A family quarrel seems to have broken out in the government ranks. The Social Democrats (Socialni Demokrati – SD) and the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda) have apparently decided to air their dirty laundry in public – through the “independent media.” The story of the controversial trip of Minister Sanja Ajanović Hovnik (Freedom Movement) to New York, along with her other questionable decisions and actions, has attracted a lot of attention, but now the state-owned media outlet Siol has come down on the Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the SD party, Tanja Fajon, with similar accusations about her own trip to New York. We cannot help but wonder whether the battle for a position on the Supervisory Board of the Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SDH) is behind this, which is also something that investigative journalist Bojan Požar has already reported on.
The “spouses” (read: the Freedom Movement and the Social Democrats) are now apparently at each other’s throats, of course “in gloves” or via “independent (state) media outlets”. A few days ago, news broke about the controversial trip of the Minister of Public Administration, Sanja Ajanović Hovnik (Freedom Movement), to New York. Not only was the trip exorbitantly expensive, but the Minister even took her political comrades with her, and they were in the US for longer than was strictly necessary. She spent €33,000 on the trip, and we, the taxpayers, paid the price. The price of the airplane tickets (€3,612.61) was also highlighted in a recent episode of the show Tarča (Target), and the Minister was supposedly accompanied by her husband on the trip in question.
The national media outlet Radio-Television Slovenia (RTV) – or the show Tarča, to be more specific – discussed the controversial issues in detail. The show also revealed that the institute of the Minister’s colleague Kaja Primorac Ipes had received 300 thousand euros under strange circumstances! Other dirty dealings involving the Minister’s family members and friends were also revealed. As is well known, the Minister is still being protected by Prime Minister Robert Golob, but the question is whether she will be able to bear the weight of such a moral burden. It should be recalled that during the government of Marjan Šarec, former MP from the List of Marjan Šarec (LMŠ), Darij Krajčič, had to resign only because of a stolen sandwich. Yesterday, a similar story appeared on the state-run Siol web portal, only this time starring the SD party’s Tanja Fajon.
The portal accuses Fajon of having taken the most expensive trip to New York in recent years. The media outlet recalled that Fajon, together with a seven-member team, attended the regular session of the UN General Assembly in New York in September, and that the taxpayers paid €67,349.32 for the eight-day trip, with the daily expenses not yet included in the final amount. Total travel costs are estimated at an average of €4,384 per person. Many people are probably wondering whether the background to the two scandals is simply that members of the government like to travel the world at state expense, especially to New York, and now the media have caught them red-handed.
The SD party reportedly threatened to “publicly come after Golob”
The truth is that the above-made assumption is probably false. A few days ago, journalist Bojan Požar revealed that there is a revolt going on behind the scenes by the Social Democrats party, who want to get a position in the Slovenian Sovereign Holding. Požar: “In December, the mandate of Karmen Dietner, the chairwoman of the Supervisory Board of the Slovenian Sovereign Holding, will expire, and the SD party is now demanding this position (or at least a position on the Supervisory Board), and they also want to appoint a member of the Management Board. And they have supposedly already come to an agreement on this with Golob and Vesna Vuković (Secretary-General of the Freedom Movement party), because the SD party has threatened to “publicly come after Golob” if they do not get these positions.”
Domen Mezeg
