By: Tomaž S. Medved
With this year’s elections, Borut Sajovic, who until recently was the mayor of Tržič and once also an LDS MP, returned to the parliamentary benches. He was succeeded in the municipality by the temporary “charge d’affaires” Dušan Bodlaj, but he will obviously not run in this year’s local elections, as he became the new leader of the very large parliamentary group Gibanje Svoboda after his party leader Robert Golob was elected Prime Minister.
In a statement for the media, Sajovic assured that despite the large number – the parliamentary group consists of 41 MPs – they will organise the work in such a way that they will be efficient and will fulfil the promises made and the party’s programme. He will also use his parliamentary experience, as he was an LDS MP in two terms between 2014 and 2011 – most recently he was also the leader of the party’s parliamentary group. On how they will deal with many parliamentary procedures and opposition manoeuvres, Sajovic says only that the procedure is on the one hand the mother of democracy, but that it does not affect the final decision, which is “firmly in the hands of the coalition”. “We are in good shape, we will manage the procedural dilemmas in accordance with the rules and then make decisions that are best for all our citizens,” he added.
Sajovic was asked how they will ensure that the story of their party will not end in the same way as the story of the SMC, which won 36 seats in the 2014 parliamentary elections, and in this parliamentary elections even after merging with the GAS party into a new Konkretno party, and appearead on the group of party lists within the Povežimo Slovenijo movement failed to break into parliament. He answered that “Gibanje Svoboda party with the overwhelming support of the electorate is clearly on a different path”.
Mayor since 2006 and former leader of the LDS MPs
Sajovic, a veterinarian by training, was first elected mayor of Tržič in 2006, when the incompatibility of the mayoral and MP functions was not yet valid. After 2011, when the elections were held again, he obviously devoted himself more to the municipality, and finally in 2018, in the second round, he strongly defeated his opponent Pavel Rupar. Exactly in the year when Sajovic ended his parliamentary term, in 2011, there was a major crisis in the elections due to the misuse of ballots in Tržič – many will remember that they had to extend the election silence by one hour. This time there were many more irregularities, but Sajovic’s former party colleague Dušan Vučko, now the director of the National Electoral Commission, did not bother, as “his” won.
No matter what kind of guys the new government “golobs” are now, many people can say that the new leader of the Gibanje Svoboda’s MPs is similar to his party boss, “a two-legged affair”. Already in March this year, an anonymous woman of medical workers came to light, explaining how the Sajovic couple appropriated the property of the citizens of Tržič. This is said to be just one of many controversial “deals” that the former LDS MP carried out during his long tenure as mayor of Tržič, where he also earned the partisan name “Zoki from Tržič.” But after everything written in the letter, the reader gets the feeling that Sajovic’s nickname may be an insult even to Zoran Janković. In any case, the future Prime Minister Robert Golob is clearly not bothered by the dirty and mundane business of both his supporters and MPs (more HERE). Sajovic denied the allegations in the article (HERE).
He defended Kresal in an affair with bullmastiffs
In the past, Sajovic was considered one of the most obedient cadres of the now former LDS president Katarina Kresal, a lawyer who went into show business after leaving politics and was most “famous” for her bizarre role in the Baričevič affair or bullmastiff. In February 2010, more than twelve years ago, three bullmastiffs attacked Saša Baričević to death in very bizarre circumstances, as it later turned out that the dogs had been abused, and the police reacted very unusually, and Kresal was “purely by chance” the Minister of the Interior. These were, of course, three of the four bullmastiffs who had previously attacked and severely wounded Stanislav Meglič, a native of Tržič (!), and the said dogs were not put to sleep “because of good connections”, although this had already been decided. The then (!) Mayor of Tržič, a veterinarian (!) Sajovic, was the leader of the parliamentary group at the time, and instead of Kresal, who fell silent, he controversially explained the LDS’s position, so that even the legendary Tone Anderlič, who expressed great concern, had to express a “separate opinion”. Although the bullmastiff affair is largely forgotten, it would be good to recall that its main actors got the best of it, notwithstanding that this affair revealed the moral degeneracy of the transitional left, which only put on a new coat (and put on “cardinalatial” red shoes) with the Gibanje Svoboda party. Well, the LDS experienced a split and then an exit from parliament, and Sajovic found a new opportunity to enter the “first league” of politics in Golob’s embrace.
What about real estate?
It is interesting that several media outlets have reported in recent years on the real estate luxury of Borut Sajovic, who, in addition to local politics, is allegedly involved in the resale of real estate and wanted to build a new building in Dovžan gorge?! Well, as early as 2006, Slovenske novice wrote about a rather bizarre family story, which was allegedly instigated by his opponent Pavel Rupar. At least that is what Sajovic told the media at the time. In 2018, Slovenske novice wrote about an illegally set up glamping camp, as well as about the sexist remarks of the mayor at work, which supposedly upset many employees in the municipality of Tržič. And interestingly, in all cases, Sajovic responded by saying it was political harassment. Will he speak in such a way about the scandals that are already accumulating in the Gibanje Svoboda party?
