By: Gašper Blažič
It was a historic Celje-based company trading in hardware and technical goods. If you remember well, at the end of the 1980s, precisely during the breakup of Titoland, it became famous for its well-known advertising slogan: “The impossible is possible.”
It became so popular that, during Slovenia’s War of Independence, it was even “borrowed” by then Minister of Information Jelko Kacin for his press conferences. At the time, Americans reportedly shook their heads in disbelief because they did not believe a war was really taking place or that one of Europe’s strongest armies was being defeated. In the end, they too had to accept that the impossible was indeed possible. And many people still have to come to terms with that today. For example, Nataša Sukič, referred to here by the nickname “DJ Kamasutra,” who is fond of throwing official parliamentary rulebooks during parliamentary sessions. She is convinced that “right-wingers” have somehow hijacked parliament, however illogical that may sound. Fortunately, it is no longer the era of the National Liberation Struggle (NOB), because otherwise, instead of books, bombs might be flying at MPs.
One thing still bothers me, though. How, after all these decades, did they manage to import Slobodan’s doctrine into my beloved homeland: that more ballots can be cast at a polling station than there are registered voters? Well, I can understand how Slobodan once managed to win 103 percent support in elections, but this arithmetic from the polling stations, combined with the supposedly enormous queues (even worse than in healthcare!), really knocked me flat. In those first post-war elections with the famous ballot-dropping system, which was essentially little more than a way of counting “class enemies,” it was at least understandable that Tito did not receive one hundred percent support.
Now everything is different. In the late afternoon, the alarms of the March 8 Institute allegedly went off, the standby reserve forces were called in, and those hidden reserves that supposedly wait for moments when things get difficult were mobilised. And so, on that famous night of 11 to 12 October, we once again experienced what it means when the impossible becomes possible. But that saying has another side as well. Until now, it seemed impossible that our “shaggy electrical genius” would ever be questioned by law enforcement authorities. From now on that may become possible. Despite a referendum carried out in the spirit of Kovinotehna’s slogan.
