By: Sara Kovač / Nova24tv
A cursory glance at the publicly available data gives a certain impression of unusual behaviour. The candidate for the position of President of the Republic, Nataša Pirc Musar, has not responded to our questions yet, but in line with journalistic ethics and the public’s right to information, we will continue to investigate the as-of-yet undisclosed part of the presidential candidate’s life. After all, in the case of Nataša Pirc Musar, we are talking about a public figure who wants to convince us that she is the right person for the highest political office in the country. But one cannot help feeling that Pirc Musar does not want to present herself to the public as she really is – even her overly photoshopped posters are proof of this. Interestingly, she is also friends with a Russian woman named Victoria Krivolutskaya, who has held important positions in Pirc Musar’s companies for many years – even though she is a person who has been sentenced to prison.
In 2001, Nataša Pirc Musar joined Aktiva Group, the largest private financial company in Slovenia, as Head of Corporate Communications. In the same year, she acquired a three-quarters stake in a house in Radomlje, which was also completely renovated. And she did this without a loan. It is particularly strange that she and her partner, who were not yet married at the time, decided to buy a joint family home in a way where the seemingly weaker partner has a three-quarters share while the other partner, who is financially stronger on paper, has only a quarter. This is especially interesting because Pirc Musar is a lawyer and knows that the assets acquired in marriage are considered shared property and should be divided as such. It is also unusual since this is the beginning of what they like to portray in the media as the dream marriage. However, the beginning of this “dream marriage” was in stark contrast to all legal and common-sense standards. After the purchase of their “family nest,” it can therefore be concluded that Pirc Musar also acts in an extremely rational, if not egoistic, manner when it comes to emotional matters.
But on the other hand, she seems to be driven by emotions in some of her decisions. This was the case with the decision to appoint Victoria Krivolutskaya as proxy. In March of 2003, Pirc Musar set up a one-person company at her address, called NET PRODUKCIJA d.o.o., where she was also appointed the sole representative or director. When she was appointed to the position of Information Commissioner in July 2004, her public position forced her to appoint her husband, Aleš Musar, as director of the company. Interestingly, the registration of the appointment was actually made three months after it happened, as the change was only noted in the court register on the 15th of October 2004. The company’s main activity was other business activities – corporate and management consultancy – and Aleš Musar seems to be the most suitable person to run such a company, given his extensive experience. But does he really have the experience he says he does? Then, in 2010, Nataša Pirc Musar’s life took an even bigger turn. She let the aforementioned Victoria Krivolustkaya into her business and private life.
Who is Victoria Krivolustkaya?
This is a person who Pirc Musar allegedly met at the Bowling club, where they were playing together. The journalist Nataša Briški was one of the competitors at that same club. However, the event that apparently brought Pirc Musar and her Russian friend together was of a completely different nature. Namely, in the same year that the Russian became a proxy in Pirc Musar’s company, she was finally sentenced to a one-year prison term for causing a car accident through negligence. In 2007, she caused a fatal car accident and fled the scene – she was only traced by the police officers the following day in Zagorje. But the Austrian motorcyclist was already dead by then.
What is perhaps even more controversial is the fact that Krivolustkaya tried to blame the accident on her friend, who was a passenger in the car and was asleep at the time of the accident. The court found Krivolustkaya guilty, but a higher court later reduced her sentence to one year in prison – Pirc Musar denied that her acquaintanceships contributed to that, even though she definitely knew lots of the “right people” as the Director of the Centre for Education and Information at the Supreme Court. But Pirc Musar had nevertheless appointed Krivolustkaya as a proxy in her company. This is clearly an act that does not show much thought on Pirc Musar’s part, but there must be more behind all of this. Considering that she was anything but emotional when she bought the family house, one might conclude that it was her emotions that drove her to appoint a proxy who is more than obviously a person without a conscience. It is also telling that today, Krivolustkaya is the Head of Accounting at the Pirc Musar law firm.
Indeed, even a cursory glance at the publicly available data gives some impression of unusual behaviour. Pirc Musar has not responded to our questions yet, but in line with journalistic ethics and the public’s right to information, we will continue to investigate the as-of-yet undisclosed part of the presidential candidate’s life. After all, in the case of Nataša Pirc Musar, we are talking about a public figure who wants to convince us that she is the right person for the highest political office in the country, which requires a morally and ethically unquestionable person. Pirc Musar wants to portray both her own career and that of her family members as a separate matter with which she has nothing to do. The presidential candidate is a person for whom it seems that she has been before our eyes all our lives and whom we really know – but in reality, we know more or less only the part of her that she allows us to know.
The latest actions in the presentation of her presidential candidacy have certainly left the impression that Pirc Musar is a person who has something to hide and is acting in a rather non-transparent manner. One need only recall her influence on the media, when her husband Aleš Musar had a meeting with Tomaž Vesel, the Director of one of the key companies in Martin Odlazek’s media empire, allegedly without Pirc Musar knowing about it. She first categorically denied knowing about this meeting, but then admitted that she had asked her husband to speak to the former President of the Court of Audit. Pirc Musar had counted on all the media to oblige her and only report on her in a way that suited her – especially when even Milan Kučan endorsed her as a candidate. When this did not come true, she asked her husband to intervene. But as a long-standing Information Commissioner and also a lawyer, she should know what the standards of the right to public information are in the case of a public figure. However, Pirc Musar has taken a unique approach in every respect when it comes to her campaign for President of the Republic of Slovenia – from engaging the Ministry of the Interior to provide her address for the collection of signatures to her extremely photoshopped posters, in which she does not even look like herself. A picture is worth a thousand words, one might say – and among other things, it tells us that Pirc Musar does not want to present herself to the public as she actually is.