The more time passes the more I've come to appreciate his reign. Without him Slovakia would be heading in a weird direction compared to a very right-wing world. I think that despite him being a bit too liberal for my tastes, he did do some real legislative work and he did create real value for the Slovak republic. He should be more respected than he is.This country needs to keep an eye on the backroom deals of government mostly, otherwise Slovakia is doing brilliantly. The next tasks are the absobsion of Roma and hungarians into society and the time when people don't feel the need to vote for an ethnic political party because there is no need.
Dzurinda recently was touted in diplomatic circles as an EU foreign minister. If it was really offered, then he could have gone for it, I am sure this ex-railway executive has the brains and is a master negotiator and a rather Machiavellian person. Overall though he seems to have Slovakia's best interest at heart. I squeaky clean Dzurinda (from a corruption perspective) would have been Slovakia's ideal leader, but i doubt such a person would be able to ever form a coalition in Slovakia, there are simply too many interests in government spending, but the situation is improving every year. Let us not forget that there is a lot of money sloshing about in politics throughout the world, with America being quite a corrupt place as well... I count lobbying as corruption btw, because errr that is what it is. I give you money so you do something for me..
anyway here is the item about Dzurinda going to Europe for high office:
"Former Slovak Prime Minister and SDKU leader, Mikulas Dzurinda, says he doesn't plan to leave for a job in Brussels. He responded to speculations that he could replace the senior EU representative for common foreign and security policy, Javier Solana. Dzurinda said that he didn’t get any offer for a function in Brussels. "What is written in foreign newspapers is an evidence that Slovakia has gained respect abroad. My priority is to remain SDKU chairman and lead the party to parliamentary elections," he said. However, he didn't rule out that in the future, he may be interested in the European institutions. The information that Dzurinda has some good prospects to replace Solana appeared last week via Austrian paper Kurier, which quoted diplomatic sources."
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I do wonder if you are of this world ..Old Dz could not form a goverment in march or now , because he was a back stabbing , lying toad. No bugger trusted him .
ReplyDeleteHe was also one of the countries biggest crooks ( as SF Free Forum members , they left because of his corruption )
..The Penta group was also being the Fouth or Fifth member of the coalition goverment. Most of his growth was done by back door 'insentives ' ie bribes ..that would not really stand EU scutiny now , but they turned a blind eye or them in order that the Mecair day were history . ( funny how things work out )
I admit after Mecca anything had to be better ..but not sure it a brain tumor is better than lung cancer if you have them .
look you are probably right that there is government corruption, my prediction is that there is going to be a corruption increase now, and you have to understand that a Prime Minister does not have as much power as youn may think. This is a common misconception.
ReplyDeleteWe actually agree really, i just have long term horizons. That there are corrupt politicians is obvious, and that is true in Italy and Greece and many other places. But the trend is a reduction of corruption. In fact the less state sector there is the less corruption there is.
Countries are big ships you cannot change course immediately. The corruption is embedded in the culture. Although Italy for example is so much richer a country, it is still very corrupt.
If you expect a clean politician you will have to wait for a long time... there isn't such a thing.
Unfortunately in my opinion most politicians get corrupted as they try to get elected. If they are not corrupt or allow corrupt things to happen, then they don't go far and they never head a political party... So tht is why its impossible.
Most governments especially coalitions have constant horse trading, and Dzurinda simply analysed it like this. The important thing was for Slovakia to get in the EU and Nato.
He knew he was not popular, and he oculd never have the votes to go and do those necessary things, it was only morons like Meciar who are popular because they are clowns and they know how to say the things people like to hear. But the EU is a unique historical thing. If Rusko wanted to steal money for example but he would allow Dzurinda to use his votes to push those essential changes that would get the country in, Dzurinda though so be it. A few million SKK are not going to make much difference. All the parties knew this, they are corrupt but they do the right thing when its this obvious. It is crazy that Dzurinda was heading a government for 8 years with 5% of the vote... The politicians see the country like a tree, they eat a few fruits and cultivate it a bit. If they cultivate well its worth it. Otherwise we would be like Ukraine...
The door to EU is slamming shut, i was actually surprised that Romania and Bulgaria made it... Just...
People suffered from the reforms REALLY BADLY, but now we are in we can impove the country. Some got rich yes i accept all those things, but my impression is that Dzurinda has not benefited personally. All this HAD TO BE DONE, its a vital issue. If Penta had to get bribes to get it done it doesn't matter! Normally it matters! i don't like corruption at all, but i fear if it wasn't for Dzurinda, we would have Meciar destroying the country for many years and being popular while taking loans in our children's name, and giving it to us... (which is what he did with pensions).
From now on there needs to be a lot of cleaning up, we are agreed. EU oversight actually helps, but it will take generations.
Now Slovakia would have to be led disastrously for it not to become a wealthier(y ?) country now.
Small countries are rather exposed these days. Unlike Ireland, Slovakia had border security, disputes with HUngary etc etc. It is now infinitely less likely that Slovakia is going to be involved in wars, its economy is now being modernised almost automaticaly because of the single market etc.
Although europe has its problems they are nothing to the extremism and upheaval in all other places of the world.
I was really upset that Dzurinda allowed for the airport to go for sale, when it was obvious that Vienna wanted to stifle competition. Fico was right to stop that. But this stuff is nothing compared to a move Dzurinda made that has now defined the country for the next 100 years or more..
Think big, now Fico should really fix all these things, except he doesn't want to clean up politics (although he has the popular support to do it) because he is also a slave to a lot of interests behind the scenes...
I really should introduce you to a bloke called Karl Naylor ... between you both War & Peace would seem like a mills and boon coffee backback read ;-)) If I added Don Merrett , the vicar of the Parish, my god ...Roger , Roger, get me the spittoon ...;-))
ReplyDeleteThe airport was sold , because Penta boys backed his election campaign, it was his payback !
Mind you , they got the short straw in the end ;-))) ..they got Kosice, the airport serving no one and going to no where !!! ( execpt US Steel) At least Poprad or Banska or even Zilina could have served the Tatry holiday trips .
Actually long term its going to be a good airport
ReplyDeleteThere is little doubt SDKU has corporate donors, and there is little doubt that they got sweet deals.
But so does Tony blair, who was auctioning lordships
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/13/nloans13.xml
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/funding/story/0,,1819106,00.html
To know politics is to know how it works. There is graft, in countries like the UK its less and some times it takes more respectable guises.
For example the Tories get contributions from thousands of businesses with the understanding that they will keep cutting tax and when they privatised in the 80es that they would create private monopolies that are going to be difficult to unravel for any future government (e.g. Railtrack) the sums were colossal, now is that corruption or is that donating money to support a cause?
It depends who you ask. Why not ban donations then i hear you ask, well then the deals are struck underground.. Its impossible to police.
Countries that had serious problems with corruption for many years have laws to try to police it a bit. For example they have "pothen esches" which means that a politician needs to prove how he got the money to buy the villa they live in etc.
Unfortunately it is impossible to have clean government. The cleanest ones are in Scandinavia but that is a cultural thing. Old europe is becoming more corrupt if anything...
Phenomena like Berlusconi prove that..
There are no easy solutions!
I have two problems with Dzurinda. One was selling the country to Bush for his party political broadcast advert. Well, Dzurinda's already been punished for that. He will have to watch movies of Bush saying Iraqis want democracy the same as the Slovaks all his life, and himself saying he saw proof of the WMDs, ha ha.
ReplyDeleteThe second problem was using the secret services to settle his party-internal feuds, when he claimed a rival business mafia was a threat to the security of all Slovakia. That was close to Meciar level and sets a dangerous precedent for Fico.
But he gave Ivan Miklos a job and political backing, so that makes up for a lot. I can't imagine Fico being brave enough to go with such a radical un-Slovak figure. Some say Miklos was a thief like the Yeltsin-era reformers in Russia. But where is the proof?
Hmm but i don't see much theft, by Slovak standards corruption is falling every year and DZ governments were the catalysts for that.
ReplyDeleteI think Miklos if he is not corrupt would be a great PM in the future, but the problem is that we cannot know what is going on because the judiciary is not independent.
That is why Harabin is such a disaster in the justice ministry.
The big question is whether Fico despite the rest in his CV is an idealist nationalist. If that is true (and i see some signs of it that he really is energised personally by the idea of his country) then he will cut corruption not increase it. This is my best hope, although it does sound far fetched to me too. :)