By: Ana Horvat / Nova24tv
Mojca Šetinc Pašek, an MP from the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda), has repeatedly demonstrated with her words and actions in the past that good manners are not one of her strong points. She has even gone so far as to blackmail certain individuals in order to achieve what she wanted. This proves once again that the left says one thing and then does the exact opposite. How else can we explain what Peter Gregorčič revealed on Monday, at the meeting of the Programme Council of the national media outlet Radio-Television Slovenia (RTV Slovenija), when he accused his deputy, in front of everyone, of having succumbed to Šetinc Pašek’s blackmail?
The Programme Council of RTV Slovenia has decided to suspend the dismissal procedure of Andrej Grah Whatmough, who is currently the Acting Director-General of the institution. The majority of the Councillors believed that Grah Whatmough could not be dismissed as his mandate had expired. But what is worrying about the situation in question were the words of the President of the Programme Council, Peter Gregorčič, who revealed the true face of the Freedom Movement MP, Mojca Šetinc Pašek. She has stooped so low that she has even blackmailed the councillors.
At the meeting, before the vote on the dismissal of the Acting Director-General, a rift broke out between the President of the Programme Council and the Deputy President, Andrej Prebil. Gregorčič accused Prebil of having succumbed to blackmail by the Freedom Movement MP. He wanted to exclude him from the decision on Grah Whatmough’s dismissal, because he had lost his credibility by disclosing these facts. He surprised the Councillors by disclosing a private conversation between himself and his Deputy, Andrej Prebil, before one of the previous meetings of the Programme Council, which had taken place a few weeks earlier.
Peter Gregorčič said that Prebil had revealed to him one Sunday that he was being politically pressured: “At this meeting, Mr Prebil told me the following: that he had received a call from the Freedom Movement MP Mojca Šetinc Pašek, and was given half an hour to decide whether he would sign the aforementioned case to call an extraordinary session (to dismiss the Director-General of RTV), and that he had to do so if he wanted to keep his position as Chairman of the Management Board at the company Sava Turizem,” Gregorčič said.
This is not surprising, as the media outlet Požareport already wrote in early December that signatures of RTV Programme Councillors had quietly started to be collected for the immediate replacement of the RTV Director-General Andrej Grah Whatmough. The process of collecting signatures was started by Branimir (Brane) Piano, a former journalist of the Delo newspaper, and the programme councillors, in the spirit of the so-called “depoliticisation,” according to Požar’s sources, “were receiving calls from the MP of the Freedom Movement, Mojca Pašek Šetinc personally, to replace Grah Whatmough immediately.” He added that Šetinc Pašek had already threatened or made the promise to re-elect some councillors to the Programme Council at that time.
Of course, despite the evidence, denial followed
Prebil, of course, denied everything, saying that he hoped Gregorčič had proof. The President of the Programme Council then showed everyone a copy of the private conversations, where everything was written in black and white. Gregorčič did not apologise to Prebil, so the case will apparently be brought to court. The MP and former journalist of the national media outlet, Mojca Šetinc Pašek, then also appeared on the show “Odmevi” (Echoes), and as expected, she also denied everything. However, her apology does not mean much, because a copy of the conversations exists, where Prebil clearly stated that he had succumbed to her blackmail.
To make the session even more turbulent, Sašo Hribar made it even worse with his behaviour, which was anything but appropriate. Božo Predalič also reported on Hribar’s inappropriate behaviour on Twitter, writing: “Hribar would like to turn the whole RTV Slovenia into Radio Ga ga. What a disaster! Apparently, he doesn’t realise that Radio Ga ga lost its appeal a long time ago, just like he has.”
After the current government, led by Robert Golob and the rest of his henchmen, decided to take over the public media outlet, they naturally decided to remove all those who were not “theirs” and install their own people in their place. Thus, the future of the Acting Director-General of RTV Slovenia, Andrej Grah Whatmough, was being decided at the meeting of the Programme Council, but the majority of the programme councillors decided that his mandate, which had already expired, could not be interrupted or otherwise taken away. In fact, according to the amendment to the Radio-Television Slovenia Act, Mr Whatmough’s mandate as Director-General expired on the 28th of December, and he will be the Acting Director-General until the appointment of the new Management Board, in accordance with the amendment.
Pasek Šetinc has announced a lawsuit
Gregorčič’s words have apparently shocked the Slovenian public so much that Mojca Pašek Šetinc herself has come forward to deny the allegations and announce a lawsuit.