Investigative journalist Bojan Požar reports that he has received information about how Marta Kos, Gibanje Svoboda’s candidate for President of the Republic, received money from the UEFA football association, based on a consultancy contract, and at least part of this money was supposed to go to finance the so-called civil society, which fought agitprop against the government of Janez Janša.
For more than seven days, the Gibanje Svoboda party has not answered the questions of journalist Luka Perš about whether UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin financed the company of Marta Kos, who then allocated the money to the infamous Legal Network.
Let us remind you that the Legal Network is a network of non-governmental organisations from Metelkova street, which during the mandate of the previous government was primarily intended to support protesters. The latter could read their rights in detail on their website, how to act if they are legitimised by a police officer in a public space, about the rights to protest, express free will and respect decrees, which is understood as the protection of human rights and democracy in the country.
“A network to help the virus and threats to health and lives. But the sign is right. A totalitarian symbol of death. Nothing to do with democracy, only with its suppression,” Prime Minister Janez Janša responded to the operation of the network at the time.
If the story would turn out to be true, it is a huge scandal where an international sports federation, through its president, interferes in national elections, which is a serious violation of UEFA rules. In the past, the president of this organisation took a very clear political position to the left, even going so far as to give completely agitprop interviews for the Slovenian media about the repressive government of Janez Janša – meanwhile, he never mentioned the Dutch, Belgian and French governments, where the police brutally beat protesters.
The story would come as no surprise, as Kos is known for her long-standing activism. Long before she became politically prominent in Golob’s Gibanje Svoboda party, Kos was considered a left-wing political activist. For years, she was the general secretary of Kučan’s lobbyist-interest caviar of the socialist association of post-transition millionaires Forum 21 and performed key operational roles for him. Thus, in September 2008, before the elections, she ordered a political pamphlet from tycoon Bojan Petan for 8,440 euros, in which she attacked the then government led by the SDS party and its president Janez Janša, individual ministers, and even expert colleagues of ministries and parties.
With a full-page ad, she (then still Marta Kos Marko) expressed her “shame and sadness over the current political situation in the country” in Petan’s Dnevnik newspaper and signed the ad as a citizen of the Republic of Slovenia. It was obvious, well-paid pre-election agitprop, which contributed to the narrow victory of Pahor’s trio. He then led the country, which he received in good condition, to near bankruptcy.
Andrej Žitnik