By: Lea Kalc Furlanič
Publicist Milan Gregorič from Slovenian Istria, known as an astute political analyst, points out the enthronement of Robert Golob, an affair on two legs: “Life has its laws and every building built on scams, lies and shaky foundations, as we have seen with other instant parties, does not withstand earthquakes and soon collapses on its own. The upcoming local elections will be the first such test…”
Gregorič also says that he did not deal with Golob’s recent appearance on the political scene. But when the deep state launched him into orbit as Prime Ministerial candidate and skeletons began to fall from Golob’s closet, he began digging for his story…
Milan Gregorič finished primary school in Dekani, graduated from the Slovene Classical High School in Trieste (1953) and graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana (1971). During his studies, he performed various tasks in student organisations. After a long period of employment in responsible positions in the economy, in recent decades he has visibly marked the civil society events in Koper and the wider area in Primorska region, especially with his publishing activity (over eight hundred different texts). He has published his thoughts in several books. He is the recipient of the Peterlin Award (2012), awarded by Slovenska prosveta from Trieste, and the Borut Mešek Honorary Award (2014), awarded by the Association of Journalists and Publicists.
DEMOKRACIJA: You wrote that Golob was supposed to be an “affair on two legs”. Why do you rate him that way?
Gregorič: Let me start with Golob’s infamous personal income and his false public waving in the face of a payroll that is supposed to prove the amount of his monthly salary of about 7,000 euros net. In fact, we learned from official data in the media (Demokracija, January 27th, 2022) that his net salary in 2018 was 235,178 euros, in 2019 159,126 euros. In 2020, he had a net salary of 214,834 euros and an award (for work performance) of 281,000 euros or a total of 495,834 euros. In 2021, his net salary was 27,000 euros and again a reward – no less than 1.2 million euros, which is a total of 1,227,000 euros. Thus, according to media, Golob’s annual income in certain periods is higher than the income of the President of the United States. This is a gross violation of Lahovnik’s law, which limits the excessive personal income of executives to a reasonable level for state-owned companies, such as GEN-I. However, in the case of this immoral robbery of taxpayers’ money, the Slovene depraved and false socially sensitive left has obviously pinched its nose, closed its eyes, and turned away.
DEMOKRACIJA: In your opinion, how was Golob treated by the Slovenian central media, especially the national RTV? The president of the RTV programme council, Peter Gregorčič, said publicly that he had heard the editors agree on the postponement of reporting on Golob’s affairs to the post-election period.
Gregorič: The dominant media diligently swept Golob’s affairs under the rug, and Kučan put his stamp on this event with the statement (Nova24TV, April 26th, 2022), “that a high income is not a sin”. And Golob, encouraged by this left-wing hypocrisy, rejected the public’s demands for an income tax return and, by the way, “forgot to report his assets to the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption”. Golob’s “15 percent” affair also resonated with the public, revealing his participation in talks to obtain a concession for the construction of a hydroelectric power plant on the Neretva in 2009, where there was also talk of sharing commissions and a 15 percent commission for Golob. This was in a way confirmed by Golob himself with his clumsy statement, “that the project was not realised and of course then no commission could be paid to anyone” (Demokracija, January 27th, 2022). We also learned from the media (SiolNET, April 21st, 2022) about the international financial investigation of around 600,000 euros of disputed transfers of the Serbian branch of GEN-I from Belgrade to the private company MB Consulting in Montenegro, which was established just days before the first transfers. It was established that “all 600,000 euros were drawn in the form of cash withdrawals” and that the cash was returned in the direction from which it came, and that “Golob invested money in one of the Italian funds, where they allow investors to remain anonymous”. A similar transaction was confirmed by a survey in Bulgaria. Despite the closure of the GEN-I subsidiary company, his bank account remained open and hundreds of thousands of euros remained on it after the closure. And Planet TV, which revealed the affair, supposedly briefly messaged the public, “who was the agent who withdrew money at the bank”.
DEMOKRACIJA: The story of Golob’s bank account in Romania is almost bizarre, is it not? Above all, his response to this news. It seems incredible that the public even bought his explanation that it was an identity theft. How do you interpret Golob’s interpretation of this story?
Gregorič: Information about this affair was brought by the alternative media (SiolNet, April 21st, 2022), and the dominant ones swept it under the rug, so the repercussions of the affair were limited and did not cause any major excitement. But it is not an innocent thing. Golob allegedly also had an account in Romania with the Austrian bank Raifeissen, about which he apparently lied publicly again, saying that in this case his identity had been “stolen”, namely the bank, which Golob practically accused of participating in the opening of an allegedly fake account, came forward and said that “the case is being investigated”, but at the same time firmly stated that “opening accounts with them is carried out exclusively in the presence of the person and his proper identification”. The public was also informed (Demokracija, April 21st, 2022) that Golob sold “his company BPC, Ltd, which was worth 8,763 euros according to the court register, on September 11th, 2008, to the Istrabenz Gorenje energetski sistemi (IGES) company, of which he was supposedly the director at the time, for 166,318.83 euros. The purchase was allegedly made on behalf of IGES by Commissioner Mateja Kolar Korošec”, as well as the fact that Golob, as the director of one of Istrabenz’s branches, transferred 96,000 euros to the account of a private kindergarten directed by Istrabenz in 2011 and an additional 29,450 euros in 2012. And “when Istrabenz closed the kindergarten a year later, it transferred all the equipment to the private company of Golob’s wife”. And finally, the information (Domovina, April 21st, 2022), “that Golob is transferring his property to his wife Jana, who, as can be seen from the land register, does not have it at his disposal”. Without Golob’s consent. This sounds very clever, because in the event of a possible seizure, it will not be possible to confiscate anything from Golob, and the wife cannot alienate property without his consent.
DEMOKRACIJA: Behind Golob, it is now quite clear, stands a deep state with its directors and Golob has honestly become entangled in their networks. What price do you think he might pay for it?
Gregorič: The above-mentioned facts about Golob’s affair were published in various alternative media before the elections, but critical observers (Nova24tv, April 26th, 2022) note that in the Slovenian political septic tank, “godparents from the background through selective reporting, mainly thanks to media tycoon Martin Odlazek and undercover deep state operative Drago Kos, who edits on POP TV through his wife, managed to effectively minimise the echo of the scandals in which their new face became entangled”, thus launching him into orbit. Alternative media in these circumstances, however, were too weak to match the left-wing media monopoly. However, with all this filth that Golob drags behind him, he will be firmly tied to the reins of directors from the background, as he can be knocked to the ground and dumped in a dump of disused political corpses if the interests of deep states were jeopardised because of him and his controversial legacy. Bojan Požar added (Domovina, April 21st, 2022), “that no politician within a decent European country could survive a single such affair, let alone all together, as is allowed here and now by Robert Golob.” At the same time, he noted that the slaves’ journalists swept the matter under the rug “without any journalistic verification” and attributed the said information to “pre-election attempts to discredit Golob”. So, we will have, as someone said on Twitter, at the head of the government a man “who Leben gave the party, GEN-I campaign money, KUL voters, leading media unlimited minutes, and Mediana leading positions on the charts. It is crazy that the world has never seen a bigger fraud!” However, life has its laws and every building built on frauds, lies and shaky foundations, as we have already seen with other instant parties (Janković, Bratušek, Cerar, Šarec), cannot stand earthquakes and soon collapses into itself. The upcoming local elections will be the first such test, and I deeply hope that Golob and the related new, dirty abuse of democratic processes to assert narrow partial interests will get their first lesson.
DEMOKRACIJA: Above all, what price will the citizens and the state pay for this? At what point do you think we will first feel the consequences of Golob’s enthronement?
Gregorič: The experience with instant parties and their messiahs so far has been devastating in terms of governing the country, and this path will not be different. A troupe gathered without a serious and well-built party, without members and without state experience, and burdened with such a morally controversial past, does not meet any conditions for successful government. For a start, I expect mainly the demolition of what the current Janša’s government has created. An attempt to collapse the contract to purchase armoured vehicles is already here. Congratulations to Tonin for resolutely resisting this. Let them tear down and do as much as possible. The bill will come.
DEMOKRACIJA: It is hard to believe that the Slovenian nation has once again fallen for another so-called new face.
Gregorič: I could not condemn the nation for losing the election. In Domovina, Mamić wrote that it was not Golob who won the election, but the media. Namely, we live in a crippled democracy, where the left option has managed to lay hands on all the levers of real social power, i.e., capital, media, repressive bodies, and civil society, and effectively abuse them to maintain power and specially to control its troughs. The process of democratic maturation of societies that have emerged from half a century of totalitarian one-mindedness takes its time. However, no one can stop it anymore, and in fact, Slovenia will not only experience formal democracy, perhaps sooner than we think.
DEMOKRACIJA: The Povežimo Slovenijo movement, which otherwise follows the centre, stable path of our social reality, also suffered defeat. How do you comment on that?
Gregorič: This movement is also a victim of our crippled democracy, as the regime’s media machinery has barely mentioned it. In the meantime, a mistake was made, such as solo action by Aleksandra Pivec. The time will also come for this movement.
DEMOKRACIJA: Do you still see any hope for Slovenia after so many years of constant really low blows to the right?
Gregorič: Political lies, deception, and covert political violence can win certain short-term battles, but they cannot win war. The spring option as the creator, bearer, and guarantor of the values of the Slovenian political spring will reach its moment, perhaps much earlier than we expect. We just have to persevere.