HOW THE FREE 1992 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN SLOVENIA RETURNED COMMUNISTS TO POWER FOR ANOTHER DECADE, OR MORE...

Ljubo Sirc took part in the Slovenian elections 1992 as a candidate for the President of Slovenia. There were seven other candidates - Milan Kucan, the incumbent and the last official leader of the League of Communists of Slovenia; Ivan Bizjak, the Christian-Democratic candidate, Jelko Kacin, the candidate of the Slovenian Democratic Party best known as the military spokesman during the 10-day war of the Slovenian territorial army against the communist Yugoslavian People's Army; and three more candidates of minor parties.

The results were most disappointing for Sirc. But It cannot be claimed that the voting was manipulated or the procedure wrong. Sirc obtained only 1.5 % of the popular vote and came one but last. The communist Kucan obtained an easy victory with 64 %.

The elections were won not in the media but by the media. Any candidate who had an official function could appear on the TV, radio and front pages as often as he attended any public function, while those being candidates-only could appear exclusively at the late night news between ten and eleven PM. Newspapers would simply not write about some candidates.

Today, Slovenian media are still to a large extent staffed by persons appointed under the communist rule when moral qualifications were required, i.e. the job candidate must have been acceptable to the Communist Party. When this state of affairs was questioned after the first democratic election in 1990, communist journalist kicked up protests saying that their human rights are being endangered. They thought it all right that in the past only people with 'moral qualifications' could be appointed, but resisted any attempt that room should be found also for those not acceptable to the communists.

Although TV and radio organized a few appearances of all candidates, they were mostly formatted by asked questions, often provided by viewers and listeners. The questions hardly ever dealt with economy or foreign policy.

The electoral campaign was financed from three sources: State financial quotas paid to the parties, membership fees of the parties, and donations by sponsors. The donations came mainly from 'social', i.e. State owned, enterprises in which the managers, appointed by communists on the basis of their moral qualifications, still can consider it to be their right to use enterprises' money to support parties and candidates as they see fit.

In Sirc's case, the strange thing was the behavior of the Liberal-Democratic Party that had put forward his name. The Party as a party obtained 23 % of votes, Sirc 1.5 %. Somebody calculated that only 3.8 % of the votes cast for the Liberal-Democratic Party went to Sirc. The other 96.2% went to Kucan who ran as independent. The Liberal-Democratic Party did hardly any electoral propaganda for Sirc; it concentrated on propaganda for Janez Drnovsek, the incumbent Prime Minister, who ran only as a candidate for a member of parliament, hoping for another round of Prime-Ministership. (The Prime Minister is chosen by the parliament). Nonetheless, enormous posters of various forms advertised him, but did not mention Sirc at all. Other parties did advertise presidential candidates, sometimes together with other candidates, sometimes alone. But posters with Sirc's picture had to be discovered.

Sirc protested about the lack of interest in him, but was told by the party that there was no money. When he would offer to find the money himself, he was told there was no need for money.

Why did the Liberal-Democratic Party nominate Sirc and then totally abandon him and voted Kucan?

Twenty-eight Parties

In the country that for forty-five years had only a single party, the voting public choices went from rags to riches. Twenty eight parties participated in the parliamentary elections, some clearly put up to confuse the public. Eight made it into the parliament by the rule which requires at least 3% of total vote.

PARTY, Votes, Seats

LDS (liberal democrats) 23.3%, 22
SKD (christian democrats) 15.5%, 15
United List (communists) 13.6%, 14
SNS (nationalists) 9.9%, 12
SLS (people's party) 8.9% 10
Democrats 5.0%, 6
Greens 3.7%, 5
SSDS (social democrats) 3.3%, 4

In spite of different hopes, the present composition of Slovenian parliament is no better than it had been after the first democratic election in March 1990. The innovation is a large group of extreme nationalists who want the foreigners out and threaten violence, so that they are unacceptable to most. This shift has weakened the right of center. The left has remained quite strong. LDS considers SKD its main enemy although their coalition has been informally announced before elections. A pattern of winning strategy of LDS is becoming apparent: show that "we are not communists", pick an anticommunist such as Sirc for the presidential candidate, publicly state intention to form coalition with Christian Democrats, after elections make a coalition with other "communist" parties and, hopefully, happy days are here again...

Today it appears likely that LDS will form a coalition with the United List. Either Democrats, Greens or SSDS could add to their number to give it a thin majority in the parliament with the total complement of 90, including two representatives of national minorities. Small wonder there is already talk about another parliamentary election in two, rather than in four years. It will be none too soon.

Reality and Illusions

What is to be said after the judgement by the Slovenian people? In the first place it must be pointed out that the results show that the decision of majority, who should rule, is not necessarily 'good' or 'true'. That is why minority must have the full right to criticize and put forward its own proposals.

It would seem that the Slovenians have chosen badly. This is clear in case of the president but less clear in the voting for parliament because it is still hard to predict what policies the relative majority party of LDS will follow. The leaders talk about pragmatism, but what will be their choice of pragmatism?  

Communists’ Legacy

The economic consequences of the communist rule were nothing but catastrophic

The Yugoslavian communists were frequently led in economic matters by their Slovenian comrades in arms. They introduced a Soviet-type centralist system, then abandoned it in 1952 and introduced self-management. Both systems were authored by the same Slovenian communist, Boris Kidric. In 1965 self management reached its peak under the management of another Slovenian communist, Boris Kraigher. Suffice it to say that all worked badly.

Because Yugoslavia had been expelled from the communist camp by Stalin in 1948, it was receiving for two decades, from 1952 till 1970, Western aid to the equivalent of present $ 2,000,000,000 per year, and often more. Also, between 1970 and 1978, Yugoslavia borrowed about $ 22,000,000,000 in Euro-dollar market.

When this largesse stopped in 1978, real wages began to fall. The index of net real wages in 1961 amounted to 146 (100 for year 1955) which is just under the pre-WW2 level. It reached 324 in 1978 and then fell to 224 in 1988, a reduction by 42%. In Slovenia, the 1988 index fell back to the level of 1967.

In 1991 came a further degradation by about one third because Slovenia lost the Yugoslavian markets. Slovenian workers ended up with wages hardly any higher than at the beginning of the WW2. This is a disastrous result in view of the enormous investment of more than 30 % of GNP and voluntary work. Between 1960 and 1980 Yugoslavia needed about three times more investment than Greece, Spain, or Portugal but achieved the same growth (1%).

In December 1992, the actual average monthly wage in Slovenia was equivalent of US$ 400 (it is said that for stability it should be only $270). How under such circumstances anybody can vote for the leaders of the Party that brought this about is a mystery. One of the defenses of communists is that all was not bad. Perhaps, but this defense holds even for the worst criminals.

Indeed, Slovenia, does not look as desolate as these figures for current income would indicate. But the appearance is deceptive. While foreign aid and credits were still flowing, people built up reserves in the form of houses financed with 1000% inflation which essentially eliminated mortgages and broke the banks. Cars, and other luxuries were paid for cash which many earned abroad. Some of this cash was deposited in savings accounts in Slovenian banks, denominated in foreign currency. But even those have all been used up by the authorities and funds in such accounts now cannot be withdrawn except in small installments.

All in all, after 45 years of communism, the results are nil. Banks are in disarray, industry is operating with deficit. If one disregards the disappearance of the Yugoslavian markets, the 45 years produced about 10 years of normal growth.

The communist leadership must be voted out before Slovenia can expect economic recovery.  

Repenting the Errors?

Communist did not repent. Their cruelest methods to hold power are still evident today in Bosnia

Communists claimed that the introduction of the communist system will bring untold prosperity and happiness. To achieve this they are entitled to use the cruelest methods to win and hold power (Marxists Leninist morality). For this purpose they switched from liberation war to class war in 1941, which meant that they started killing domestic rivals instead of enemies. They lied and cheated; for instance Tito signed an agreement with the Yugoslavian government in exile promising the introduction of democracy which he had no intention of keeping. During the last phase of the war and its aftermath, the communists killed hundreds of thousand people whom they considered dangerous, some of them after having driven them by threats into collaboration with the enemy. Show trials, arrests and persecution were the order of the day until about 1955 but sporadically continued to this day. The well publicized situation in Bosnia, for example, is simply a work of the very same government officials using the same proven methods which kept the party in power for five decades. Kucan broke with the rest of Yugoslavian communists and apparently stood firm when the People's Army attacked Slovenia after its declaration of independence. This made Slovenians forget his communist past and view him as a national counterweight to Milosevic who frightened them with his exaggerated Serbian nationalism.

It is forgotten, however, that the Army which made a short attempt in controlling Slovenia was a Communist Party army, an army which owed its allegiance not to the State but to the Party of which Kucan was the president of the Central Committee in Slovenia. As such, he contributed to the ideological training of the army which under the influence of this training later behaved with bestiality in Croatia and Bosnia. If Kucan had really seen the mistake of his communist ways, he could have started talking to the officers - his party comrades - long before the army in Slovenia left the barracks. Anyway, when the army met with the resistance it lost interest in Slovenia. Using its heavy armaments and air bombardment, it could have flattened Slovenia in the same way as it flattened many other places, resistance or not.

It would be a grave mistake with the grave consequences for the future if Slovenians really believed that it is as easy to win liberty from communist forces as in 1991.

Condemning the Crimes?

To condemn communist crimes is considered worse offense than having committed them

To obtain loyal and disciplined staff, Mr. Kucan appointed as the chairman of his electoral staff professor Zdenko Roter. Professor Roter personally interrogated Ljubo Sirc in 1947 while he was on trial for forming political opposition. At this trial, more than half of the defendants were sentenced to death, including Sirc, and one execution was carried out.

Is it acceptable to president Kucan to staff with people who stage trials of political opponents and shoot them? How anybody can vote for Kucan, the last leader of the party that had persecution, terror and failure written all over it? The answers to these questions is - the communist have repented.

Where does this show? Has anybody of them renounced communism and its past crimes? All we get is that anybody who raises these moral questions is called a revenge-ist although he or she does not demand any punishment for the wrongdoers but only condemnation of the deeds so that they will not be repeated. We are told time and again that there is no use looking back, that we should only look forward. Possibly we can repeat all the same mistakes because we shall not know what has passed.

Slovenian communists today immediately start crying "revenge-ism" if one mentions their violent crimes of the past. In this, they have some success in the same way as the communist worldwide were successful when they launched the campaign against anti-communism. They talked and talked until it looked much worse to condemn communist crimes than having committed them. Similarly, now in Slovenia the slogan about 'revenge-ism' often prevents people from talking about what the communist did to this country. During the election campaign, Ljubo Sirc was often advised against 'revenge-ism' by the LDS party which put his name forward.

The communist themselves, however, are not averse to indulge in some revenge-ism of their own. One example is that they continue the discrimination of their victims to this day. Several of Ljubo Sir's co-prisoners in the 50's are still laughed at by their former secret police persecutors when they demand rehabilitation and removal of the legal or arbitrary consequences of their unjust sentences.

The 1947 sentence of Crtomir Nagode, Ljubo Sirc, and their 13 co-defendants was abolished by the Supreme Court of Slovenia in January 1992. The decision was signed by a former communist, a woman, now president of the Court. Yet, the now illegal consequences of the wrong sentence have not been removed. We still do not know where Nagode, the leading codefendant, is buried. His house is still used by strangers, presumably linked with the communist oppression apparatus.

Ljubo Sirc, or any other prisoner's family, has not been restituted the family property. In Sirc's case, it was first confiscated by Nazis in 1941 and again by communist in 1947 by sentence which is now abolished. Not even his family house has been returned. Although the quashing of a sentence means, in normal countries, the abolition of its consequences, the authorities say that communist victims must wait for the implementation of the act on denationalization, regarding which the present Slovenian authorities are dragging their feet. Other parts of of the property of Sirc family were taken as early as 1945 by the simple expedient of confiscating them as German property - because they had been confiscated by the Germans! This happened in spite of apparently strict provisions by Tito's government that all confiscated property must be returned to the rightful owners from which the Germans had taken it.

In post WW2 Germany, the process of correcting Nazi crimes had a major pacifying effect on its victims as well as tremendously positive influence on the whole nation. Leaving this wound open in Slovenia represents a perpetual danger of internal conflict. Therefore, the international and European political bodies and agencies for the protection of human rights would be well advised, in Slovenia and elsewhere, not to look only for present infringements of human rights but also at whether the consequences of previous violations of human rights have by now been reversed and corrected.

Accountability of communists for their crimes should be a prerequisite for admission of any government into the European Community, especially if such government is run by former communists.    

Fraudulent election promises

Many presidential candidates and party representatives declared themselves deeply shocked at the low incomes of Slovenian workers, peasants and pensioners, promised socially-just payments to them and, in addition, improved social services such as schools, health and lavish cultural institutions which even developed countries cannot afford... Under Slovenian financial conditions, this is fraudulent.

It is true that also in advanced countries candidates incessantly talk about social justice and higher expenditures on all sorts of things without specifying where the finance is to come from. But in those countries at least there could be some reserves somewhere. In Slovenia, however, there are no reserves at all - there can be no higher wages, pensions, or expenditures on social services, without increased production.

Slovenian politicians should be promising programs for increased national productivity and for honest business environment in which small business will flourish, creating new jobs and the tax base. Only than they may promise more lavish social services.    

Impediments to Success

Successful enterprises, instead of surging ahead, are hampered by having to contribute finance to keep the bad enterprises going.

The one man who was supposed to bring economic reasoning into Slovenian political life was Dr. Janez Drnovsek who became Slovenian Prime Minister in the spring of 1992. He believes that he has done very well in the past six months and his LDS party chose as its election slogan "Slovenia - the story of success". Ljubo Sirc was frequently embarrassed when he was asked what the outstanding success was supposed to be.

During the election campaign, Drnovsek often spoke about economic reforms without specifying what they were going to be - but than adding that, of course, there was need to proceed with caution because mass unemployment could ensue otherwise. This socialist dilemma is also apparent in the change of the Russian Prime Minister from Gaidar to Chernomyrdin. Unemployment is a threat in the period of transformation in Russia as well as in Slovenia. But general poverty is even a greater danger if employment is simply preserved.

The preserving of employment in fact means that successful enterprises, instead of surging ahead, are hampered by having to contribute finance to keep the bad enterprises going. The only way to prevent unemployment is to create conditions for swift development of new efficient enterprises which can then absorb the work force dismissed from inefficient enterprises that closed down.

Of course, the new enterprises must be the result of private initiative because the last 45 years have taught us that collective or State investment decisions are wasteful. Remember that 45 years of massive investment by communists in Slovenia left the Slovenian workers with about the same wages as in 1940.

The test of whether the Slovenian government is serious about encouraging private initiative and economics development is whether it is going finally to implement The Act of Denationalization & Restitution of property seized by the communists. Although government under Drnovsek did not do much about the restitution during its six months run up to elections, it is certainly a good sign that Drnovsek specifically mentioned 'denationalization' as a point in favor of the Slovenian government in his speech to the Council of Europe. The Government should have also felt encouraged in its plans to implement the Denationalization Act by the opening remarks of the representative of the United Nations Development Agency, Mr. Helmke, at the Third Annual Conference on Privatization in Central and Eastern Europe in Ljubljana on 4 December, 1992. Mr. Helmke enumerated all advantages that arise for Slovenia out of the Act on Denationalization. " In particular," he said, "it will enhance the reputation of Slovenia as a country of legality and legal security."

In spite of these promises and praise, a new attack on the principle of denationalization was staged by the head of the State Accountancy Service (a kind of official auditing institution) who recently protested against restitution and demanded that the already adopted Act (restitution otherwise advances at a snail's pace) be revised. The attack on the Act may have been triggered when one of the privileged restitutees sold his restituted factory to a German firm.

Since there is no prohibition of selling property to Germans - the government itself has done it - the Accountancy Chief would have probably preferred that Slovenian bureaucracy would have sold the factory so that there would be money available to keep inefficient factories going or to spend it on the bureaucracy itself.

The idea of the departure from communism is to do exactly the opposite - to move the property taken over by the communists back to the ownership of those who started enterprises or to their families because this transfer increases chances that the property will be properly run again. It may not happen in every single case, but efficiency will no doubt be the general result.

It may be a pity that some families will sell what they get back, but if the bureaucracy should keep tabs of what people do with their property, we may well return to communism and its inefficiency - because people will not feel free to do their best nor will they start new enterprises. The aim is to get bureaucracy off the people's backs. The economic dimension of restitution is that reinstated owners will handle property with more care and wisdom than the bureaucrats. The alternative is to leave it in the hands of those who, after years of effort and toil, brought wages back down to the level of 1940.

There is a political dimension which is to create independent persons, who will not be beholden to the authorities for anything they do. As any other country, Slovenia needs many independent sources of economic power so that the population can be defended against the government.

The newly elected president, Milan Kucan, is not in favor of restitution. This fits in with his other views in so far as they are known. He said on one occasion that he would restitute only in cases of great injustice, otherwise he would, presumably, distribute nationalized property to collective private owners as envisaged by him or perhaps leave it in the hands of bureaucrats. Of course, Kucan talks about the need for entrepreneurship like everybody else, yet without explaining where it should come from or where it should come in.

His position prompted Ljubo Sirc to say at a joint pre-electoral interview on Radio Kranj that a party bureaucrat such as Kucan could hardly claim to know much about entrepreneurship. Kucan admitted that he was a party bureaucrat but questioned Sirc's knowledge of entrepreneurship since he had been only a lecturer in economics. Sirc replied, that his teens were spent with his father building up an enterprise until Germans confiscated it. Kucan countered that his grandfather had a restaurant which was confiscated by communists.

This was the full depth of one of the rare economic debates in the country which has 15% unemployment and where half of major employers are operating in red. There was no air time left to pursue the argument. Also, President Kucan and the audience never learnt how feeble Kucan's pretense to entrepreneurship experience was to that of Sirc.  

Capitalists’ Legacy

In 1935, to celebrate its15th anniversary Kranj Business Association described the industrialization of Kranj district this way: " Franjo Sirc (Ljubo's father), Ciril Pirc (grandfather) and dr. Beno Sabothy gave the initiative for the establishment in 1923 of Jugoceska, the first textile factory in Kranj. Jugoceska averaged one thousand workers during its existence. In 1924, Anton Adamic and Edmund Kocbek founded IKA, a knitting factory with 120 workers. In 1925, the rubber factory Semperit opened shop with 350 workers. The chairman of Kranj business association, Franjo Sirc, helped to persuade the owners of the rubber factory to expand its operations. In 1926 the textile factory INTEX opened with 350 workers on Sirc's initiative. Two years later, another textile factory, Jugobruna, was established, with Sirc being one of the co-founders. This enterprise developed so fast that by 1934 it employed 1200 workers and became one o f the largest textile mills in Slovenia. The same year saw the beginning of Textilindus, founded by Artur Heller and Franjo Sirc, employing over 250 workers. Furthermore, Sirc launched his own textile factory which now employs over 100 workers.

"During the late 1920's further enterprises were established in Kranj. Adolf Prah and Anton Bozic founded textile factories under their own name, Ivan Savnik a glove factory, Anton Stefe and Ivan Presern shoe factories, Crobath a shirt and underwear factory, etc. In 1934, a spinning mill was built in Skofja Loka, managed by Sirc, while Rado Thaler founded a blanket factory..."

Franjo Sirc participated in the establishment of almost all textile factories in Kranj. As far as known, he did not derive any kind of material benefits for this activities except from the establishment of his own factory. This factory was confiscated by Germans in 1941, and in 1947 the Party of President Kucan repaid Franjo Sirc's efforts by calling him an exploiter and humiliating him through imprisonment which he did not survive. Who will want to be an entrepreneur in a place like this!?

Slovenia will not turn the corner until the same kind of movement for the establishment of efficient private enterprises as in Kranj in the 20's and 30's replaces the communist-led miscreations of white elephants and industrial ruins.      

Where Are Entrepreneurs?

Several American economists advise privatization schemes which will not produce entrepreneurs for many years to come but rather keep the dead communist hand on the pulse of business.

The Nazis and the communist systematically tried to kill off the entrepreneurial classes in Slovenia as well as in Eastern Europe. In the 1990's the opportunity arose for restoring at least some of the middle class fortunes in Eastern Europe. But today, the past work of Nazis and communists is continued by clever American economists who made it an article of their faith that it would create untold complications if anything confiscated by communist would be restituted to the rightful owners. Instead, they envisage that everything should be distributed according to schemes which will not produce entrepreneurs for many years to come. This goes also for the format of the Slovenian Privatization Act which certainly cannot be expected to produce any kind of miracle.

With their resistance to restitution for doctrinaire reasons of spontaneous development, American professors have also made it much more difficult to establish centers of economic power independent from communist bureaucracy. For example, Slovenia still has a Central Business Chamber staffed by about 300 communists; the old banks are mostly still in the hand of communists; insolvent banks, after financial reorganization transferred their bad claims to the State but kept intact their managerial personnel who ran them into bankruptcy. Etc.,etc.

This grip of the dead communist hand on Slovenia could be loosened by a large number of Slovenian entrepreneurs abroad as far away as California and Australia. They could jolt Slovenia to prosperity, yet they would be foolish to show interest in their country of origin if it does not show respect for its past entrepreneurs, among other things, by restituting their property.

One of the objections to returning this property is that Slovenia is not rich enough to pay the previous owners. This objection totally inverts the reason for privatization, for paying for the nationalized property is the finality of the nationalization and government ownership - not return to the private enterprise. The main reason for restitution is to revitalize the once productive property which was mismanaged by communist bureaucrats into poverty. The real owners who once made Slovenia rich, can, hopefully, do it again.

The real problem is not how to return the property to its rightful owners, but how to find competent owners for the investment that had been badly conceived and badly run by communist bureaucrats. Moreover, there is an illusion that badly conceived and badly run property is worth anything.

During an interview in Celje, Sirc was asked about to whom he would give the property created by workers' hard work. To start with, most property that had not been taken from the previous owners was not created by anybody's hard work but by foreign contributions, aids and credits that remain to be paid, by inflationary issues, which are domestic credits not repaid. There was hard work, however, but it was largely wasted on ill conceived enterprises and some 40% of GNP went for the maintenance of the third largest army in Europe.

The need is to hand over the property to persons whose prosperity will depend on whether they create prosperity for others.  

Oxymoron: Collective Private Ownership

Surely they cannot be stupid enough to think that they can restore communism with "collective private ownership"

With the declaration of independence, Slovenia has upset political equilibrium in its part of Europe. The Slovenian diplomacy, such as it is, did not see fit to try to restore the balance by establishing the previous good relations with France and Britain and paid even less attention to the United States and post Soviet Russia. On two occasions the Slovenian Foreign Ministry tried to ignore the presence of leading Russian Ministers in Slovenia. When a Russian Vice-Premier was disregarded by Slovenian Foreign Minister, a visiting German politician tried several times to draw his attention to the important man. The Foreign Minister passed it over in silence. His strange idea seems to be that Europe will not accept Slovenia if it does not cut itself off from Eastern Europe.

President Kucan's understanding of foreign relations is even more peculiar. He said in a discussion that it is not worth to be on friendly terms with foreigners since all foreign countries stick to their interests and nothing can be changed in this respect.

It is said that about ten years ago the Communist League of Slovenia began preparation for the eventual downfall of communism. It intimated to various groups of party members to leave the Party, supplied them with money and asked them to start political diversions. The result is that very often it is difficult to know who has in fact abandoned communism and who is only pretending. In a way, this is a wrong way of saying it because nobody can seriously remain loyal to communist which has been completely discredited. But people still remain loyal to some kind of "underground" communist organization which is defending the interest of its former members. There is often the impression that somebody is pulling the strings behind the scene.

It would not be very damaging if the purpose of this manipulation was just to secure places for the former communist in a modern liberal society without excessive loss for their cause. The integration of communists in a normal European society can be tolerable just like the integration of Nazis was in the post WW2 German life. But the former communists would help their own integration if they stopped acting as a conspiracy which tries to retain the society under its own control. It serves no purpose whatsoever. Surely they cannot be stupid enough to think that they can restore communism.

Here is the crux. Communists may feel that they must have some kind of purpose to justify their manipulations. President Kucan created with all seriousness the oxymoron 'collective private ownership', or something akin to this. Perhaps he and his comrades hope to stumble upon a "third way" between central planning and the market, as the Economist (December 7, 1992) suggested for Chernomyrdin and his insiders.

Munching old communist slogans, which long ago have been revealed as so many illusions if not downright lies, and claiming that communist have given Slovenia sovereignty and independence, communist lurking in the strangest places managed to confuse and disorient the population of Slovenia.

What can be done about it? By now, it has become clear that without a transformation to private enterprise, Slovenia will not get anywhere. After the elections Ljubo Sirc was asked whether he would despite of disappointing loss at the elections try to help Slovenia. He said that it is only possible to help Slovenia if it had the right policies.

No amount of injected competence can overcome flawed policies. Just looking for competent business leaders without commitment to private enterprise would be betrayal of Slovenian future.

As The Economist put it: "....more aid could not make the transition to market economics more successful unless the right policies were in place..."

Slovenia that favors communists after the downfall of communism will simply have to be left to stew in its own sauce until it comes round.

Addresses:

Dr. Ljubo Sirc
41 Westbourne Grdens
Glasgow G12 9XQ, Scotland,
UK, tel 44-41-339-3545
e-mail: C.R.C.E. London


Borut Prah
75 Hiller Drive
Oakland, CA 94618-2350
USA, tel 510-486-0375
e-mail: Borut Prah