By: Tomaž S. Medved
A new government led by Robert Golob is officially came to power. However, Marta Kos, who was initially mentioned as a possible Minister of Foreign Affairs, is not among its members, nor did she run for parliament. The reason probably lies in the fact that the “pigeon house” is “saving” Marta Kos for the autumn presidential elections.
Among the possible presidential candidates is, as we have already written, the former Prime Minister (and the former Foreign Minister) Miro Cerar (Jr.), but now it is much more likely that he will leave for constitutional judges at the end of this year, as his friend Marijan Pavčnik, who announced his resignation, prepared a space for him. As Požareport reports, in the next four years, as many as eight (!) judicial positions out of a total of nine will be vacated in the Constitutional Court. It is now clear that the transitional left will retain a strong majority in the Constitutional Court as well, but the full takeover will take place when Klemen Jaklič’s term as constitutional judge expires.
For his second term, Pahor first had to face Šarec
Another event will be crucial for the complete takeover of all social subsystems – the autumn presidential elections. As is well known, Borut Pahor’s second term is coming to an end and he can no longer run according to the constitution, and the hard core of the left has so far tolerated rather than supported him. He won his second term with great difficulty, as in the second round he had to face the then third-class local politician Marjan Šarec, while all the right-wing candidates were far behind. For Šarec, this feat was just a springboard for a later jump to the government, which he even succeeded in, and he could have carried out his entire term if he had not thrown in the towel after a year and a half (due to the “Lepa Nataša” affair). For Pahor, it is true that in both of his terms he fought between Scylla and Charybdis, so he tried to please the maximum number of people, but it is not possible to satisfy everyone. His greatest achievement was the agreement with the Italians on the return of the National Hall in Trieste, with which the president’s namesake, the recently deceased writer Boris Pahor, received little satisfaction for what deeply wounded him as a child when the Nazis burned down the National Hall.
But the price at home was high for the current president, as the wrestling circle declared him, so to speak, a traitor. This move, in fact, indicated that if the president wins his second term, he is usually freer, knowing that he will no longer be able to run and does not have to look to the hard core of the left, which has never accepted Pahor’s proverbial dialogue.
A new star is born: Marta Kos on the cover of Jana magazine
This, of course, means that the transitional left can bring a person to Pahor’s place in the autumn who will be completely under the control of uncles from the background, and they will be able to trust him. Although the President of the Republic does not have many powers under the Constitution and is not considered a very strong figure, he can help the new ruling elite with their personnel proposals (for example, by nominating candidates for constitutional judges). Therefore, there is no doubt that the ruling party will send a very strong figure to the presidential election, who will also have a good background in Odlazek’s tabloids, as he will also be able to address people who are not otherwise interested in politics. Yesterday, the weekly Jana published a cover featuring Marta Kos (vice-president of the Gibanje Svoboda party) together with her new husband, the Swiss diplomat Henri Gétaz. Prior to that, Marta Kos was married to businessman Aaron Marko, with whom she had been selling a house in Selo pri Vodicah for a long time. However, it seems that the presidential candidacy of Marta Kos has already been agreed and it is only a matter of time before it will be made public. After all, Marta Kos already has very good family support – her famous brother Drago Kos has been an operative in many scandals, from Depala vas to Patria. Moreover, Kos also knows a “godfather” Milan Kučan very well.
It is unknown at this time who will announce the candidature for President of the Republic. From the ranks of the transitional left, the SD might do it, but that will be mostly because of prestige. Let us remember: in 1992, the LDS sent dissident Ljubo Sirc to the presidential election, but he received very few votes, as the voters of this party overwhelmingly supported Milan Kučan. Ljubo Sirc, an internationally renowned Doctor of Economics, later joined the SDS and even wrote columns for Demokracija magazine.
If Spomenka, pardon me, Ljudmila enters the game…
But one thing is certain and definitive: Marta Kos is guaranteed victory if the infamous MEP Ljudmila Novak also announces her presidential candidacy. And as can be deduced from an interview with Lojze Peterle in January in Demokracija magazine, she will almost certainly run again, as she did five years ago. To the last question (“What about the presidential election? Borut Pahor’s second term is coming to an end, which means that someone else will take his place.”) Peterle answered: “Maybe even someone else (referring to a woman). Maybe for the first time since 1945, someone, a patriot, and a Democrat, who was not a member of the League of Communists. It is all up to us. In any case, I would like him/her to be like Borut Pahor in his/her understanding of the role of president – he tried to be president for everyone.” (More HERE). Well, certainly Ljudmila Novak does not have such a sense of dialogue as Pahor. She is mostly applauded by sympathisers of the transitional left, who would not give her a vote anyway, and her engagement is very reminiscent of Spomenka Hribar’s behaviour from 1992, when she published the infamous article “To stop the right” in Delo on April 18th that year. No confidence vote of Peterle’s independence government (third in line, successful this time) occurred just four days after the publication of this article.
Why would Novak’s candidacy mean the enthronement of Marta Kos in advance? Mainly because of the fragmentation of voices in the spring camp and because of her already mentioned destructive role, as she has appeared several times recently, also with completely weird posts on social networks. As well as a colleague from the European People’s Party, Milan Zver, she publicly read Levites at a debate within the EPP parliamentary group, when Zver explained the reasons for the departure of the right-wing government. Ljudmila Novak thus repeated the mantra spread by the mainstream media in Slovenia that the elections were a referendum against Janša and that Golob, who “so quickly won and got 41 seats out of 90, was actually made by Janša’s government because it dismissed various directors, because it cleaned up public radio and television, because it was destroying the Slovenian Press Agency”. Well, such views are the least bizarre, since the problem of financing at STA was settled as soon as the director Bojan Veselinovič left.
By engaging Novak, the transition left would save effort and money
However, the right side would have some chances against Marta Kos only if she ran with a joint candidate (for example with Alojz Kovšca, President of the National Council of the Republic of Slovenia), although this would pose a risk to the candidate (whoever he will be) – in this case, most of the media would instantly find a whole bunch of imaginary affairs and constructs with which the candidate of the spring camp would have a virtually sealed career. However, if Ljudmila Novak had entered the game, the media would not have had to make such an effort, as the rift in the spring camp would have been enough for another serious defeat. The votes would be fragmented, many voters would stay at home, and Marta Kos would be spared a lot of effort and financial investment in the campaign. It is likely that Kos could win in the first round, which would give the Gibanje Svoboda party more control over the function of the President of the Republic, which would finally push the spring camp into a corner.
But as already said: those who are now sowing the seeds of discord between SDS and NSi, know damn well what they are doing…