unexpectedly got off the ground. Within days, it was clocking in tens of thousands of signatures and got enough traction that it got under Stevanović’s and Janša’s skin. The former, because it dawned on him that his ass is actually on the line. The latter because he and his Israeli friends really want for this whole Black Cube story to simply go away.

The fact that it took a late-game surge of fake signatures from accounts originating in Israel and India to derail the petition and have it taken offline tells you everything you need to know about how many people got nervous over it. Brejc took the petition offline but the damage was done.

Jewish space lasers

The one person who did not get fazed by any of this was Katja Kokot. The leader of Resnica parliamentary group and Muddy Hollows’ answer to Marjorie Taylor Greene would not stand out in any random sample of MAGA loyalists. And that includes pushing pseudo-scientific ideas nuttier than a port-a-potty at a peanut festival.

To be fair, not all of her parliamentary work is batshit crazy. Some of it bog-standard culture war virtue signalling, like filing criminal charges against NGOs she doesn’t like. Still more is just carrying water for special interests, in her case privately-owned veterinary clinics. Like the one she once owned and ran into the ground.

That said, like MTG, Kokot seems to be the sort of person who never met a conspiracy theory she didn’t like. Only she didn’t come up with Jewish space lasers (yet?) and opted for some old-fashioned weather-controlling conspiracies. Because if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. Only she claims it is broken and…

Climate change sceptics meet pseudo-scientific nutjobs

Anyway, the other day Katja “MTG” Kokot dropped a four-part parliamentary question requesting the government come up with a cross-departmental report on investment, research, development, and deployment of weather-controlling technology. And like your weird twice-removed uncle on Facebook she bases her “common sense thinking” on intermittent hail suppression efforts with dubious results. Because if you can throw silver iodide into a storm cloud and hope hail will form sooner with smaller stones (hope being the operative word here), surely you can also steer storms, create floods and poison people.

Now, pengovsky is generally all for this coalition sabotaging itself with mountains of paperwork. Specifically, he would love to see the knots some climate-change skeptic ministers (*cough* Janez Cigler Kralj *cough*) would have to turn themselves into when answering this banger of a question.

I mean, watching NSi best and brightest trying to explain that the beating Slovenian agriculture and infrastructure took this season is not the result of climate change, but is also not the result of weather control, that would be… *chefs_kiss.gif*… Sure, at the end of the day, NSi could still claim god’s will and get away with it, but in the words of Mr. Spock, I’d give real money to see this.

Still worth it?

It may seem tempting to think of Kokot as being another vector of outside influence sowing distrust and eroding democratic institutions. But on balance, she seems perfectly happy and capable of doing it just for the love of the game.

But overall, despite providing oodles of fun and she-said-WHAT?-moments, having to deal with Kokot’s kookiness is a huge net negative. It’s making the parliament look even less serious than it actually is, it is wasting limited government resources and undermines the government’s and coalition’s credibility with their own people. You know, sleep with the dogs, wake up with fleas sort of thing.

Which brings us to the question that might just have started keeping the Glorious Leader up at night. At what point does all of this stop being worth it?

The driver/bodyguard in the president’s van was also slightly injured and apparently there was a non-insignificant amount of material damage. Also not-insignificantly damaged was the notion of at least semi-competent official communication at the highest levels of the state. And much of the blame lies with the president herself.

pengovsky writes this blog for free. Because that’s the way he rolls. But in order to roll (out of bed each morning), this scribe needs copious amounts of caffeine. He also needs a new laptop to he could write while he’s on the move (but not in a presidential motorcade). So if you would find it in your pocket to support my caffeine habit while I save the monies for a decent refurb, please use this link to buy me an espresso or two. Thanks!

Has no-one seen Quantum of Solace?

There is a persistent notion at the top echelons of Slovenian politics that a high government office must come with much pomp and circumstance, until a big kahuna desires for some low-key r’n’r. At that moment, said kahuna expects to be treated like a private citizen, aghast that the media and the public would want to know anything. Or, to put it in the words of president Pirc Musar, “I can’t even get ice-cream like a normal person“.

It will come as a surprise to exactly no-one (other than maybe the president herself) that at her level, things don’t work like that. Like, the president was in a car crash. In a fucking tunnel. And yet, president Pirc Musar and her office wanted the whole thing treated as if it was a normal Friday afternoon in a traffic jam. Has no-one seen Quantum of Solace?

The communications car crash following the actual car crash began almost instantly. First, the fact that it took almost 18 hours to notify the public, even though NPM was scheduled to appear at a public event on the evening of the crash.

After the public was notified, by midday the next day, her office was suspiciously blasé about it. You know, the president had car whoopsie. She now has a boo-boo. Another person in the car had a bit larger boo boo. Shit happens. Big thanks to the first responders. And now, here’s the latest traffic and weather information.

Always fasten your seat-belt. And no cheating.

Excuse me? The head of an EU member state was in a car crash in a tunnel, where she sustained physical injuries, and the whole thing was under wraps for more than half a day? And then we’re just suppose to believe there’s nothing to see here? Clearly, these people don’t browse the internet a whole lot.

But of course things got much worse. Outside of the official communication, the media was told that president Pirc Musar was wearing her seat-belt. Only she didn’t. And this is the precise moment when things really went off the rails.

First it was the seat-belt revelation. Then NPM’s office wouldn’t share the names of the people travelling with her. The media found out one of them was a Russian citizen, forcing the president to come clean and to explain that both passengers were her long-time friends. One of them was NPM’s bowling teammate and a business associate who holds double Slovenian/Russian citizenship.

All of this was quite literally the case of a cover up being worse than the crime. Even though there was no crime to speak of in the first place.

Civilians hitching a ride in a motorcade

But there were questions about civilians hitching a ride in the presidential motorcade. Specifically whether the president can ferry around private citizens and at what cost. Contrary to their curtness about the crash itself, the president’s office went to great lengths to explain that everything was above board and that the president broke no rules in that regard.

Not that everyone was happy with that because something something wasteful spending, security breaches and such. And while Team Pirc Musar may have the right of it (at the very least, there probably isn’t a current or former Slovenian politician who could throw the first stone in that regard), the question is not irrelevant.

Take a look at the American example. Whenever he is not smuggled off in a food container to a backup plane, the US president obviously rides the Air Force One with fill security, government and press entourage. Occasionally, a civilian might hitch a ride as well. But other than government employees, everyone onboard pays for their cost of travel. Not actual cost travel aboard AF1, but an equivalent price that one would pay to a commercial carrier. And that includes food.

After the whole thing went tits-up, the president did manage to fire off a sympathy-seeking Facebook post (see below) where she complained that she can’t really get any time with her friends. So she was hoping to get some quality time with her amigas while they were all going to go to a Tadej Pogačar event in Komenda. She also added that she didn’t break any laws in that regard.

Reimbursing the government

Which, fair. But that doesn’t automatically disallow the question. Because at the end of the day, president’s friends did get a freebie for a leisurely activity at the taxpayers’ expense.

Is this a big problem? Not by itself. It is a problem than become huge if mishandled? Fuck yeah.

So, as a sidequest, pengovsky would humbly submit the Muddy Hollows version of civilian travel on Air Force One: just like the government reimburses its employees if they travel for work under their own steam, so too should civilians or their organisations reimburse the government if they hitch a ride on official transportation.

The tools for these calculations are readily available and who these not pocket-crippling amounts. In the case of the president’s friends, the total mileage reimbursement for one way travel from Umag, Croatia (where the they were all catching some r’n’r) to Komenda, Slovenia would be about 65 EUR per person. If the president were feeling super-generous, she could even chalk it up to her next paycheck. As things stand, however, they just left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths.

Hints of impeachment

At any rate, by this point – and thanks to some carefully planted thoughts and some less than carefully executed journalism – it seemed that NPM was starring down the barrel of an impeachment investigation.

Remember how pengovsky wrote that following her jumping the gun on PM nomination, president Pirc Musar has opened herself to claims of breaching of the constitution. And how this blogger added that while it beggars belief that she’d be impeached just because she was impatient while reading the calendar, there could be other breaches in the future that could make for a nice impeachment package?

Turns out this was nearly one those. Because if you take keeping the public in the dark, ferrying civilians around on the taxpayers’ dime (see below) and a Russian citizen in the presidential vehicle at a time when the EU is (to put it very gently) in an very adversarial relationship with Russia, and add to that her earlier constitutional slip-up, you could – with some heavy spinning – turn this into a parliamentary challenge of her presidency.

And lo-behold, RTV SLO did some overzealous reporting last week and claimed that former judge at the constitutional court and former interior minister in Janša’s first goverment Peter Jambrek was doing just that.

But while the public broadcaster stands by its reporting. Jambrek denied drafting the impeachment document. Instead, he said, he was thinking out loud whether all of this amounts to the Muddy Hollows of high crimes and misdemeanours. And let’s not forget that it would take only an absolute majority in the parliament to impeach NPM and refer the matter to the constitutional court.

A shot across the bow before the re-election campaign

To be fair, the impeachment angle seems to be a non-starter. But if you think this was just shoddy reporting, then pengovsky has some prime Florida swampland to sell you.

Jambrek’s impeachment musings were clearly a shot across NPM’s bow and a hint of things to come. Nataša Pirc Musar is up for reelection in a little over a year and arguably anything she does from this point onward can and should be considered a campaign move.

This blogger would even venture to say many of her staring contests with Robert Golob were campaign moves as well. But all that work went down the shitter when Marshal Twito rode back to power. Best laid plans of mice and men, amirite?

President Pirc Musar micromanaging her way into a disaster

Pengovsky opined at the beginning that much the blame for her current predicament lies with the president herself. Obviously, some of this is because the buck stops with her. But some of this is that she is a notorious micromanager and it is highly improbable that her comms team would take steps (especially as awkward as these) without clearing things with her first.

So it is entirely plausible that much of the communications evasion and trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube was done under her direction or at least with her approval. And that’s always a lost cause from the get-go.

At any rate, after almost two weeks of being dragged through the mud, the president finally managed to cobble together a personal response. Specifically, she wrote a Facebook post where she framed herself as a victim of character assassination, with her friends and family little more than collateral damage.

Finally opting to present a more human side of herself in this clusterfuck, she appealed to people’s sense of dignity and empathy and signed the post simply as Nataša. After a fortnight of omnishambles which included NPM releasing her medical release form for no discernible reason, the FB post thing was quite refreshing.

Out of the woods, but not quite

And it seems to have done the trick. At the very least, the public’s attention was (temporarily?) diverted by Speaker Zoran Stevanović, who a week ago gleefully added that we needn’t worry because if NPM gets canned here’s ready to take over.

Well, Muscles For Brain is not even close to being ready to take over in like, ever. Especially after his Resnica party happily announced they are courting the Russian parliament to get invited to Moscow. Get it? This is not the Duma is desperately seeking friendly voices in the EU. I mean, they are, but in this case, Stevo and his Truthers are the ones begging for a VIP pass to the Kremlin. Twats.

But more on that in a near-future post. For now, Nataša Pirc Musar seems to have weathered a particularly wild storm. But the event has made her and her team look unpleasantly nonchalant, somewhat entitled and very much shit at reading the room.

One-term presidency (the ghost of Danilo Türk’s past)

Veterans of Muddy Hollows politics (or at least avid readers of this blog) will remember how former president Danilo Türk and his team were also taken aback when various nothingburger allegations were levelled against Big D and how they struggled to even take them seriously.

But by the time they did, the stories were already blown way out of proportion and Türk’s office was trying to put the genie back into the bottle. But as a rule, they only manage to over-correct, thereby making it appear they, too, take the matter very seriously and giving the story much more of a leg to stand on.

Rinse and repeat a couple of times and you got yourself a one-term president. Which is something that could well happen to NPM as well, if she is not careful over the next 15 months.

The law was passed even before Janez Janša had his majority in the parliament and was seen as an early test of the would-be coalition. And yet, the Glorious Leader and his finance minister Andrej Šircelj are probably quite happy it will (in all likelihood) get shot down in a mid-November referendum. Though each of them for different reasons. Allow pengovsky to explain.

pengovsky writes this blog because he feels like it. He does feel that he should have posted more during the Summer, but reasons. He also feels incredibly grateful for all the support he received and continues to receive as coffee donations. So, if you feel like chipping in for a double espresso, please use this link. And if you already have, thanks a million and enjoy the read

Janša giving Vrtovec and Logar just enough rope to hang themselves

The law was a byproduct of the smoke-and-mirrors game that was the post-election coalition building. After Logar got cold feet and bailed from negotiations with Robert Golob and Gibanje Svoboda, Jernej Vrtovec started pushing his agenda hard. And since he already had a head start with Janez Janša, Logar had to play catch-up. He co-opted Zoran Stevanović, likely by selling him on the idea of becoming the parliamentary head bouncer, and suddenly everyone was a fucking trickle-down economist.

Janša, on the other hand, understood perfectly that such a law was constitutionally dubious, economically unsound and a bitch to enact. But since his kink seems to be watching his coalition partners hang themselves, he let his would-be fellow travellers play with the rope.

The other person who knew exactly how bad this idea is from the start, was finance minister and one of the few adults in the room, Andrej Šircelj. He knew from the get-to that the omnibus law would blow a massive hole in the budget. He was also very highly critical of some key measures in the law. To give an example at random, even before he was formally appointed, the future finance minister criticised the proposed VAT reduction of staple foods.

Maggie Thatcher would be proud

Šircelj said, correctly, that the retailers would pocket the difference while none of the savings would be passed on to the consumers. He also said, that the country and the budget might actually be looking down the barrel of a general increase of VAT rather than some sort of targeted reduction. Though he did walk that one back quite a bit soon thereafter.

The basic premise of the law was to undo as many of the major Golob reforms as possible, in one fell swoop. Which is how Vrtovec, Logar, and Stevanović as the comical sidekick, got to engage in some very neo-thatcherite aboutfuckery. You know, reduction in public spending, rolling back social services, and cutting taxes wherever there was an interest group that needed to have its, well, interests met.

But the self-styled Centrist Threesome knew they were playing fire. They claimed they were sticking all these different provisions into the same law bEcAuSe tHe oTheR sIdE dId iT tOo!!11!

Which, fair, but only if we neglect the fact that most of Golob’s inaugural omnibus law in 2022 was repealing Janša’s omnibus-mania from the pandemic times.

Brainiacs at referendum work

These guys, however, were aiming to wholesale gut legislation that was drafted, debated, passed, vetoed and then passed again, one legislative procedure at a time. So, not the same. And while we are at it, the moniker Centrist Threesome is bit of a misnomer, too. Centrists, these guys are not.

Logar, Vrtovec and Muscles from Kranjssels (sorry :))) of course knew they were being less than honest in their argumentation. They also knew that unlike Golob, who started his term with five victories at the ballot box inside of six months, they would get their asses handed to them if it came to a referendum challenge. Which is why they tried to do an end run around that.

You see, these jokers took a look at Article 90 of the constitution and liked what they saw. The provision bans referendums on taxation, customs and other budgetary legislation, rectifying unconstitutional laws and provisions, treaty ratification, and urgent national security and/or natural disaster measures.

Somehow these Brainiacs thought that if they stuck a couple of taxation provisions inside the omnibus law, the entire thing would be exempt from a referendum. Even on issues that would normally very much be a subject to a popular vote.

Don’t shit where you eat

As you can surmise from the title of this here blogpost, the court had other ideas. To cut a long story short, the basically told the ruling coalition to take a hike, but in legalese. It was a lopsided 7-1 decision, where even the normally Janša-friendly judge Svetlič, the ugly duckling who ain’t never gonna become a legal swan, sided with the majority. And just like that, the referendum was back on

And while they were at it, the court also told the parliament to stop fucking around with omnibus legislation in general. The judges wrote that every once in a while circumstances may warrant omnibus legislation but that this was not one of those times. Furthermore, by going feral on omnibus bills, the parliament is ruining it for everyone, including themselves. And one really shouldn’t shit where one eats, right?

So what happens now? Seeing as the court OK’d the referendum bid, the labour unions and the opposition will start collecting the necessary 40,000 signatures to force the parliament to call a vote. Starting on 1 September, they will have 35 day to collect them. It will take the petitioners less than that to reach that number. Pengovsky says two weeks, tops.

November gonna be busy af

After that initial deadline, the parliament has seven days to call a referendum vote. This can be scheduled on any given Sunday between a month and a year from the date of the parliamentary session in question. Usually, ruling coalitions want to get it over with quickly, so the current line of thinking is that the date will be 22 November.

If true, the date is smack in between of the first and second round of local elections. These will be held on 15 and 29 November, respectively. And combined with a swathe of referendums scheduled for a month earlier (11 October, more on that in a separate post) it will all make for a fucking wild political Autumn in Muddy Hollows.

The main reason Marshal Twito, Anže Logar and Jernej Vrtovec are probably keen to have the vote as soon as possible and yet separate from any other vote is that they will likely have their asses handed to them. Bigly. And they want to avoid any potential spill-over effect, because the law is so toxic and passed in so much bad faith, that the anger could very likely affect local election results. In all honesty, it still might, but this is probably their best chance.

Alternatively, they could try to schedule the vote one week after the second round of local elections and hope that people will go “what, again?” and not bother to vote. In which case, the law could potentially survive the challenge on technical grounds. Which, you know, plausible.

Coalition agenda on a year-long hiatus

Which brings us to the last item in this entire omnishambles. If the law is doomed to fail (and pengovsky thinks it very much is), then the coalition cannot touch those same provisions in all those different laws for a whole year. And since the omnibus law includes much of what in the coalition agreement or in specific party manifestos, a rejection of the law would effectively put a large part of this Janša government’s agenda on ice.

This would, of course be a disaster for Jernej Vrtovec and Anže Logar they will be feeling the heat from their financial and political backers sooner rather than later. It would also be a disaster for Mr. Muscles, but he already has his hands full with a Resnica clusterfuck entirely of his own making (again, a pengovsky post on that is forthcoming).

Remaking Muddy Hollows in his image. Again.

The only one who comes up on top regardless of the result it the Big Bald Bro himself. PM Janša really couldn’t ask for a better scenario. If by some miracle the law survives, his government delivered on some key promises early on.

But if the law fails and puts the kibosh on much of the coalition agenda for at least a year, the Glorious Leader is free to do whatever the fuck he wants. Which is to try once more to shape this sorry little excuse for a country in his own image. At the expense of this coalition partners, of course.

Because that’s just how he rolls.

The parking ordnance referendum simply refused to go away, despite Zoki’s legal maneuvering. In addition, he also seems to have finally drawn a worthy challenger in the autumn election. While names like Luka Mesec and Urška Klakočar Zupančič are being tested and retested as potential candidates, the one name that probably really rattled the mayor’s cage is former PM Tone Rop.

pengovsky writes this blog for free. pengovsky also runs on coffee. If you like the former you can chip in for the latter via this link. All coffees are appreciated, but an espresso is appreciated very much.

UPDATE: Although as many as 94% of all votes cast were against the parking ordnance, the referendum bid failed as it did not pass the 20% turnout threshold. In the end, only about 18% of eligible Ljubljanchans cast their vote. Whatever lessons could be gleaned from this, pengovsky is sure they will not be.

Beating someone with someone else

This blogger often repeats the mantra that you cannot beat somebody with a nobody. Zoran Janković and his undisputed twenty-year rule is a textbook example. He won in a landslide in 2006 and drew no serious challengers since. OK, so the SDS tried once or twice even they gave up soon, leaving it to the likes of Miha Jazbinšek to do the challenging.

Not this time.

OK, so the SDS still can’t come up with a decent challenger. In all likelihood, they will nominate someone, or risk having to support either Aleš Primc or Mihael Jarc. Both these charaters are different shades of Catholic fundamentalism. Specifically, the former is an anti-choice and anti-LGBTQI activist while the latter cut his teeth opposing the construction of Ljubljana’s only mosque back in the day. Barring a disaster of epic proportions, neither of these twats stands a chance.

Rather, in a suggestion that nature might indeed be healing, the challenge to mayor Janković comes from the liberal/left side of the spectrum. Specifically, about a month and a half ago, former PM Tone Rop emerged as a contender and for the first time in two decades Zoran Janković seems to have an actual fight on his hands.

Who the fuck is Tone Rop?

Pengovsky needs to point out that to date, no-one but Janković officially declared an election bid. So if Rop officially jumps into the fray, there will be ample time talk about him.

For now, suffice it to say that his top billing nationall is, of course, former PM and the guy who oversaw Slovenian accession to EU and NATO. He is also the guy who lost to Janša in 2004, which precipitated the splintering of once-mighty LDS, and ended up in SD, so there’s that.

Internationally, he peaked as VP at European Investment Bank and kept sort of a low profile since, until his bid for governorship of Bank of Slovenia, which went up in flames (his bid, not the bank) due to petty differences between president Pirc Musar and PM Golob.

But most importantly, if Tone Rop were to really challenge Zoran Janković, it would be fucking hilarious. Not in the least because of an exchange 25 years ago, when Rop was caught on a hot mic telling Zoki off, that he was appointed as CEO of Mercator only because he (Rop) made it happen.

It would be glorious.

A crowded field on the left

That said, Tone Rop is not alone in this enterprise and apparently his group of political malcontents also includes former Speaker Urška Klakočar Zupančič and former MP and TV journalist Mojca Šetinc Pašek, as well as former SD secretary general Uroš Jauševec. And if reports are to be believed, UKZ is also in play for a mayoral race, apparently because she polls better. But while name recognition is important, she seems much better suited for an office that is more glamorous and less nitty-gritty. Such as president of the republic.

But pengovsky digresses. Point is that there are serious bids mulled on the left. One such potential candidate is also Levica co-coordinator Luka Mesec.

Failing some disaster befalling Janković, Mesec doesn’t really stand a chance against incumbent mayor. But seeing as mayoral debates are the only televised debates in local elections, a good performance by Mesec could raise the number of Levica councilors. This, in turn, would make the party a force to be reckoned with in the city, not just a one-person nuisance for Janković’s voting steamroller.

While these bids were likely mulled for a while now, they were given new impetus after the parking ordnance clusterfuck.

*the* parking ordnance

In short, the city wanted to handle an ever-growing problem of non-residents parking in residential areas by installing parking meters and enforcing parking fees everywhere, including in parking spaces that are effectively functional land of apartment blocks. (cf. last post about Miha Jazbinšek).

While this approach does have some merit and has shown good results in other neighbourhoods, Janković went about it with all the nuance of a runaway bulldozer. As per usual.

Only this time he rubbed that particular part of Ljubljana (an area called Štepanjsko naselje) wrong in so many ways that the residents decided to give Janković a piece of their mind. Reader, it did not go well.

Zoran Janković relishes conflict. But this time the citizens’ initiative from Štepanjsko naselje soon ballooned into a city-wide effort, under the campaign slogan of “Our parking spaces”. And a s problematic as this slogan is, it is very effective.

Status quo ante parkingum

You see, parking spaces are not “ours” per se, as there are not nearly enough of them for all residents of most Ljubljana neighbourhoods. And in areas where parking metres were installed, freeloading daytime parking by non-residents has all but ceased. Ultimately, what proponents of the referendum aim for is a prolongation of the current regime, where some people have solved their parking problem on common land, whereas everyone else can go fuck themselves.

But in an average Muddy Hollows mentality very few things are allowed to come between Slovenians and their car and a city mayor definitely is not one of them.

By the time Zoran Janković realised he bit off more than he could chew, the Our Parking Spaces campaign had already collected enought signatures to force a referendum. At that stage Jaković did a panic and had the city council rescind the ordnance. It is better to kill a parking measure than to be knifed at the ballot box four months before the election.

Of metres and mercurial mayors

But in a classic case of the cover up being worse than the crime, the legality of the cancellation is dubious and the campaign pressed on with the referendum bid. Because at this point his is no longer about a parking meters under people’s windows but about a mercurial mayor who does whatever and whenever the fuck he pleases.

There was serious polling of this referendum bid, at least none pengovsky is aware of. But it makes sense to think that this is the sort of issue that primarily motivates people unhappy with Zoran Janković. Which is why his main approach was to draw as little attention to the issue as possible and hope that the referendum does not reach the necessary quorum. This way the inevitable rejection on the parking ordnance would be null and void, and he would technically remain undefeated.

But we all know how this approach turned out the last time around.

There Jazbinšek seemingly felt most at home with his particular breed of obstinate progressive liberalism. And if that sounds like a contradiction in terms, congratulations, you’ve just met Jazzby. He drove successive mayors including Zoran Janković up the wall with his relentless debates, pointed criticism and – at least once – disagreeing with what he said minutes ago and asking for procedural time to rebut his own debate.

Pengovsky writes this drivel for free. If you like it, you can support this here blog and its author by buying him a coffee using this link. Because as we all know, coffee is the fuel of life. Or at the very least, the fuel of snark.

The law bearing his name

Miha Jazbinšek entered Muddy Hollows lore by ways of a massive housing overhaul which became known as the Jazbinšek Law. What it basically did was to distribute the existing public housing fund among the people, based on a relatively complex system of points, weights and discounts.

You see, in the old country, most housing was public. The municipality would approve a project by a quasi-public developer, with seed money coming from employees’ mutual funds. Like pensions and health insurance, everyone was required to put away a tiny portion of their paycheck into such funds.

Most of the money, however, was provided by various companies, who also ran their own housing funds. And when all of this money was pooled, entire neighbourhoods were built in a relatively short amount of time, mostly between 1970 and 1985.

Seeing as most property was public back then, people didn’t outright own the apartment. But they did have dwelling/apartment rights and through that they could use public apartments as if they owned them. Up to and including passing them on as inheritance. But – to use a market economy term – they could not leverage them as an asset.

This new thing called capitalism

Jazbinšek Law changed all that. At its core, it was a massive redistribution of wealth. And a massively successful one at that. In one fell swoop, the legislation created an economic and financial foundation for an entire generation of Slovenians. Not unlike vouchers in privatising the public-owned companies, only unlike with the stocks, the people did not, for the most part, unload their newfound property for peanuts. 

But understanding capitalism only went so far. In fact, the moment people got their ownership papers, most of them lost any interest in, you know, managing their assets. And with people pengovsky also means politicians.

Originally, Jazbinšek Law was meant to be only the first step in disbursing among the people what in the old country was theoretically of the people (in a very socialist amorphous sense of the word). This was to be followed by divvying up of the functional land surrounding the newly privatised housing as well as replenishing of the housing stock, now via state and municipal housing funds.

Not following through

While some efforts were made in that direction, they were not on the scale of the original law. And as focus of national politics shifted towards bigger issues (ahem, EU and NATO), the little details didn’t matter as much anymore.

Needless to say that thirty years later, a national housing shortage in Muddy Hollows is as bad as anywhere in Europe. With prices to match. Even more ironically, a clunky attempt by Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković to sort-of-solve a city-wide parking clusterfuck, which is a direct result of lack of follow-up on Jazbinšek legislation, threatens to bring down Zoki’s 20-year tenure as mayor.

Incidentally, if this were actually come to pass (more on that in a future post), this would be Jazzby running interference against Janković even from beyond the grave. Which would be fucking hilarious.

You see, Miha Jazbinšek and Zoran Janković never really got along. Jazzby saw himself as occupying a cross-section between urbanism, sociology and nature protection. In a way, he was years, if not decades, before his time. One could go through his website and find policy nuggets and ideas from late nineties and early naughts that sound suspiciously like EU’s Green New Deal.

Always the Lone ranger

But for someone whose primary field of activity was politics, he was woefully inept at building coalitions. He just could not understand that being right was never enough and that sometimes people will agree with him and still vote to defy him. More precisely, he understood this, but he never saw it as an obstacle to work around. To him, it was merely proof of other people’s ineptitude.

This was also his take on the fact that the Green movement in Muddy Hollows split early in the nineties. Despite the fact that he was by far the most prominent member of the OG Green Party in Slovenia, back then somehow the provincial right-wing element took control of the outfit and made it a family heirloom. All Jazbinšek got out of this was the ability to run on the party ticket if he wanted to and keep his operational an political independence.

As a result, he was often the lone voice of what he saw as rational dissent in the Ljubljana City Council. And not infrequently, rational would be doing a lot of heavy lifting in those debates. These were legendary. In fact, Jazzby and another one-man-band in City Council, Mihael Jarc (a crusader from the opposite side of the political spectrum and proof that no-good people live longer) were the primary reasons mayor Janković had no problem finding the necessary two-thirds majority to change the rules and limit debate time, soon after he took office.

Old habits die hard

After that, Miha Jazbinšek’s influence and ability to gum up the works were considerably weakened. As a direct consequence, he would transfer the bulk of his screeds to press releases. These, he sent out with the conviction of a 20-something die-hard activist rather than a seasoned politician who has been around the block a couple of times.

But in a proof that old habits die hard, Jazbinšek (born in 1941, just a few months after Nazi Germany invaded and subjugated then-kingdom of Yugoslavia) remained convinced that paper is a rare commodity, even in the digital age. To wit, he regularly sent out Word documents with margins extended all the way into the bleeding edge of the page, often making them impossible to print out. Because you know, we gotta conserve paper.

He also insisted that every document he sent out would include his personal signature. As if the the reader (mostly journalists and other people paid to read these things) could ever confuse his generalist style of prose, interspersed with random focuses (foci?) onto very granular and often helpful detail, with anyone else’s writings. But everyone who had to, read those things. Because sometimes, just sometimes, there would be a nugget in there that could make a newsroom’s week in an instant.

Jazzby

The one thing that Miha Jazbinšek took great pride in, other than driving mayor Janković and his predecessor Danica Simšič up against the wall, was music. He would perform at regular (albeit rare) intervals with his band, Miha Jazbinšek and His Legends.

To a certain part of the public, his musical exploits in the jazz-swing genre were much better known than his political achievements. It was also the arena where he earned a nickname that would follow him into politics. Jazbinšek might have been a bit weird and often went against the grain intentionally, but he never lacked recognition. Being affectionately known as Jazzby made sure of that.

As fates would have it, Miha Jazbinšek passed on 25 June, the birthday of the country the future of which he has affected profoundly. Even if his area was not flashy statecraft and flag-waving. And yet, thirty-odd years after his foray into national politics, we are seeing that issues he argued for passionately, if sometimes brusquely, are now seen as key issues of resilience and sovereignty.

Like swing, these things apparently never really go out of fashion.

There are two or three referendums lined up. A potential violation of international law. An SDS MEP being kicked out of EPP. Resnica playing even bigger dumm-dumms than they are. And interesting developments in Ljubljana mayoral race. But first, read below or click here for parts one, two and three.

This blog runs on coffee, sarcasm and swear words. pengovsky writes the drivel entirely for free and if for some unfathomable reason like following Muddy Hollows political cesspool, or simply enjoy learning a new curse word every once in a while, please consider buying pengovsky a coffee using this link.

Polona Rifelj, minister of environment, spatial planning and getting blamed when shit goes wrong

An eminently political appointee, Polona Rifelj could easily have popped up in any other role in Janša’s fourth government. She no specialised knowledge that would qualify her for this portfolio, nor is she a standout Party cadre who would spend years obediently pressing every button the Glorious Leader needed pressed in parliament (see Lep Šimenko, Suzana).

What Polona Rifelj did have going for her is the position of state secretary at the ministry of economy during the Covid-19 era Janša 3.0 government. So, she has some executive experience, which will definitely come handy.

She is also the bosslady of SDS Celje branch which is awfully close to Middleof Fuckingnowhere, Velenje, where the Glorious Leader sleeps nowadays. Admittedly, she does not have the high honour of counting the Marshal among the due-paying members of her particular outfit (that being the SDS Velenje branch) but she is geographically closer to him than any other member of this cabinet.

That said, environment and spatial planning is not exactly a coveted post. Precious few political careers have been made at this ministry but many have been tarnished beyond repair (see Jazbinšek, Miha; obit pending in the next couple of days).

Because when things will go sideways on the second nuclear powerplant in Krško or when additional highway lanes will refuse to materialise out of thin air, you can be sure that infrastructure minister Jernej Vrtovec will be looking for scapegoats fare and wide, with Polona Rifelj being prime candidate.

Mihael Zupančič, minister of justice and swallowing hard

Ah, yes, another portfolio where Demokrati have likely bitten off more than they will be able to chew. Mihael Zupančič had an nice little career going for him in the Muddy Hollows diplomatic service and with a law degree from Sorbonne, he was sure to go places.

Alas, one of those places seems to be the ministry of justice. This is one of handful of portfolios Glorious Leader will be paying special attention to. Which is understandable, given all his rants about the justice system and whatnot.

Thus even though the fight against corruption was very much at the top of Demokrati and Anže Logar agenda, Mihael Zupančič will get his marching orders from Janša and his personal lawyer, who just happens to be minister of the interior. He will simply be expected to swallow hard and get on with it.

For Anže Logar, this will be one more point of political and personal humiliation. But for Zupančič, this will be an object lesson that decades in the civil service, watching politicians trip over themselves, do not automatically prepare you to be a better politician.

Suzana Lep Šimenko, minister for diaspora and getting out of the way

What exactly did Suzana Lep Šimenko do to deserve this plum posting, pengovsky knows not. Being appointed minister without portfoilo in charge of relations with Slovenians abroad is probably the best job in this or any Slovenian government.

You show up to work, check your email, maybe even answer a couple of them and then spend the rest of the day looking for excuses to visit countries that have at least a handful of Slovenians living there. Double points if said Slovenians can form a folklore group or at least play an accordion. And in a show of great political force and clout, minister for diaspora even gets to disburse a couple of million euros to various Muddy Hollows-related cultural projects around the world.

Suzana Lep Šimenko has been a staple of SDS national cast since her 2014 parliamentary debut. As is the custom, she was a loyal and unwavering Party cadre. But she wasn’t really an outstanding performer either. This being her fourth straight term, maybe she unlocked the “become a cabinet minister” achievement.

Or maybe the reason for Lep Šimenko’s skyrocketing political career isn’t her great political acumen but rather the guy who came in after her. Namely, by making the ministerial posting, she had to relinquish her MP seat. You know, the little detail about separation of powers and such.

Thus appointing Suzana Lep Šimenko as minister primarily cleared the way for Luka Simonič, president of the SDS youth organisation to enter the parliament. And at a time when the SDS won as much as a quarter of their vote in the under-45 demographic it just seems good politics to have Party Komsomol chief inside the parliament.

Zoran Stevanović and Katja Kokot, parliamentary bully and his posse

When Janša sent out calls for “development partnership”, offering opposition parties early access to drafting legislation in exchange for good behaviour, GS, SD and Levica told him to go fuck himself and the horse he rode in on.

Resnica, on the other hand, realised that by taking the Glorious Leader up on his offer they could no longer pretend to be an opposition party. Even though they are very much a part of the coalition. Moreover, Speaker Zoran Stevanović and Resnica parliamentary group leader Katja Kokot have absolutely no need for such an agreement.

Firstly, their supply and confidence agreement with Janša ensure they have the Marshal’s ear whenever they need it (or else their five votes could go >>poof!<<). And secondly, in the few months since the inauguration of this parliaments, Resnica filed more batshit crazy legislation than most parties in this decade, combined.

In fact, it in increasingly obvious that the role of Resnica is to be the psychotic bully in the school cafeteria, slamming down random people’s lunch trays and daring them to punch back.

But apparently they forgot that sometimes those to fight back are the ones you least expect.