By: Davorin Kopše
As mayor, Zoran Janković does not work for the public good. Empirical facts point to this. What stands out most from the past is the stranded Stožice project, where we see a new building in ruins. Despite the glaring irregularities and manipulation of documentation, as well as desperate subcontractors, one of whom even committed suicide, the so-called rule of law has not yet confronted Janković. In recent years, we have been watching the construction of the C0 channel across the water protection area and without the appropriate building permit. Land owners are also settled with physically. With each exoneration of Janković or ignorance of his deeds, Janković is bolder, and the rule of law falls into an abyss from which it is impossible to climb without long-term consequences.
In his Balkan way, Janković already made a name for himself in Mercator, where he was uncompromising. This was made possible by politics, which put him in a leadership position. On the ruins of the old Mercator and the victimised competitor Emona, he strengthened the power of this merchant, but the collateral damage of his actions were always his personal interests. He always secured commissions in his dealings. In parallel, he had the company Electa, which “successfully” did business with the company where he was the leader. When he left Mercator, his company collapsed in the hands of his sons and left behind many debts.
Janković causes and spreads agony
In this way, Janković managed to decorate himself with the title of successful manager. With it, he also convinced the voters, who naively and mistakenly trusted him to run the capital of Slovenia. In the campaigns for the first elections, he sang the same tune over and over of how much Mercator employees loved him, especially the saleswomen. The media held a barbell for him and broadcast a scene of his farewell as about twenty saleswomen wept. But at that time more than ten thousand people were employed in this company. Everyone can calculate for themselves what percentage of everyone cried.
Throughout his tenure as mayor, Janković hides behind claims that he has implemented more than two thousand projects in Ljubljana, but no one, not even himself, can list them. Maintenance work, such as mowing the grass, repairing the roadsides, and painting the lampposts, are not projects, but the good things that are done were planned long before his arrival. He did not even take care of the Bežigrad stadium, which was once Plečnik’s pride of Ljubljana, but today it is only exploited by activists who break into its interior from time to time. Otherwise, this stadium has become one of the major cultural shames of this city. This is Janković’s attitude towards Slovenian culture. He has nothing to do with it anyway.
Janković’s main construction achievement is Stožice, where many were cheated, despaired, and collapsed. The main architectural mark of the city is not the working part of this construction, but the crumbling new construction of the shopping centre next to it. There, wild overgrowth of grass and bushes thrives, where only the voles, who are permanent neighbours of the residents of the nearby residential complex, feel comfortable.
Until when remissions to the first-class citizens
After all this, nothing has happened to Janković to date, except for tax debt write-offs and forced sex, which he got for allocating an apartment to a desperate mother. The rule of law avoids him in a big arc and gives him the courage to expand his activities to the C0 project, where he is building a dangerous sewer across the water protection area. This channel of his, which is controversially co-financed even by the European Union, will not only have financial consequences, but there is a high probability that faeces will seep into the water catchment, from which around ninety percent of the inhabitants of Ljubljana are supplied with water.
Janković still has allies in the construction of his new business delusion. We find these in the current government, which does not utter a single word, while nature conservationists and other civil activists are quiet as asses, because the city co-finances them. As said, the rule of law also assists him instead of persecuting him. We even watched how the police physically dealt with landowners who were protesting on their Slovenian land. They are protesting for the protection of drinking water and defending their property, which Janković is trying by all means to portray as a crime, but in reality, crime is what he is doing himself.
After the brutal arrest of a farmer who was on his plot of land, Janković changed resources to carry out violence. He hired the security services, which are even more violent and continue for money what the police no longer do under public pressure. According to the farmers, these mercenaries threaten to kill, and occasionally roll someone on the ground. It turned out that the security guards also work in civilian clothes. At first, they denied that these were their people, but later, based on photographs, it turned out that one of the thugs was the marketing manager of a security company, and the majority owner of the company was said to be his wife.
Janković is so insolent that he refers to the building permit, which was issued in parts based on the controversial presentation of the project, which was supposed to be a simple facility that does not require an environmental impact assessment. In order to avoid this assessment, for years he submitted applications for the issuance of permits in parts, even though it is a project that is completed as a whole. This is several tens of kilometres of sewage, and several kilometres are piped through drinking water. This was also discussed by the Parliament, which ordered a halt to all work until the documentation is indisputable and complete.
Janković credibly assures that the project is safe. At the same time, the Institute for Health Protection expressed the opinion that the sewerage through the water protection area permanently endangers drinking water, and Janković fraudulently avoided an expert assessment of the environmental impacts. By making excuses for a building permit, the mayor is making excuses for what he is most recognisable for. He strings along as many people as possible, in which he also included the profession and competent institutions.
So Janković has been brazenly taking away our dignity for decades. This is no longer enough for him; he also threatens our main source of life – drinking water. Until when? Rule of law, wake up and justify your formal existence, otherwise people will sing your swan song. Vigils in front of the magistrate have already begun, and the arrogant authorities will be put to sleep. Because dictatorships are not forever, but life is.
