By: Ivan Šokić
After several months of gossip about the already collected 46 signatures of no confidence vote for the government of Janez Janša, the old/new president of DeSUS Karl Erjavec failed even among his MPs and the left opposition eventually filed only 42 collected signatures, they became active on 24UR television and announced the news to the public that the director of Sova, Janez Stušek, tested positive to covid-19, and that he was in contact with members of KNOVS on Friday, January 15th, 2021. In the coming days, we will see if they will use this in the National Assembly as an excuse to postpone the no confidence vote, which would give leftists a few more days to put more pressure and shake hands with MPs who refuse to take part in overthrowing the government, which has done something for people in less than one year.
According to the mainstream media, the director of Sova, Janez Stušek, who attended a meeting of the Commission for the Supervision of Intelligence and Security Services on Friday, January 15th, 2021, is said to be infected with the Wuhan coronavirus. SD party, whose member Matjaž Nemec is the President of Knovs, confirmed that all nine members of the commission, who were in contact with Stušek, will be tested shortly.
There are four MPs from the coalition: Anja Bah Žibert and Dejan Kaloh from SDS party, Blaž Pavlin from NSi party, and Monika Gregorčič from SMC party. There are five of them from the opposition. Two MPs from the LMŠ party are Jerca Korče and Rudi Medved, Matjaž Nemec from SD party, Zmago Jelinčič Plemeniti from SNS party, and Primož Siter from Levica party.
The STA speculates that this “could affect the vote of no confidence in the government of Janez Janša scheduled for Wednesday”. They state that testing alone does not guarantee that the session will not have to be postponed, as the infection can only appear a few days after the risky contact.
They want to postpone the vote for a year and a half
The Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly stipulate that the election of a new Prime Minister shall be held earliest 48 hours and no later than seven days after the submission of the proposal. In practice, this means that 42 signatures of Karl Erjavec overnight turned into an optimistic 38 votes. At 24UR, they have already started betting on the President of the National Assembly Igor Zorčič from the SMC party, who is allowed by the Rules of Procedure to start the session on Wednesday and then adjourn it.
“You want to postpone the vote of no confidence because the director of SOVA was infected at the meeting. If you respected the measures, he did not infect any of the MPs,” commented Nova24TV director Boris Tomašič on Twitter. “In fact, you want to postpone the vote for a year and a half so that you can lie about having 46 votes until the election.”
Prime Minister Janez Janša also responded, saying that no postponement of the vote is necessary. “Until the National Assembly session, everyone who was present at KNOVS can be tested at least twice.”
Time for the MPs to finally be counted
Remote vote of no confidence is not possible as the vote is secret. This was also one of the trump cards they bet on in the left-wing opposition when they put pressure on MPs who did not want to take part in this farce. As the president of the SMC, Zdravko Počivalšek, also pointed out, they flattered the MPs and made them offers, on the other hand, there were threats and harsh insults. There were even attacks on MPs’ family members.
“Political events have been a hostage of this KUL project for several months now, and we will finally be able to count and cut through this artificial creation of a government crisis,” Počivalšek wrote on Saturday, January 16th, 2021. Apparently, Prime Minister Janša has the same opinion.