By: G. B.
As is known, Karl Erjavec, the champion of DeSUS party, this week again filed a proposal of constructive no confidence motion against the current government led by Janez Janša. This means that if the no confidence vote succeeds, Erjavec would become the new prime minister. However, all in all, it would mean that at least three months would be lost before a possible new government would be operational.
Although the KUL parties seem to unanimously support constructive no confidence motion, not everything is so “pure” – namely, at least in the SD party there is a dispute between the headquarters and local committees. It is known that SD has already lost one of them, more precisely in Ilirska Bistrica, after the mayor of Ilirska Bistrica, Emil Rojc, was expelled from the party. It is obvious, however, that it will not stop there, as some SD mayors are resisting the party leadership because they are supposed to have excellent cooperation with the current government – well, certainly much better than, for example, with Šarec’s government, even though SD was a member of the government coalition then.
Some fragments from behind-the-scenes events were also provided by Bojan Požar, who wrote that the party president Tanja Fajon was opposed by the mayor of Kranj Matjaž Rakovec, with the support of his colleagues Peter Dermol (Velenje) and Aleksander Jevšek (Murska Sobota), both also members of the SD. The dispute was supposed to take place at a session of the party’s presidency, but the SD wanted to sweep it under the rug, so they immediately sent a correction to the information published by Požareport, which was signed by General Secretary Dejan Levanič: “The Mayor of Kranj, Matjaž Rakovec, and the Mayor of Velenje, Peter Dermol, are not members of the Presidency of the SD, thus they did not have such a discussion at the session of the SD Presidency, nor at any other meeting. The same goes for dr. Aleksandar Jevšek, Mayor of the Municipality of Murska Sobota, who is a member of the SD Presidency, but did not express such criticism either at the Presidency meetings or at other meetings.”
So, according to the official version of the SD, there was no dispute. SD also flatly denied Požar’s allegations on Twitter, saying that it was a complete fabrication, i.e. fake news. To that Požar responded that the SD denied what was not in the article, but did not deny what the article stated. Therefore, his article is not a “complete fabrication.” However, the SD then reacted by remarking that all three mayors themselves denied any dispute. In other words: obviously the information that should not be leaked from the clause of the legal successor of ZKS falls under the embargo of mafia silence, which is also called “omertà”.
The reaction of Borut Rojec, now a former prominent member of the SD Ilirska Bistrica municipal committee, also confirms that there is something fishy about the panic response of SD on articles of Bojan Požar. Namely, on Twitter he confirmed the information that already before new year Deputy Mayor of Kranj Janez Černe had expressed a fear of what will happen to the European funds that the municipalities intend to use if the no confidence vote succeeds. Moreover, the mayor of Murska Sobota Jevšek even admitted that the government is working hard to help its citizens. So he is not sure if it really is all just “common fabrication”. Rojc also cites insider information that some SD MPs have similarly found out that it is possible to gain a lot for their field by cooperating with the government, even though some supposedly opposed this at first. Among the advocates of cooperation with the government is Matjaž Han (former mayor of Radeč), while Dejan Židan and Jani Prednik are against. But if it is possible to understand, Židan “changed his mind” in the meantime.
All this shows that the party base, at least the local one, is not really on the side of constructive no confidence motion, as the comparison of the cooperation of some municipalities with the current and previous government has sobered many up. The mayor of Ilirska Bistrica, Emil Rojc, has so far been the only mayor from the left wing camp who dared to say so publicly. And this was probably the main reason why they got rid of him with a construct according to which he allegedly verbally attacked a journalist. That the SD is now reacting very violently to information leaking from closed sessions is also very informative…