By: Peter Jančič
Primož Roglič wore the red jersey in the Vuelta a España on Friday, while the government coalition was busy replacing their top candidate for the European Commissioner, Tomaž Vesel. As Roglič broke away with the help of his teammates on the final climb, he sparked a wave of euphoria among all of us who were cheering him on. It was another miraculous moment. The comparison to the ongoing situation in domestic politics is quite bizarre: here, we have been dealing all week with candidates who want to win a similar race but are only now finding out that they need special bikes, and the pedals are not the same as those on pony bikes. Yet, they have not practiced at all. If this were a cycling race, the teams would not even consider including them because the team directors are not completely insane, and the organisers would not allow them to compete for the safety of themselves and others.
Similarly, candidate Tomaž Vesel, proposed by Robert Golob and the Svoboda party, for European Commissioner, would not be allowed to start the race, much less the digital minister Emilija Stojmenova Duh, culture minister Asta Vrečko, and to a large extent, even finance minister Klemen Boštjančič. The Court of Audit found that all three violated the Public Finance Act by not adhering to principles of efficiency and economy, especially in the infamous purchase of a deteriorating building that the judiciary does not even want, the 10,000 laptops left in a warehouse in Logatec because the government forgot the rules on how to distribute them, and the €8,346 that Asta Vrečko unlawfully gave to her political “bestie” Svetlana Makarovič. When the Prešeren Fund dared to reject this legal violation, they were replaced. This is the image of this government. If you insist on doing good and lawful work, you are replaced by political activists. For example, Luka Mesec’s ex-girlfriend, Manca G. Renko.
The actions of the Ministry of Finance under Klemen Boštjančič, who is responsible for ensuring that public funds are not spent recklessly like Asta Vrečko, were particularly interesting. They insisted that transferring millions from state reserves for the crumbling building just before the New Year was appropriate because it was an unplanned transaction. It happened like a natural disaster, and they urgently needed to allocate the money. Ministers of finance often act this way, they pointed out. While this is true, it is important to criticise similar actions by their predecessors.
However, insisting that the purchase of this dream building was an unpredictable event, even after the Court of Audit clearly stated that the purchase of real estate should have been planned and executed with more careful procedures, is quite embarrassing. Imagine the Ministry of Finance insisting that reckless behaviour is appropriate. Then everyone will act this way. Money can be spent in any manner, for anything.
The real problem, though, arises when we consider the propaganda from our media, claiming that former head of the Court of Audit, Igor Šoltes, changing his phone and a few other officials doing the same is a definitive proof of guilt in the building purchase. They are hiding something. While I am not a fan of Šoltes, this reasoning has always seemed extremely bizarre to me. Completely uncensored. We are still waiting for them to prove the conspiracy behind Šoltes, who was the deputy to the Minister of Justice Dominika Švarc Pipan, who with a bit more political experience, soared to the top with Golob. With more experience than Stojmenova Duh and Asta Vrečko, who arrived with none at all. If this were cycling, they would not even be allowed near the Vuelta a España. And finance minister Klemen Boštjančič likely would not either. His history of leading several state-owned companies into bankruptcy and secretly transferring money under the table from his private company to then-journalist Vesna Vuković of Siol.net is hardly a serious entry ticket to a demanding and tough race where you can endanger others and where both predictable and unpredictable things happen. The purchase of racing bikes is not among those that could not be planned and are considered unpredictable.
In this category of new faces without qualifications for high office, we find Vesel, about whom, when the government nominated him, they concealed his resume in parliament. They claimed it was a private matter what qualifications he had. People and the media were not allowed to know. Now he has had to step down precisely because he did not have them.
Competence criteria include former prime ministers, ministers, deputy ministers, high diplomats, and senior EU officials, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen bluntly warned our government some time ago. Peter Žerjavič, an experienced correspondent from Brussels working for Delo and POP TV, also warned that this would be an issue. Slovenian journalists, who had previously sung praises of Vesel and Golob for the Gibanje Svoboda’s European election campaign, mostly failed miserably. They did not notice any potential problems. The newspaper Dnevnik even published the results of a public opinion poll claiming the government should by no means withdraw its candidate.
Eventually, the government did send me Vesel’s resume, which is still concealed in parliament. The actions of parliament, supported by the Information Commissioner’s policy that the public should not know whether a candidate has the necessary knowledge and experience for one of the highest positions in Europe, perfectly illustrate the madness in our country regarding the public’s right to information. It is certainly not the only case. They are hiding rapes, suicides, Romani violence, and all sorts of other things from you, explaining that there are no problems if you do not know about them.
But the problem has now emerged at the highest level because Brussels cannot be deceived as easily as the public at home, and this is happening just as the European Commission president is about to present her candidates next week. Imagine if she were to point out in the European Parliament that among the candidates, there is one from Slovenia who does not meet the minimum criteria for responsible work, but the local government insists that it does not matter if the person is literate as long as they belong to the right party. That they are Golob’s. Free.
It is the same principle we saw during the revolutionary takeover at RTVS when leftist activists carried out the biggest purge in history with the current government and appointed high schoolers to top positions, which later resulted in fines for the management board members. However, they achieved the government’s approval of an additional five million euros last year, ten million this year, and a treat in the RTV contribution by another ten million next year for such management. Of course, their viewership plummeted even further. Golob leads by poor example, and the self-managers at RTVS follow him.
Because of the government’s stubbornness, they will now hastily, when it is already too late, choose a new candidate for European Commissioner, who will have to be confirmed by the parliamentary committee next week. I dare say that they will again conceal the resume. Because due to the absurd privacy protection of politicians, the wealthy, and the influential, it is private business in our country whether they have the education and experience. The people do not have the right to know.
The result in the Vuelta a España is, therefore, just as it is. Roglič wins. Golob, with his new faces, is still trying to figure out how to clip into the pedals.