Milan Krek, the now-former director of the National Institute of Public Health, who led the latter through the majority of the coronavirus pandemic, described in his column for the web portal Portalplus the shocking story of his fight with the windmills, when politics, the layman, decided to remove him from his position, simply because he worked with the previous government, which was not the right colour – politically speaking. He is convinced that the attempts to remove him went completely against the rules. In the end, he resigned, but only because he did not want to harm his team, as politics began to affect his colleagues as well.
Even though, as he said in his column, within the said team, there are some people whom he helped, but they still conspired against him. He emphasised that he is leaving, even though the institution has achieved a positive net result for the first time in its history. He was replaced by a politically appointed acting Director, but he himself never belonged to any political option – his only sin was his cooperation with the previous, Janša government.
He accused politicians of following the lynching from the street simply because they were unable to stop it. Let us remind you that Dr Krek was attacked on the street by rapper Zlatan Čordić and his accomplice, who verbally abused and humiliated him, even following him down several streets, which disgusted all of Slovenia.
Along with the Prime Minister, Dr Krek also became a lightning rod for any dissatisfaction the people felt regarding the anti-corona measures – the selfish and narcissistic people could not understand that in other parts of the world, they have almost identical measures as we ourselves have. The current ruling politics basically used Krek as a symbol of dissatisfaction with corona, since one of the basic strategies of the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje svoboda) is also appealing to the selfish corona idiots who, in the middle of a pandemic, when dozens of people were dying every day, longed for coffee with milk in their favourite café.
“Of course, my resignation goes against all management rules, but that is just how it is. If the ruling authorities decide you have to leave, because they are the only ones who know what is right, then you simply have to leave. If you do not resign by yourself, they will make you resign. And they will do it brutally, without mercy,” Krek wrote.
He also described how, in order to create pressure, the Ministry of Health even blackmailed the National Institute of Public Health, as the Ministry did not want to sign a full-year contract with the Institute, but only a contract for two months. This would push the Institute into financial difficulties and make it easier for them to get Krek to resign. This pressure was also coordinated with the President of the Institute’s Council, who “kindly” told Krek that he would just have to resign and added that the Information Commissioner would soon start pressuring him as well because he allegedly “did something wrong.”
Krek’s story is a shocking indication of how brutally and uncompromisingly the new government is politicising public institutions. Let us remind you that, unlike the previous directors of the Institute, Dr Krek is not a member of any political party. Previously, such roles were almost dynastically assigned to the proud successors of the Communist Party of Slovenia. This led to a near-disaster under the Šarec government, when it was obvious that the National Institute of Public Health’s management team, the professional staff, the Ministry of Health, and even the executive authority itself had no idea how to deal with the pandemic that was just around the corner.
A week before the introduction of quarantine, the National Institute of Public Health still explained, contrary to the scientific evidence we had at the time, that the disease is not transmitted among asymptomatic people. They advised that asymptomatic people socialise and continue to go to work as they normally would. They relativised the coronavirus disease and claimed it is just a slightly more severe version of the cold. And in the meantime, Prime Minister Šarec donated masks to China, thus sabotaging the incoming Janša government with empty warehouses. God protect us from the National Institute of Public Health, where the politically appointed personnel will once again be the verified cadres of the Social Democrats.
Andrej Žitnik
