By: Spletni časopis
Andreja Katič, who was supposed to take over the parliamentary seat of Jani Prednik, who resigned after being sued by two former girlfriends, declined the seat because she was serving as Minister of Justice. Now, she is left without either position.
Prime Minister Robert Golob today sent a formal notice to parliament regarding the resignation of the Minister of Justice. The resignation will take effect once the National Assembly acknowledges it. Meanwhile, the National Electoral Commission unanimously confirmed Janja Rednjak as the MP to take over Jani Prednik’s mandate, even though she received a lower vote share in her district than Andreja Katič.
Katič has become the scapegoat for the murder of 48-year-old Aleš Šutar – Aco, who tried to protect his underage child outside the Lokalpatriot club in Novo mesto, but ended up in the emergency room, where he died. During her year and a half as Justice Minister, Katič had little influence over issues involving the Roma community. Previous governments addressed these problems by ignoring them and insisting everything was fine, and if not, past governments were to blame. The media’s role was to conceal these issues from the public, as in many other areas. Until everything erupted on Saturday, when Aleš Šutar died.
Prime Minister Robert Golob certainly held more power than Katič. For the past three and a half years, he has been aware of the importance of security, which he demonstrated by rejecting the standard police protection provided to all officials under the government. Instead, he established a private security service for himself, at considerable expense, because he does not trust the police. This was a clear vote of no confidence.
However, even the extensive purges he carried out within the police force, intended to politically subordinate it rather than improve its performance, did not help. On the contrary, they contributed to even greater problems.
With elections rapidly approaching, Rednjak is unlikely to hold the position for long. Both ministers who resigned, Katič and Interior Minister Boštjan Poklukar (Freedom Movement), will be eligible to receive compensation as former politicians until the elections. Like Katič, Poklukar also ran for parliament but performed much worse. He was a candidate for the Marjan Šarec List (LMŠ), which failed to enter the National Assembly. In the Radovljica district, Poklukar received only 4% of the vote, and even if LMŠ had passed the threshold, he would not have made it into parliament. In his district, five LMŠ candidates outperformed him. The highest share, 13.11%, was earned by former Prime Minister Šarec. LMŠ’s poor performance is further highlighted by the fact that Katič surpassed Šarec with 14.8% in Velenje.
Katič, who previously served as Minister of Defence, was appointed Minister of Justice in March last year following the resignation of Dominika Švarc Pipan. Švarc Pipan stepped down over the controversial purchase of a crumbling building in Ljubljana for judicial use, a building the judiciary did not want. She also left the Social Democrats (SD), accusing the party of shared responsibility for the purchase and of pushing her into the scandal.
Now, Katič will be left without both the ministerial post and the parliamentary seat that should have gone to her after Prednik, who received the highest vote share among SD candidates in the election.