Marko Bucik

According to vest.si (a freshly mad on-line media, worth visiting) Borut Pahor will run not only marathons next autumn, but also elections. This means, if the news is true, that we have two serious contenders for the President of Slovenia: Pahor and Peterle.

For Pahor this has been described as “the easy option”, while leading the Social Democrats in the next parliamentary elections supposedly the tough one. He is leading in the polls, so winning the Presidential elections should not be too difficult. The only test is the support of his party. Pahor said that he will only run, if he gets it…Well, I’m sure some people would be more than glad if he leaves. Continue reading “Slovenia: Pahor is in, will the party follow?”

I’ve never spent more than 15 minutes watching any of the editions of Big Brother. The Slovenian edition started earlier this year and I’m more than hapy to have missed all of them and have been ignorant about it until now. I came across the website today and I’m shocked about how hopeless this is…

Take a look at the description Miha, one of the male participants, put about himself on the official website of the show:

“Miha is honest, positive and energetic. He has a small booklet, filled with names of 150 girls with whom he has slept until turning 21.”

(Miha je iskren, pozitiven in energičen. Ima knjižico, v katero je zapisal več kot 150 deklet, s katerimi je spal do svojega 21. leta. )

If this is not rubbish, what is?

Ha, another good one. Slovenia was elected today as member of the UN Human Rights Council (the results of the elections here).

There are two superbly ironic elements to the story. Not many people outside Slovenia are aware of the issue of the so-called “erased” – people that have been erased from the population registries in 1992. The story is complex (more on the issue here), but the fact that it hasn’t been solved until 2007 surely says something is wrong. And of course some people suffered and are still suffering from injustice.  So getting into the HRC  is a bit ironic. Continue reading “Slovenia elected into the UN Human Rights Council – irony par excellence”

The conclusion of a funny period in Slovenian EU politics was in the news today. The government coalition parties, the Social Democrats (in the opposition) and the non-aligned MPs signed a so-called “Pact of non-aggression” or “Agreement of cooperation” for the period of the Slovenian EU Presidency. As I argued before I find the whole story odd, although politically smart for all those involved. Continue reading “Slovenia: the “Pact of non-aggression” signed”

Get ready for a long post.

I know, citizens are at the core of politics. Or at least this is how it should be. And yes, I think referendums are appropriate means to answer certain political questions. But when I browse EU’s statements, publications, websites…the obsession with tying everything to “citizensâ€? annoys me a bit (google “EU citizensâ€?..11 million hits and counting). Of course, I also see the frustration of not really getting the right response from someone’s political constituency. But… Continue reading “EU: The obsession with citizens and consultations”

A funny sarcastic make-over of the official EU logo of the 50th Anniversary.

The news emerged this week that SDS, the governing Democrats of Slovenia, support Peterle as candidate for the President of the Republic. Although the decision is not yet final, this brings new elements into the debate. Let’s take a look at few.

An interesting article from Jani Sever, former Editor of Mladina now running vest.si, explores why the support of SDS is problematic for Peterle. He claims that SDS’ support comes at a cost – full cooperation during the mandate. As we have seen in the second half of Drnovšek’s mandate, he ran into troubles when fully confronting Janša. Nothing says that Peterle would not receive the same treatment. Continue reading “Slovenian: Peterle gathering the support on the right, how should Pahor react?”

There are many interesting confrontations happening in Slovenian politics at this stage. The independent parliamentarians (mostly from the newly founded association Zares) obstructed the work of the Parliament for few days, the scandal over the mishandling of SOVA (intelligence agency) funds, the supposedly unknown planning of gas-terminals in the port of Koper… Almost as something would be cooking , before we enter the lazy summer months. Anyway, my interest stays with the relation Pahor – Janša i.e. Social Democrats – governing coalition. Continue reading “Slovenia: We like them, but we don’t like them”

Sarkozy won, life goes on. One of the most interesting issues in the run up to the June parliamentary elections in France was supposed to be the positioning of Bayrou, the centrist candidate that got 18% of the vote in the first round. He launched a new party called “Modem” (Mouvement Démocrate) this week and appealed on “reformist” forces. But he was left alone even by “his” guys. Continue reading “France: honest wish to reform :)”

Just finished watching the TV debate between Ségolène and Nicolas on France 2 (nice webstream). I was quite surprised by the aggressive style of Mrs Royal, putting Mr Sarkozy in a slightly favourable position of defending his positions and achievements. Personally, she didn’t impress, while he gave a show of self-confidence and presidentialsm. Sorry Ségolène, the performance had its good moments, but you should have played softer to my mind. Continue reading “France: voting for the least harmful”