“I followed the formation of five new parties – Positive Slovenia, Zares, Gregor Virant’s party, the Party of Miro Cerar, and the List of Marjan Šarec. I am not wrong if I say that there are always the same names in the background of these formations; the frontmen of the parties are the only things that are different. Milan Kučan is certainly not in the background, to the contrary of what people like to believe, but Gregor Golobič probably plays an important role, as the former president of the Zares party, as do his associates,” the leader of the SD parliamentary group, Matjaž Han, told Delo – blaming Golobič and protecting Kučan. Well, Kučan is certainly not innocent in the whole story, and he also has a lot to do with the rise of the parties of “new faces.”
At Nova24TV, we have been emphasising from the time that the Constitutional Arch Coalition (Koalicija ustavnega loka – hereinafter referred to as KUL) was formed, that the project was created in the political sandbox of Gregor Golobič. At one time, the candidate for the KUL coalition was the failed politician Jože Pavlič Damijan, and later it was Karl Erjavec, but the main players got involved in a public quarrel just a few days after the failure of the vote of no confidence. Damijan accused the political representatives of the KUL coalition of being intellectually malnourished, and he himself announced that he would form a new party with 400 Slovenian intellectuals.
Damijan’s true nature was then revealed by the leader of the SD parliamentary group, Matjaž Han, in an interview with the Delo newspaper. As he said, he already suspected much earlier that Damijan wanted to create his own story from the success or failure of the Constitutional Arch Coalition. Han also believes that the centre-left pole has seen too many “new faces” already, and the reality usually turned out to be something completely different.
Han went after Damijan
On Damijan’s newly announced political party, Han said that he was surprised when the economics professor said that there are already too many incompetent parties on the fragmented left-wing political pole. “Five too many, to be exact, but on the other hand, he announces the formation of a whole new party. This does not work, neither with the economic, not with the political logic. And besides, Damijan is known for his love of changing his political and economic views.” The long-time politician and influential member of the SD party explained that Damijan’s intention had been evident from the very beginning. Damijan was initially just checking the field and waiting for the right moment to retreat to safety, to the so-called expert council of the Constitutional Arch Coalition, while Karl Erjavec was supposed to play the role of the political lamb. This is also evidenced by a part of the post on Damijan’s blog, which he published after the vote of no confidence failed, in which he accused the SD, SAB, LMŠ and Levica political parties of incompetence. “Today, it seems to me that Damijan already had the text for his blogpost prepared before the vote of no confidence failed.”
Last year, Delo’s interview with a professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and former advisor to Janez Drnovšek, Dejan Verčič, Ph.D., caused quite a stir. Vrečič said at the time that the influential figures of the left-wing network were looking for a person who would be willing to take over the role of a leader of the left political pole. It seems that their efforts paid off, as the mainstream media are now offering us two new faces – Jože P. Damijan and the scandal-ridden former Minister of the Environment of the Šarec government, Jure Leben.
Damijan has his own godfather from the background
MP Han has never tried to hide his political orientation, but he often giver sound and well-argued explanations. We must not forget, however, that in this interview, Han played the role of the defender of a part of the left-wing political and business sphere, to which he himself also belongs. In the past, we have revealed that the leader of the SD parliamentary group is involved in lucrative contracts with the state-owned Petrol, and in the past, he was also involved with Pivovarna Laško. And in many cases in the past, it turned out that it was the political friends on the left who got each other framed for affairs. We can probably all still remember this happening during the time of Šarec’s government, when one after another, Šarec’s close ally Damir Črnčec set up affairs involving the coalition partners of the then-government. This time, Han decided to shoot a few arrows in the direction of Gregor Golobič’s network.
When asked by the Delo journalist Suzana Kos to “give Damijan’s partners a name,” Han said, without pause, that Gregor Golobič is behind Damijan. He also admitted that Golobič’s network was behind all of the “new faces” parties. This was partially also revealed because of the KUL coalition, specifically because the journalist Bojan Požar shared a photo from last summer, in which we could see Jože P. Damijan, Golobič’s close associate Bogdan Biščak, and the best man at Damijan’s wedding, Drago Kos, sitting together in one of the bars near the Faculty of Economics.
Luka Perš
