Years ago, the Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković was Prime Minister Robert Golob’s party boss, so it is really not a big surprise that Golob supported him for another term as the mayor of Ljubljana. Given the “woke” ideology that Golob, under the influence of NGO the Institute of the 8th of March, had been infected with since his “enlightenment,” when he lost his position of the eternal director of a state-owned energy company, this move is highly unusual, given Mayor Janković’s seriously controversial past regarding his attitude towards women.
We are, of course, talking about the infamous “pharmacist” scandal that rocked Slovenia a few years ago. At that time, Janković “mistakenly” got caught by the wiretaps, and then the deep state, through its institutional entrenchment in the police and the judiciary, had to struggle for a long time to keep its parade horse out of jail.
But despite all of that, Robert Golob recently endorsed him for mayor: “I will not deny that I myself see Mayor Janković as the most suitable person to continue in this position for another term. I am inclined to get the party to also support him, but I will not make any decisions before the council of the party confirms it.”
He exploited a desperate young mother
Let’s think back to the criminal complaint filed by the National Bureau of Investigation, which revealed that in July 2014, Zoran Janković had blackmailed a pharmacist and demanded sexual favours from her, in exchange for which he was prepared to arrange a permanent employment position for her at the Ljubljana Pharmacy. The pharmacist then succumbed to his pressure on two occasions. The criminal indictment thus revealed the mayor’s exploitative attitude towards a woman in need, who was in the process of getting divorced, caring for two children, and was threatened with losing her apartment. So what could she have done? She believed that she could have solved her housing problem by taking out a loan to buy a house or apartment, because if she had no roof over her head, the social services would surely have knocked on her door, and she would likely lose custody of her two children, but the bank had turned her down because she only had a fixed-term contract. Mayor Janković took advantage of the helpless woman’s plight and arranged a job for her by instructing Marjan Sedej, the director of the Ljubljana Pharmacy, to employ the pharmacist under a contract for an indefinite term. But he did not do it for free…
He accepted sexual favour from her in his office
At the time, the web portal “Pod Črto” revealed that on the 8th of July, the pharmacist had sent the mayor a text message, writing: “Hello, Mr Mayor! I urgently need your help again… Please, when can I see you? Kind regards.” Janković did not hesitate long – according to the wiretaps, he called her back in the same minute. They agreed to meet at Janković’s office in the Town Hall that evening, where she would “present her problem” to him, meaning she would explain that she was getting divorced and that she did not have an apartment. The meeting did take place, and the indictment states that Zoran Janković then “in the continuation of their meeting, demanded from the pharmacist a promise of sexual intercourse, because he would make sure that she got a job at the public institution the Ljubljana Pharmacy, with a contract for an indefinite term, and he also promised to help her get an apartment.”
However, Janković was clearly not satisfied with a one-off favour. After the first meeting, the two frequently spoke on the phone, mainly about the job at the Ljubljana Pharmacy and the woman’s housing problem. According to the National Bureau of Investigation’s criminal charge, during the conversation, “Janković repeatedly told her that he wanted to meet her again, that it was then her turn to return the favour in the way he wanted – meaning, with sex.” The mayor then visited the pharmacist late at night on the 28th of July 2014.
The women who ran on Golob’s list of the Freedom Movement party did not protest
The Institute of the 8th of March, which helped elect the new government and presents itself as ultra-feminist and enlightened, never really condemned this exploiter of desperate women – they were not even bothered by the fact that, for example, Janković was a guest at Robert Golob’s electoral convention. And now, they will once again put their “enlightenment” in a drawer when the problem concerns their patron. In addition, none of the women from the Freedom Movement party (“Gibanje Svoboda”), which presents itself as a feminist movement and demands gender quotas in its programme and addresses women as “women and those who identify as women,” spoke up against this.
The Freedom Movement party is the Positive Slovenia party
Robert Golob is still extremely unskilled in the political craft, but he should know that it is not politically expedient for him to support a far-left candidate of whom recordings exist of him forcing a desperate young woman to have sex with him in exchange for a favour. That is simply not what one should do. At the same time, this says a great deal about his political record. With Golob’s shameful endorsement, Janković did not become the candidate of the Freedom Movement, but what we have long suspected finally turned out to be true – that the Freedom Movement party is the Positive Slovenia party – both in terms of personnel, ideology, and morality. The same was true for the List of Marjan Šarec and the Party of Alenka Bratušek. And when we look at the situation from this point of view, it is no wonder that Golob was such a passionate advocate of coalition cooperation with the far-left party, the Left party (Levica), which almost did not get into the National Assembly.
Andrej Žitnik
