Incompetents

The interncional konference video that was doing the rounds of the Slovak blogosphere made it to the Markiza nightly news the other night, a Slovak first as far as I can tell. They made it into a piece about whether ministers are good enough at English. The funny thing is that Mr Jahnatek turns out to be capable of fairly fluent, if heavily accented, English. At least, he was able to answer the reporter's questions in English. So why was his performance in the video so hilariously bad? The most likely explanation is that he just read his text off paper and didn't take the time to practise it because the video was just one of those things that has to be done and no one really cares about it.

It's a common feature of Fico's government, this contempt for communications. Here's the man himself, discussing his opposition to US anti-missile radar bases in Eastern Europe:

Fico explained his stance by saying that Slovakia has the right to take such a position.

Yeah, no one's gonna tell you what to do. "Fuck you. I won't do what you tell me". Government of petulent teens:

Fico: Jednoducho, si musíme na Slovensku zvyknúť na to, že predseda vlády nie je politik, ktorému niekto niečo napíše na lístoček v nejakej inej krajine, a tento politik to potom šíri po svete. Máme vlastné názory ja ich teda mám, aj ich budem naďalej presadzovať v politike, a pokiaľ bude mať slovenská verejnosť o takýto typ politiky záujem, budem takúto politiku robiť.

My translation: We simply have to get used to the fact that in Slovakia the prime minister is not a politician who takes something that was written down on a little piece of paper in another country and then spreads it around the world. We have our own opinions, at least I do, and I will continue to promote them in my politics, and as long as the Slovak people like that sort of politics, I will carry on doing politics that way.

How can a government have so much contempt for people's intelligence? It's probably because Fico's government is full of old faces from before 1989, members of the elite who have just been biding their time, knowing that they will get their moment of power again. Even the ones who have been in business, like Paska, were in cushy businesses like pharmaceuticals where huge profits are guaranteed if you have contacts. Smer's election triumph was largely bought with a massive advertising campaign, and the Dzurinda government's determination to shoot themselves in the foot. The sooner these time-serving incompetents shuffle off the stage, the better.