A few days have passed already since the explosive mess was revealed, in which the convicted Miloš Njegoslav Milović, Acting Director-General of the Police, Boštjan Lindav, and Minister of the Interior, Tatjana Bobnar, were involved. The affair has brought to light some truths that the mainstream media will probably successfully hide this time, but the myth of Robert Golob as a principled politician, pure and fair, is over. At least two things have come to light in recent days: that he sometimes tells untruths (or, to put it plainly, that he sometimes lies) and that he made some brutal personnel changes in the state sub-systems. Nothing will ever be the same again.
It is, of course, clear that in a normal European country, such a statesman would immediately resign at his own discretion and withdraw from politics altogether. Austrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz did just that for a much smaller transgression, which has not even been proven, and he was not even asked to resign. In Slovenia, however, different rules apply to left-wing politicians.
As the investigative journalist, Bojan Požar wrote for the web portal Požareport, four explanations and one apology are saving the Prime Minister from having to resign.
Namely, the Prime Minister must properly explain why he explicitly asked the then-future Minister of the Interior, Tatjana Bobnar, and candidate for the Director-General of the Police, Boštjan Lindav, to make Darko Muženič the Director-General of the National Bureau of Investigation, at a time when he was already a mandate holder, but the government had not been formed yet, even though Muženič was under investigation by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office at the time. He also has to explain the following:
- Why did he demand that the head of the Nova Gorica Police Directorate, Evgen Govekar, be replaced?
- Why did he demand that the Director of the Police Specialities Directorate, Martin Jazbec, be removed from the police force?
- Why did he try to influence the preparation of the report by Boštjan Lindav and ordered an additional, manipulative report, which was not signed by Lindav, but by his deputy, Igor Ciperle?
- Did he request changes within the police (also, mainly) in order to be able to actively influence the course of the investigations, or even stop them entirely, related to the state-owned Gen-I company where he was previously President of the Management Board?
- He needs to explain in detail the role, position, status and powers of Miloš Njegoslav Milović in the Prime Minister’s Office, the General Secretariat of the Government, and in the system of protection of the Prime Minister and his family members.
- He needs to apologise to the Members of the National Assembly and the general public for having lied about Milović when answering a parliamentary question and later when talking to the media.
Brutal political interference
The indications strongly suggest that the Prime Minister wanted to politically influence very specific professional positions within the Slovenian police, which is, at best, considered political interference and, at worst, a conspiracy against the rule of law, where he wanted to appoint people to influential positions within the law enforcement agencies, who would ensure that he would never be charged with anything, let alone convicted. It is very interesting to see the political-media “salto mortale”, where officials and journalists are now rushing to assure us that political instructions to the Director of the Police do not constitute any political interference but regular political “directions” given to the law enforcement authorities.
However, no one has been able to explain why this manoeuvre bypassed the Minister of the Interior, nor has anyone asked the Prime Minister about it. It is, after all, the Minister of the Interior who reports to the Prime Minister on the performance of the police. If she is excluded from the process of appointing individual professional police officers, and even a convicted individual, who officially has nothing to do with the government or the civil service, is directing the protection of certain officials without her knowledge, then this is an indication that the Prime Minister does not want the Minister to know about this – for one reason or another. And what is even more significant now is that the story has disappeared from the headlines of the mainstream media over the weekend, and now the journalists are left only with the sweet question of who will replace the resigned Minister Bobnar.
We have therefore sent the following questions to the office of Prime Minister Robert Golob:
– Will the public ever be informed about the motives for the Prime Minister’s lie about not knowing and working with Miloš Njegoslav Milović, and what will the consequences of this lie be?
– Did the Prime Minister want to influence the criminal investigations in the Gen-I energy company?
– Why did the Prime Minister demand that the head of the Nova Gorica Police Directorate, Evgen Govekar, be replaced?
– Did the Prime Minister participate in the additional clarification of the report of the Acting Director-General of the Police, Boštjan Lindav?
We will publish the answers as soon as we receive them.
Andrej Žitnik
