By Anamarija Novak
The announcement of Robert Golob, president of the Gibanje Svoboda party, is coming true. Even before his appointment as Prime Minister, he announced on Odmevi TV Slovenija that they would replace everyone, even the cleaners, who were employed during the government of Janez Janša.
A new government led by Robert Golob was elected to the National Assembly on June 1st. This is the fifteenth government in independent Slovenia, and Golob will be Prime Minister for the first time. Despite the “new face” at the top, the first personnel move show that a bunch of old faces from previous left-wing governments are returning to the “first league”, even some former ministers who will have to settle for the post of Secretary of State. It was expected that the government would first arrange for a change at the top of the police and Sova as well as Ukom. As announced, the director of FURS, Ivan Simič, resigned himself. But the following stands out: the government has adopted a decision according to which the ministries must review all employment, transfers, and promotions from January 1st, 2020, until today. This, of course, means the announcement of a personnel purge wherever it turns out that employees were “placed” there, and for cosmetic reasons they did not dare to write that they will review jobs from March 13th, 2020, when the previous government took over.
Črnčec became Secretary of State
Among the government’s personnel decisions, however, is one that has greatly upset both the Levica party and its civil society extensions: Damir Črnčec has, contrary to expectations, become State Secretary at the Ministry of Defence. Although Golob had publicly promised shortly before that Črnčec would not be in the government, the decision-making at the government session turned in another direction. Obviously, Golob wanted to ensure some peace before those who accuse Črnčec of past impatient writing about migrants, but at the same time he needs a man who will take care of the relatively smooth operation of the ministry (Marjan Šarec is clearly incapable). But now that the appointment has been formally carried out, there may be some nagging in the Levica at the beginning, but of course there will be no big scandal. Either way, the LMŠ is running out of time, as it will become part of the “big Golob family” in the autumn at the latest. In other words: we can agree with Požareport’s writing that Šarec sold the LMŠ party to Golob in exchange for a government position. Well, together with Črnčec, the state secretary will also be Rudi Medved, a former journalist, and in the previous term an MP and chairman of the commission of inquiry, which dealt with suspicions of political interference in the work of the commission. He was obviously well rewarded for his work, in which he “planted” the then government.
Šarec a Minister, Bratušek a Secretary
However, in this case, Šarec got the better of it than Alenka Bratušek, the former Prime Minister, who was the Minister of Infrastructure in his government. Now she will “only” be State Secretary in the same ministry. This is, in fact, another step down for her, and she cannot return to the National Assembly anyway. But Golob also took good care of staff from her party, as former MP Maša Kociper, known for her picturesque rhetorical figures, such as big and small circles, became state secretary in his cabinet. And another bizarre appointment. At its first correspondence session last Friday evening, the government appointed Darijo Krajčič, a forester with a doctorate, as state secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Food. Many people will remember that Krajčič sat in the parliamentary benches for some time as a member of the LMŠ but resigned due to an affair with a stolen sandwich. But apparently, he was well taken care of even after leaving the post of MP.
A crowd in Golob’s office
Golob’s cabinet is quite crowded, and Požareport even wrote that this time it is a “record above records”. The counter of state secretaries in the Prime Minister’s Office has (for now) stopped at number ten. It is also known that the “cut” of the functions they will perform. Petra Škofic, the legendary name of the LDS and of the circles around the Liberal or Alternative Academy, became the head of the Prime Minister’s Office. Melita Župevc, who has replaced almost as many parties as Jani Möderndorfer, will take care of strategic communication, Anton Grizold will take care of military, defence, and foreign affairs, international affairs will also be taken care of by former ambassador Vojko Volk, a well-known name from the group of younger MPs of the Socialist Party of Slovenia (successor to the SZDL), which proposed a plebiscite in October 1990 during the split in Demos (of course, the Socialists became part of the new LDS family in 1994). His Gorizia compatriot Kaja Širok is also coming to Golob’s office, leaving the Institute for the Preparation of the (New) Gorizia Project as the European Capital of Culture 2025. Prior to that, she was the director of the Museum of Recent History of Slovenia, which is one of Archimedes’ points of the transitional left in “control over the past”. It is interesting that Požareport published the news about Širok’s “transfer” to the Prime Minister’s Office a few days ago, but at the time they claimed that this was not true and that Požareport was misleading. Well, two days later, it turned out to be true. There are two other state secretaries: Andrej Benedejčič, who will be the state secretary for national and external security, and Igor Mally, an expert on European affairs. He has experience with this function from the time when he was State Secretary to Šarec (and thus worked for Damir Črnčec), and before that to the governments of Alenka Bratušek and Miro Cerar. It was Mally who advised Šarec not to appear in the European Parliament.
The first exclamation: A turn to the side of Moscow
The appointment of Benedejčič to Golob’s cabinet reopens Pandora’s box from 2014, which will almost certainly lead to Washington’s action. Let’s remember. Just before the inauguration of Cerar’s government (which was sworn in on September 18th, 2014), there was a spy affair at NATO headquarters in Brussels, as suspicions were revealed that the then Slovenian ambassador to NATO Andrej Benedejčič worked for Moscow. This is one of the reasons why we may be worried that the referendum on Slovenia’s withdrawal from NATO is only a matter of time, as we must admit that they are slowly preparing for it. Among other things, with the statements of the Minister of Defence Marjan Šarec, how the Slovenian Army will return to the concept of territorial defence and even guerrillas, which is a position that is probably liked by the Levica party and other “Che Guevara followers”.
Maša Kociper is also in Golob’s cabinet
As already mentioned, the State Secretary for Relations with the National Assembly (whatever that means) will be Maša Kociper, and Maksimiljana Polak will be the State Secretary for establishing a dialogue with civil society and coordinating citizens’ initiatives. Polak is not a new name. Some time ago, she was the right hand of the former director of the Šoštanj Thermal Power Plant Simon Toto, and already in the 1990s she was Janez Kopač’s assistant, when he was an MP, and she faithfully served him for all four years of his leadership of the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning. After leaving TEŠ, she got a job at Holding Slovenske elektrarne, and most recently she worked as a consultant at Golob’s company GEN-I. Nataša Sax is the tenth state secretary in Golob’s cabinet, and she will cover the field of intergenerational dialogue and housing policy. Already during Miro Cerar’s government, Sax was employed as a secretary in the Directorate for Spatial Planning, Construction, and Housing.
Židan and Frangež to Han
However, the return of old faces to politics is not over. As state secretaries, former SD MP Matevž Frangež and former Minister of Agriculture and former SD President Dejan Židan, who records a similar career slip as Bratušek as he failed to be included in the MPs, so the SD did not assign him a ministerial position, are coming to the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, which is now headed by Matjaž Han. In the eighth constituency, he was narrowly defeated by his colleague Damijan Zrim from the neighbouring district and became an MP, while Židan was not elected. Židan, who was the Minister of Agriculture in several governments, abruptly resigned from the position of SD president in 2020 and left the leadership to Tanja Fajon. This is not the first time such a “step down from power” has taken place in the SD, as Židan took over the leadership of the SD in a similar way as Fajon, when his predecessor Igor Lukšič, a professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, “suddenly” resigned. Well, now even some in the SD, when appointing Židan as Han’s state secretary, are scornfully mocking that Han will take care of cheap petroleum products, and Židan, the former director of Panvita, will take care of cheap pork. This means that the price crisis with energy and food is over in any case, if we are sarcastic, of course.
As for Frangež, who is presented by the media as an entrepreneur, it is worth remembering that some twenty years ago he was the president of the Maribor Student Organisation, which at that time adopted a statute by which seven of the most influential student officials gained all power over ŠOUM. At that time, former constitutional judge Matevž Krivic publicly condemned such actions, saying that it was a total usurpation of the mentioned organisation or “the dictatorship of the seven yaps”. Frangež’s colleagues at the time were mostly from the then Youth Party of Slovenia, which was a parliamentary party in the 2000-2004 term. At the time, the “liaison officer” between ŠOUM and the parliament, was Marko Diaci, an SMS MP, today the mayor of Šentjur, and before coming to parliament he was the director of the ŠOUM Institute, a parallel organisation of ŠOUM, and the president of the student parliament. Well, it is worth mentioning that the then president of the SMS was Dominik S. Černjak, who failed to enter the National Assembly and left politics after the party dropped out of parliament.
MNZ under the supervision of Gregor Golobič
Things are also happening at the Ministry of the Interior, as former LMŠ MP Tina Heferle and professor at the Faculty of Security Sciences Branko Lobnikar, a former prominent member of the Zares party (he was even the party’s vice president) and a man from Gregor Golobič’s circle, are coming there as state secretaries. During Pahor’s government, Lobnikar was already State Secretary at the Ministry of Public Administration (under Minister Irma Pavlinič Krebs). He then introduced himself again as an independent security expert, who was also invited to the media. Well, at the end of April 2020, a month and a half after the last Janša government took power, he announced on Twitter that the government had refused to fund his research, and that he had also received two threatening phone calls. And, as he announced, he has completely withdrawn from public life and from Twitter. Really unusual. The famous philosopher Boris Vezjak “covered” Lobnikar with a large article on his blog, but without mentioning that Lobnikar was once an important member of Zares party. It is worth mentioning that Lobnikar was a vocal critic of the entire Janša government, especially in the field of police operations and its actions against protesters. Well, in this he obviously agrees very well with the new Minister Tatjana Bobnar, Director General of the Police during Šarec’s government, who said that “our” protesters, even if they are violent, should be wrapped in cotton wool.
As for the former vice president of the National Assembly Tina Heferle, the “uncles” know very well why they are sending her to the Ministry of Interior. In 2019, as Peter Jančič wrote, she prevented an attempt to investigate the abuse of repressive bodies for political purposes, specifically in an attempt to disable Franc Kangler and Janez Janša. However, according to her statements on social media at the time of taking office in 2018 (when Šarec’s government came to power), Tina Heferle clearly supported such views on the economy as those cultivated by the Levica party. That is to tax and “squeeze” entrepreneurs as much as possible to the bitter end. As an MP, she often read Levites to the ministers of the last government, but in the case of “Lepa Nataša” affair a cat got her tongue. This, too, is obviously a good reference for her new job at the Ministry of the Interior.
Second exclamation: Legal barbarism
And another exclamation. As soon as Tatjana Bobnar took over the Ministry of the Interior, the consents for the first lawsuits filed against individuals related to claims for reimbursement of police expenses at unregistered rallies in the last two years were withdrawn. This means that payment slips, for example for the informal protest leader Jaša Jenull, in the amount of 3778 euros, 2255 euros, and 34 thousand euros, will be paid at our expense. Those who caused trouble every Friday in front of parliament and went on a mini revolution in favour of the left-wing opposition will be acquitted. Although they massively violated ordinances during the covid-19 epidemic and organised events without first reporting to the police, with Bobnar’s arrival they are now exempt from all financial and moral responsibility. “Withdrawal of consent for these lawsuits is legal barbarism. No minister should be able to afford to decide instead of the court. Such conduct is far from professional, because in a state governed by the rule of law, lawsuits are decided by courts,” said former Interior Minister Aleš Hojs about the actions of politician Tatjana Bobnar.
The return of Žbogar and the rise of the journalist of Primorske novice
Uroš Vajgl, the son of a politician, former MEP, and former foreign minister Ivo Vajgl, is coming to the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning. As is well known, he already worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the time of Minister Karl Erjavec, and even then, diplomat Peter Golob accused Erjavec of clientelist employment. Foreign Minister Samuel Zbogar, the former EU ambassador to Kosovo and Macedonia, is coming to the foreign ministry as state secretary.
Another person from Primorska is coming to the government, namely Vesna Humar, who was appointed State Secretary in the Office of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia for Slovenes Abroad, where the former mayor of Nova Gorica (and once a recognisable face of the “late” LDS) Matej Arčon, who was eliminated in the second round of local elections by Klemen Miklavič. The case of Vesna Humar is interesting because she used to be the editor-in-chief of Primorske novice and edited the regional supplement for the Goriška region, providing important interviews, including with Arčon during his time as mayor. Apparently, this very good acquaintance was enough to now become Arčon’s right-hand man and another of the types of journalistic warriors who – in addition to Mojca Pašek Šetinc – joined the “freedom project”. Well, Arčon is also mentioned as the general secretary of the Gibanje Svoboda party, and Humar obviously gets along with Golob very well.
Continuity of ZKS
At the end, it is worth mentioning two special examples, which represent the continuity of the “proud successors of the League of Communists of Slovenia”. These are Marko Koprivc, who was left without a parliamentary seat and even adorned himself with his proud succession in the previous term, and Igor Šoltes, the grandson of the communist revolutionary Edvard Kardelj. Šoltes, a former MEP who even founded his own party Verjamem years ago, joined the SD after the end of his term in Brussels (which he announced last December) and announced his candidacy in January this year, in the SD, he then became chairman of the justice committee. Now, Dominika Švarc Pipan will be the right hand of the SD vice-president who refused to shake hands with the now former Prime Minister Janez Janša.
What about Marko Koprivc? The son of former regime journalist and editor Jaka Koprivc (who looted the media on behalf of the party and helped liquidate Pavlih’s satirical paper) will be the right-hand man of the Minister of Development and European Cohesion Policy, former police officer and finally Murska Sobota Mayor Aleksandar Jevšek. He is known, for example, for paying homage to the statue of the revolutionary Boris Kidrič. In line with his family background, he also has very special views on media freedom, so it is no surprise that as an MP he has repeatedly attacked media outlets that do not blow the same horn with the mainstream. However, as an MP, Koprivc is a big favourite of Odlazek’s tabloids, through which he, of course, persuaded the Slovenian public how Slovenia should be “detoxified” because “Janšism” has supposedly made a mess. Now he will be able to enjoy the fruits of the work of the previous government, as Janša’s government has provided Slovenia with a huge amount of European funds – for which there is now a great possibility that they will be invested in various studies. Minister Jevšek has already announced that the money will not be invested in concrete.