We reached the first ten already; that is, in our century. Although New Year brings forth new resolutions (mostly related to bad habits - wonder why.....). The year 2010 will bring Parliament elections in Slovakia. Whether every voter will include in his or her New Year's resolution the fact to improve his voting skills this time.
Prime-Minister Fico's ruling party received however a very welcome early Christmas present in December during the 8th Conference of the Party of European Socialists (PES) in Prague. To refresh the readers' mind; when Mr Fico formed a coalition of his socialist party (SMER) with the ultra nationalist SNS party, the PES excluded SMER from its membership. In the meantime SMER not only fully supported dodgy businesses iniciated by various ministers within the coalition; illegal tenders, bribes, but also systematic undermining justice, influencing judiciary procedures, neglecting minority issues, extorting compensations from newspapers on true matters which de facto has become a censorship tool to curb free press. Nevertheless, without a clear reason why, SMER was again re-welcomed back into the arms of the PES-family.
Politics sometimes is a complex field. A couple of months ago, an acquaintance asked on Facebook a question, what is the difference between left and right in politics. A fairly good question, as the post 1989 world seems to have somewhat lost clear divisions between the two orientations. Just to mention an example, when former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair innovated British Labour into New Labour. In the past, I have had some close dealings with politics - then also in coalition with leftist parties - in the 'West'. Even then, regardless of any political party, the role of politics was merely for public interest. Naturally, perhaps an individual within the system would succumb to the temptation of bribery or other not so kosher remunerations, but when found out, it would mostly mean the political end station for the said person. In addition, what I still remember from my schoolbooks, socialism (and not referring to the Soviet style variant) somehow envisaged to stand up for the weaker citizens in society.
Neither of the above is within the agenda of Mr Fico's party, resulting in a autocratic almost pre-1989 style communist structures, where public interest seems a dirty word, and political propaganda is fairly effective to deviate the attention from unethical causes and scandals. Therefore, the decision of the PES is a big questionmark to me, both in the fact, that it runs completely counter any "socialist" principle and secondly since it gives a wrong signal to voters, as Mr Fico is using this as a justification tool to further consolidate his power.
Whether the PES should be bothered with internal Slovak polity seems perhaps arguable, yet the answer is YES. Why then, was SMER ousted in 2006? Reverting this decision is a slap in the face not only of those who understandably are struggling against Mr Fico's lust for power; the bill for billions of Euros disappearing thanks to Fico's cleptocratic government will sooner or later be coughed up by those who are weak in society, and this for a very long time. Socialism, as described earlier, used to stand up for those weak. Now it turned into standing up for those who are in power and more and more wallowing in wealth. Here the logic seems completely lost.
Sometimes we face hard times and use the (rather rude) expression "life is a bitch". In Slovak, the translation is "život je pes", where pes means simply dog. Or at least I thought so. Now I wonder, whether it refers to the PES. Mr Fico will surely profit from this, giving him another ace to win another term.
Happy New Year to you all, and may the new year bring back common sense and tolerance!
MS
Here is a copy of an e-mail I recently sent to PES. If I get a reply I'll gladly post it on your blog.
ReplyDelete'How can a group of so called socialists allow a hateful, corrupt and nationalistic party like the one I am embarassed to call my own government, SMER, to be a member of PES? If it's not bad enough that this government is openly and repeatedly corrupt from the top down, they are now bringing right wing feelings to the top of the political agenda here by passing th Patriot Act. This country is already a dangerous hotbed of racist thinkers, with verbal (sometimes physical) attacks on the Roma and anyone daring to wish to speak in Hungarian or indeed any foreign language. Laws against the freedom of the press, no independent media or investigative journalism, a language law and now this disgusting Act which would not look out of place in North Korea or Burma. Can't you see that you have lost all credibility by keeping regimes like this close to PES, or for allowing criminals in our government to carry on stealing money from other countries in the EU. More fool you! Please, I beg you to tell me how you can justify supporting Smer and it's political masters in the SNS and HZDS. I await your response with hope and interest'. Dan