By: Sara Kovač /Nova24tv.si
On Monday, at an extraordinary session, members of parliament discussed a proposal for a recommendation to the Government of the Republic of Slovenia regarding the establishment of conditions for the legality of elections, the uniform application of legislation relating to election and referendum procedures to ensure publicity, integrity, impartiality and objectivity of the commission’s work and the fairness of its implementation elections and referenda. The proposal of the recommendation was submitted to the assembly for consideration by a group of MPs with the first signatory Jelka Godec, while the supplementary explanation of the proposal of the recommendation was presented at the meeting by Branko Grims. Janez Janša wrote today that “the ruling coalition rejected all measures that would remove doubts about the impartial work of the State Election Commission (DVK). As long as director Dušan Vučko and President Peter Golob remain at DVK, this body does not have our trust. We will inform the relevant international institutions about this.”
On Monday, at the session of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia, among other things, the MPs discussed a proposal for a recommendation to the Government on the establishment of conditions for the legality of elections. “If things were sent too late, the conduct of legal elections is questionable,” SDS MP Branko Grims warned, as people could not fulfil their legal and constitutional right to vote and emphasised that someone should be held accountable for this. It is also questionable to interpret the fairness of elections in a system where 90 percent of the media is in the hands of one political option, and non-governmental organisations are not subject to control, and in the elections appear in the role of political parties. He also pointed out that no one denies the irregularities in the elections – and they were big. However, since, according to Grims, the director of the State Election Commission is “our man”, no action will be taken, he announced. “The last elections were marked by two events that definitely cast a dark shadow on the conduct of the elections in a technical and legal sense, when it comes to respecting the norms, we are talking about here today, including the constitutional principles,” he emphasised, among other things.
Many Slovenians abroad received election materials significantly too late, many even after the deadline for voting, which of course means that the state prevented them from exercising their constitutional right. The person who headed the State Election Commission, i.e., Dušan Vučko, is personally responsible for this – he later tried to shift the blame to others. The irregularities then continued, the unofficial results of the elections were announced at the time, which were valid for almost two weeks until the next day, when it was the turn of the President of the country to sign the announcement of the election results. At that time, however, they suddenly changed their minds and realised that the wrong result had been announced for as many as six elected MPs who had already been announced. When examining the work of the State Election Commission, it turned out that there are big mistakes even within the service itself, namely from the point of view of labour legislation, bullying, and serious procedural errors. “The coalition of Gibanje Svovoda, SD, and Levica parties rejected all measures that would eliminate doubts about the impartial work of the State Election Commission (DVK). As long as director Dušan Vučko and President Peter Golob remain at DVK, this body does not have our trust. We will inform the relevant international institutions about this,” former Prime Minister Janez Janša announced today.
The recommendations were rejected by the committee, so they will not be decided upon
The SDS parliamentary group proposed to adopt two recommendations, namely to recommend to the Government of the Republic of Slovenia to prepare and adopt such solutions to the electoral legislation, which would increase control over the work of the State Election Commission, which carries out election and referendum tasks, ensured the equality of the position in the election and referendum procedures, as well as the legality, impartiality and objectivity of the work of the State Election Commission, and thus the fairness of the conduct of elections and referendums without suspicion of irregularities. This should be completely self-evident if Slovenia were a truly democratic country. In the second recommendation, the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia recommended to the Government of the Republic of Slovenia to prepare and propose for adoption such solutions that will enforce the responsibility of the members of the State Election Commission and the service of the State Election Commission in cases where there are massive irregularities in the electoral process, negligent and unscrupulous performance of duties in the management of the State Election Commission, and thus irreparable damage due to the loss of trust in the institution.
“Certainly, what is happening raises a big question about the readiness of this service to enforce the legislation governing elections and referendums fully and consistently and to ensure flawless and correct conduct of elections. That something is seriously wrong here is further convinced by the fact that now the third employee of this service has left her job for the reasons presented by one of these employees in the interview; this interview says a lot about working methods that are unacceptable,” warned MP Grims. The fact is that this confirmed the correctness of these statements, which was also confirmed by the inspection body, i.e., the labour inspectorate, which inspected the business and imposed the measure. That there were errors in sending the ballots is an indisputable fact, just as it is also an indisputable fact that there were errors in the inadmissible declaration of incorrect partial results.
Let us remind you that some time ago, in an interview with Luka Svetina, Nina Mujagić revealed some details of the behaviour of the director of the service of DVK with his employees. Due to severe mobbing and psychological pressure, she was at home at the time, and at work she was on sedatives. We have already reported in our media that our editorial office received information that a real drama was taking place at DVK – one of the employees who left a month ago is accusing the director of the State Election Commission, Dušan Vučko, of sexual harassment. This time, for Siol, she revealed additional irregularities that occurred at DVK during her employment. According to Mujagić, the service of DVK is no longer an extension of the DVK, but this work is performed by Dušan Vučko, IC.