ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 16, No. 1 (SI)

March 2019

Slovenia political briefing: A series of resignations in Šarec government Helena Motoh

1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11.

+36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin

Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01

A series of resignations in Šarec government

Summary

With similar issues already experienced by few of the previous governments, after being sworn in, Šarec government and his political party were immediately under scrutiny for the potential liabilities of its ministries and top representatives. In the first half year a series of resignations of government ministries and high level government functionaries are starting to be questioned by media and the general public, especially after the last two resignations of the Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning Jure Leben, and the Minister of Health Samo Fakin.

Background: Track record of the previous government

Resignations marked the mandate of the previous government as well as this one. The Government of Prime Minister Miro Cerar, which was composed of his (SMC), Democratic Party of Pensioners of (DeSUS) and Social Democrats (SD) experienced a lot of issues mostly related to the fact that Modern Centre Party (initially called Miro Cerar Party) was a newcomer in Slovenian political scene and mainly consisted of people without previous political experience and/or known backgrounds. A series of resignations followed with more than a third of ministers being replaced. First replaced – a month after the government was sworn in was Jožef Petrovič (SMC), Minister for Economic Development and Technology, who was accused of illegal cartel agreement in his previous position as division director in DZS, one of the main stationery and publishing companies in Slovenia. He was replaced by Zdravko Počivalšek (SMC), who remained a minister in the current Šarec government. At the same time, another Minister resigned, but for a different reason. (SMC), initially the Minister without Portfolio responsible for Development, Strategic Projects and Cohesion, became a Slovenian politician the European Commissioner for Transport in Juncker's Commission on 1 November 2014. She was replaced as Minister by Alenka Smerkolj (SMC). A series of scandals then followed at the Ministry of Education. The initial minister, Stanislava Setnikar Cankar (SMC) was discovered by an analysis of the Anti- Corruption Commission to have received more than half million Euros of additional contract income from faculties where she also regularly taught, most of that coming from the faculty where she was the dean, effectively approving these transactions on her own. She was replaced

1 in March 2015 by Klavdija Markež (SMC), who shares a record for the shortest time being a minister (with Igor Maher from the previous Bratušek government). After only five days she was discovered to have plagiarized her MA thesis and resigned, being replaced by Maja Makovec Brenčič (SMC). The next to be replaced was the Minister of Defence, Jani Veber (SD) exceeded his powers when he instructed the military intelligence service to analyse the process of privatizing of the telecommunication company Telekom. He was replaced by Andreja Katič (SD). The initial Minister of Culture, Julijana Bizjak Mlakar (DeSUS) had to resign in spring 2016 over the issue of heritage-protected mercury mine in Idrija and following a scandal with censorship of the National Day of Culture ceremony. The last Minister replaced was Dušan Mramor, Minister of Finance, who resigned in July 2017 allegedly for personal health reasons, but it was speculated that the main issue was a disagreement with Prime Minister over certain issues concerning Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SDH) and the Port of Koper. He was replaced by a former Secretary of State at the Ministry of Finance, Mateja Vraničar Erman.

First resignation in Šarec government

With the experience of Cerar government and a similar situation to take into account, especially in his own party, which was also a newcomer, Šarec initially put a lot of attention into the selection of candidates. He was also extremely conservative in presenting the potential names before the agreement was reached, which led to a period of guessing and speculation in media. Even after the list of Ministries looked final, the new Prime Minister had to change two candidates in the very last moment. After the new government was sworn in in September, it became obvious that there are a lot of already familiar faces in the new government. This was not only due to the fear that the background of “new faces” could lead to unwelcome surprises as it was the case in Cerar’s government, but also related to the rather large number of coalition partners which competed for the Ministries. Three coalition party leaders took three key ministry positions: former Prime Minister Miro Cerar of the Modern Centre Party (SMC) became the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alenka Bratušek of the party of the same name (SAB) became the Minister of Infrastructure and of the Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia (DeSUS), formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs, became the Minister of Defence. Some other Ministers were also Ministers in the previous government, e.g. Zdravko Počivalšek (SMC) remained the Minister of Economic Development and Technology and the former Minister of Defence, Andreja Katič (SD) became the Minister of Justice. Despite these fairly predictable and tested choices, the first resignation followed in mid-November. Prime Minister Šarec called the Minister of Cohesion, Marko Bandelli of SAB, to resign after a breach of

2 powers and several inappropriate messages in social media and threats to a candidate in 2018 local elections. He was replaced by Iztok Puič (SAB). Alenka Bratušek the leader of SAB Party, repeatedly expressed the demand for the Prime Minister to apply same – allegedly harsh – standards to all future situations of the same kind.

A series of resignations in 2019

In 2019 the situation progressively worsened. In mid-January a suicide of a lower ranked employee in the Ministry of Culture started a series of accusations against the Minister Dejan Prešiček, indirectly and directly accusing him of being responsible for mobbing that led to the tragic incident, while the employee had to serve as a personal driver to the Minister. Other accusations of mobbing followed from the employees at the Ministry of Culture and Prešiček’s other function at the Conservatorium for Music and Ballet. Prešiček was also accused of exploiting his services to transport his daughter and his personal musical instruments, which was against the standards of conduct. After the initial hesitation on the side of the Prime Minister and denial on the side of the Minister Prešiček and his political Party, Social Democrats, he finally proposed his resignation and Prime Minister accepted it on January 28th.

After Prešiček, the second minister in row to resign, a scandal shook the Šarec’s own party in mid-February. In what came to be known as “sandwich affair” a member of parliament from Marjan Šarec List (LMŠ) jokingly admitted in a meeting of a parliamentary committee for agriculture that he took a sandwich from a nearby grocery store without paying for it. A scandal exploded almost immediately and although he started claiming that the whole affair was a “social experiment”, it became clear that a resignation was imminent in order for Šarec to save the reputation of his political party. After first submitting his resignation and then twice changing his mind, he finally resigned as MP in the beginning of March.

The third resignation of a minister in Šarec government, the Minister of Environment Jure Leben (SMC) was perhaps the biggest surprise. On February 12 a police investigation started in relation to a corruption scandal in the last period just before the resignation of Cerar government. As part of the Second track railway building project Leben was supervising a tender to create an interactive model of the track. In the decision on the tender, the Ministry of Infrastructure, where he was Secretary of State, the more expensive bidder actually got he order, while it then subcontracted the actual making of the model to the other, less expensive bidder which was not chosen on the tender. Due to his political responsibility during the affair, Leben submitted his resignation which was then accepted by Prime Minister Šarec. His resignation

3 came as a big surprise especially to the general public and environmental NGOs. In the first half year he displayed a firm position on some previously problematic environmental issues and established a dialogue with NGO’s which was seen as an important step compared to his predecessors. Because Leben was also an opponent of some recent attempts of environmentally problematic industry to pursue their investments in Slovenia, media also speculated on the lobbies which could potentially motivate the scandal that brought Leben to resign, in order to replace him with a more lenient minister.

After another resignation in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Šarec due to a discovered tax evasion, the last minister to resign to this day was the Minister of Health, Samo Fakin. Officially he resigned due to a health condition which was not improving quickly enough for him to continue the high stress work. His resignation was commented also a sign of Šarec’s dissatisfaction with the progress of health reform.

Conclusion

With the seemingly harsh stand of Prime Minister Šarec against any potential corruption and other irregularities, the rapid series of replacements in the government also gave rise to concerns whether this is indeed a result of high moral standards being applied or a sign of potentially domineering leadership of the head of the government. The problem of finding qualified replacements for the positions is also present, with the media pressure being a deterring factor for experts in the field to agree on taking on the position.

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