By: G. B.
Given that the fallen Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is also the head of an international narco‑cartel, the question arises as to what kind of financial influence such cartels have on individual countries.
While Uroš Esih at Delo, for example, supposedly investigates the influence of foreign actors on the spring elections, such as Israel through SDS, the mainstream media, of course, remain silent about how Venezuela helped establish the party Levica years ago. Nor are they interested in Moscow’s influence on certain supposedly “right‑wing” parties that attack the EU and attempt to destabilise the country in an “unnatural” alliance with the left.
The fact is that elections can also be bought with dirty money. This was already evident in Slovenia immediately after independence in the Hit affair. On 6 April 1993, then‑defence minister Janez Janša mentioned on the TV Slovenia programme Omizje a company that at the time had failed to pay 150 million dollars in taxes. “One hundred and fifty million dollars is the kind of money with which you can buy power in Slovenia. You can buy a journalist, you can buy everything if there is no financial oversight, no financial discipline. With that money you can buy elections,” Janša warned. The godfathers of the deep state raised their eyebrows and launched Operation Ščuka to politically liquidate him.
Although Europe does not see such a strong influence of narco‑cartels on politics as in Latin America, where the notorious drug lord Pablo Emilio Escobar was once even elected to the Colombian parliament, certain developments in the Balkans, including Slovenia, should not be overlooked. Why, for example, do Prime Minister Robert Golob and Ljubljana mayor Zoran Janković meet in a restaurant owned by a notorious “Balkan warrior”? The influence here is very subtle, yet can be brutal. Many will remember the Kavač clan and the murder of the protected (!) witness Satko Zovko at the end of November 2024, which points to decay within the police and judiciary.
And finally, how much dirty money is flowing into attempts to influence this year’s elections in favour of the vassals who admire Maduro’s regime? That is probably already a rhetorical question …