Janez Janša

Infobox Prime Minister
name = Janez Janša


imagesize = 105px
order = Prime Minister of Slovenia
deputy =
term_start = 9 November 2004
term_end =
predecessor = Anton Rop
successor =
birth_date = birth date and age|1958|09|17|df=y
birth_place = Ljubljana, Slovenia, Yugoslavia
party = SDS
spouse =
religion = Roman Catholic

Janez Janša (born 17 September 1958 as Ivan Janša in Ljubljana) is a Slovenian politician and president of the Slovenian Democratic Party since 1993. He has been the Prime Minister of Slovenia since 9 November 2004.

Youth and education

Born as Ivan Janša to a Roman Catholic working-class family of Grosuplje, he was called "Janez" (a version of the same name, known as "John" in English) since childhood. His father was a former member of the Slovenian Home Guard from Upper Carniola who had escaped Communist retaliation due to his young age. [Janez Janša, Okopi (Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1994)] He graduated from the University of Ljubljana with a degree in defence studies in 1982, and became a trainee in the Defence Secretariate of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. In his younger years, he was a member of the League of Communists and one of the leaders of its youth wing. He became president of the Committee for Basic People's Defence and Social Self-Protection of the Alliance of Socialist Youth of Slovenia (ZSMS).

Dissident

In 1983, Janša wrote the first of his dissident articles about the nature of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). In the late 1980s, as Slovenia was introducing democratic reforms and gradually lifting restrictions on the freedom of speech, Janša wrote several articles criticizing the Yugoslav People's Army in the independent magazine "Mladina". As a result, his re-election as president of the Committee was blocked in 1984, and in 1985 his passport was withdrawn. He said that he made over 250 job applications in the following year without success, and was unable to secure publication of any articles.Fact|date=September 2008 In this period he earned his living writing computer programs and acting as a mountaineering guide. Liberalisation in the succeeding years allowed him to get work as secretary of the Journal for the Criticism of Science (1986) and later to begin publishing again in "Mladina". On 30 May 1988 he was arrested together with three other "Mladina" journalists and a staff sergeant of the Yugoslav Army, Ivan Borštner. They were tried in a military court on charges of exposing military secrets, and given prison sentences. The trial was conducted in camera, with no legal representation for the accused, and in Serbo-Croat (the official language in the Yugoslav army) rather than in Slovene.Fact|date=September 2008 Janša was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, initially in the maximum security prison at Dob, but following a public outcry, he was transferred to the open prison of Ig. The case became known as the JBTZ-trial and triggered mass protests against the regime, which marked the beginning of the process of democratization, known as the Slovenian Spring. Janša was released after serving about six months of sentence, and became editor in chief of the Slovene political weekly magazine "Demokracija" (Democracy). He remained in this position until the elections of May 1990.

Politician

In 1989, Janša was involved in the founding of one of the first opposition parties in Slovenia, the Slovenian Democratic Union (SDZ) and became its first vice-president, and later president of the Party Council. Following the first free elections in May 1990 he became the Minister of Defence in Lojze Peterle's cabinet, a position he held during the Slovenian war for independence in 1991. After the breakup of the SDZ in 1992, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia (now called Slovenian Democratic Party) and remained Defence Minister until March 1994, when he was dismissed by Prime Minister Janez Drnovšek following allegations that he allowed the military to interfere in civilian justice.Fact|date=September 2008 He was subsequently cleared of these allegations in an independent inquiry.

In May 1993, he was elected president of the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia with the support of Jože Pučnik,Fact|date=September 2008 the party's previous leader, and was re-elected in 1995, 1999 and 2001.

He became again Defence Minister from June 2000 to November 2000 in the short-lived centre-right government of Andrej Bajuk. During this time he introduced chaplains to the armed forces.

Following the victory of the Slovenian Democratic Party and its allies in the general election of 2004, Janša was appointed by President Drnovšek to form a new government on 3 November 2004. Six days later, he was elected Prime Minister of Slovenia by the National Assembly, polling the votes of 57 of the 90 members. His cabinet was approved by the Parliament on 3 December the same year.

Janša has published several books, the two of which are "Premiki" ("Manoeuvres", published in 1992 and subsequently translated into English under the title "The Making of the Slovenian State") and "Okopi" ("Barricades", 1994), in which he exposes his views on the problems of Slovenia's transition from Communism to a parliamentary democracy. In both books, but particularly in "Okopi", Janša criticized the then president of Slovenia Milan Kučan of interfering in daily politics using the informal influence he had gained as the last chairman of the Communist Party of Slovenia.

After the landslide victory of the opposition candidate Danilo Türk in the 2007 presidential election, Janša filed a Motion of Confidence in the government on 15 November 2007, stating that the opposition's criticism was interfering with the government's work, contrary to the previous agreement between the parliamentary parties, in which the opposition agreed not to undermine the government's work during Slovenia's presidency over the European Union. [ [http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/16/europe/EU-POL-Slovenia-Government.php "Slovenian PM seeks confidence vote after opposition candidate became president"] , Associated Press ("International Herald Tribune"), November 16, 2007.] The government won the vote, held on November 19, with 51 votes supporting it and 33 opposing it. [ [http://europe.courrierinternational.com/eurotopics/article.asp?langue=uk&publication=21/11/2007&cat=POLITICS&pi=5 "A Slovenian government crisis averted"] , "Courrier International", November 21, 2007.] In the speech delivered after the vote, Janša announced, among other, an intensification of the fight against financial criminality and the illegal concentration of capital in the hands of single powerful managers, to whom he referred as "tycoons". In the following months, the Slovenian police and public prosecution launched a full scale investigation against some of the biggest companies in the country, namely against the Laško Brewery Concern.

In September 2008, just three weeks before the Slovenian parliamentary elections, Janša was stated by the Finnish national broadcasting company YLE to have received a bribe from the Finnish company Patria (73,2 % of which is the property of the Finnish government) in the so-called Patria affair. [ [http://www.yle.fi/news/id100402.html YLE Claims Stir Political Storm In Slovenia] , YLE] [ [http://www.yle.fi/news/id100609.html Slovenia Delivers Note to Finland Over TV Programme Accusations] ] [ [http://ohjelmat.yle.fi/mot/viikon_ohjelma/manuscript_english Mot: The Truth about Patria] ] Janša has rejected all accusations as a media construction and asked YLE to provide evidence or to retract the story. [cite web |url=http://www.rtvslo.si/modload.php?&c_mod=rnews&op=sections&func=read&c_menu=1&c_id=181901 |title=Janša: Hude obtožbe brez dokazov |date=2008-09-03 |accessdate=2008-09-20 |publisher=MMC RTV SLO |language=Slovene] Insofar, YLE has declined to do so and has not provided any evidence, becauseFact|date=September 2008 criminal investigation by the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation is still underway.

Personal life

Janša is an active mountaineer, golfer, footballer, skier and snowboarder.cite web |url=http://www.kpv.gov.si/en/prime_minister_janez_jansa/curriculom_vitae_complete_version/#c2931 |title=Curriculum Vitae |publisher=Office of the Prime Minister |accessdate=2008-09-20] Besides Slovene, he is fluent in English and Serbo-Croatian.Fact|date=September 2008

Janša was never married, but did have a long-time partner Silva Predalič, who bore him two children, son Žan and daughter Nika, both of them currently being students. [cite web |url=http://www.vest.si/2007/10/27/jansa-porocen-s-silvio/ |title=Janša poročen s Silvio |date=2007-10-27 |accessdate=2008-09-20 |publisher=Vest.si |language=Slovene] In the second half of 2006, it was revealed that he was dating a then 28-year-old physician Urška Bačovnik from Velenje. Since December 2007, he has been engaged to her. [cite web |url=http://www.rtvslo.si/zabava/modload.php?&c_mod=rnews&op=sections&func=read&c_menu=8&c_id=31238 |title=Janez in Urška sta uradno zaročena |date=2008-01-09 |accessdate=2008-09-20 |publisher=MMC RTV SLO |language=Slovene]

References

External links

* [http://www.kpv.gov.si/index.php?id=225&L=1 Office of the Slovenian Prime Minister]