By: Dr Vinko Gorenak
“It is good that the Gibanje Svoboda (Freedom Movement) and SD (Social Democrats) are confronting each other; this way, more dirt about both will come to light. Unfortunately, we no longer know who is leading the country,” wrote Dr Matej Lahovnik, according to my recollection.
And indeed, it is so. What we witnessed in the last month actually resembles a zoo, where the beasts mercilessly bite each other.
It all began at the Ministry of Justice, led by Dominika Švarc Pipan, who is affiliated with the Social Democrats. Just before the end of the previous year, she overpaid around 6 million euros for the ruin at Litijska 51 in Ljubljana, intending it for the judiciary, after presumably spending twice as much on renovations. We already know all of this, but for a long time, we did not know how large the building actually is. New measurements have revealed that it is 1000 square meters larger than stated in the contract signed by the minister. “We have experienced all sorts of things, but we have never seen a building grow by 1000 square meters in a month,” wrote opposition leader Janez Janša about it. Furthermore, the seller of the building reserved around 1000 square meters of land at the last entrance and did not sell it, which he will undoubtedly sell at a very high price to the Ministry of Justice.
All of this is more or less known to the public. Those unfamiliar with the political situation in the country, specifically within the coalition, mostly followed just that, paying less attention to something else. In Golob’s coalition, specifically in its strongest component, the Freedom Movement, they seem to have decided to dismantle and destroy the SD party. How else to explain the fact that the Minister of Justice was initially accused and expelled from the party by her fellow party members, led by Tanja Fajon? The minister thanked her colleagues in the SD for the “flowers”, as she wrote, and bid farewell to the party.
MY SOURCES SAY THAT SOMETHING SIMILAR HAPPENED A FEW DAYS AGO, BUT THIS TIME THE HOST OF THE LITTLE MAN FROM MURGLE WAS THE HEAD OF THE COALITION.
However, coalition’s leader himself took her side. The minister “sold” him the information that her subordinates and the general secretary of the SD, Klemen Žibert, set her up. And the head of the coalition believed her or intentionally acted that way, tasking her with investigating the matter and reporting back. In reality, this implicated Tanja Fajon and the SD. He left them to sizzle for almost half a month. During this time, Dominika Švarc Pipan at the Ministry of Justice sought the culprits for signing the mentioned contract, essentially herself. If she had a genuine intention to investigate anything, she would have collected all the documentation related to the purchase of the mentioned ruin and handed it over to the police. Since she did not do that, one could infer that she may have destroyed evidence against herself. Reportedly, the police is conducting a preliminary investigation into the mentioned purchase, but in over a month, no investigator has been sent to Dominika Švarc Pipan. Finally, she offered her resignation. On the day when the National Assembly was informed of her resignation, the mandate of her State Secretary, Igor Šoltes, a former head of the Court of Audit, should have also ended. However, out of ordinary vindictiveness, Švarc Pipan dismissed him two days before with the help of the head of the coalition.
However, significant events continue to unfold between the Freedom Movement and the SD. The head of coalition immediately aligned himself with two parties after the elections in 2022, parties that voters had sent into the annals of history: the Party of Alenka Bratušek (SAB) and the List of Marjan Šarec (LMŠ). Of course, this alignment was a deception of the voters – Alenka Bratušek and Marjan Šarec essentially sold their failed parties to the head of coalition in exchange for ministerial positions. However, the head of coalition aims to be the absolute political master. That is why he wants to completely destroy the SD of Tanja Fajon and absorb its remnants into the Freedom Movement. To a large extent, he has already succeeded, as the SD has announced a congress, which likely means they will replace Tanja Fajon. I never considered her an intellectual gem, but the alternatives being offered (Matjaž Nemec or Milan Brglez) are even worse.
However, the time for elections to the European Parliament is approaching. This will likely be a time when the cards are significantly reshuffled, and the political landscape in Slovenia becomes much clearer. It might happen that Golob’s coalition as a whole will face defeat in these elections, also due to the conflicts between the Freedom Movement and the SD. The situation is not straightforward in the reverse either. When the eternal leader of all leftists in Slovenia, the little man from Murgle, visited the then Prime Minister of Slovenia, Alenka Bratušek, in 2014, she resigned a month later. My sources say that something similar happened a few days ago, but this time the host of the little man from Murgle was the head of coalition. To be continued.