Experts for the Jobs

Three weeks after the parliamentary elections, we still do not know who will form the new Government. While there is currently an almost incomprehensible calm on the surface of the political scene (which only indicates that there is turmoil beneath the surface and an eruption will soon follow), we increasingly hear from all sides that this post-election stalemate should be resolved by constituting a ‘government of experts’.

A government of experts! – how grand that sounds! But does anyone have an idea što bi to zapravo trebalo značiti? From what kind of experts should the ‘government of experts’ be composed? What competencies are needed for, say, the Minister of Defense? Should he be a general? Or, the Minister of Economy. Should he be a top manager proven in managing large companies? And who would now agree to work for four years for 15,000 kuna a month! Come on, please. Even if such a person agrees to be the Minister of Economy, he would be of as little use as we have from the fact that our health ministers are traditionally medical doctors. Every time a doctor leaves the hospital to take a political position, healthcare loses a good expert and the Government gets a bad minister.

Hand in hand with the search for ‘experts’ goes the witch hunt against ‘jobs for the boys’. Brrrrr…. jobs for the boys! – how disgusting that sounds! The term ‘jobs for the boys’ has recently been used in everyday conversation at all possible levels for anyone employed in public or state service. No matter how expert they are and no matter how responsibly and well they do their job. Anyone earning a salary in the public sector has come to the pillory, from the clerk at the Fine counter, who cannot lift her nose from the computer all day, to the assistant to the Minister of Agriculture, whose working day lasts 16 (filled) hours. Of course, it is quite certain that there are people for whom fictitious jobs have been created in state and public services, but their existence should not be an alibi to label all others as ‘jobs for the boys’.

So, we have a situation where experts are sought only to be called jobs for the boys. And we have a general state of awareness in which all experts are jobs for the boys. The only thing we do not have is seriousness in the approach to creating a well-organized state, which begins with a well-organized Government. A well-organized Government is a Government of experts, but not experts from various fields, rather experts in politics. The Government is a political body and no doctor, manager, or farmer in the position of minister will be more successful than a professional politician. If an expert Government is sought, then it is precisely a Government in which politicians of caliber sit. And of that caliber who will most skillfully ‘roll up’ the political amateurs from Most who, on the wings of electoral results, thought they were the ‘experts’ who would reform the state. They have too few political matches under their belt to be able to cope with HDZ and SDP.

Whoever emerges as the winner from this stalemate will also prove to be a good, moreover excellent, politician. Therefore, I believe that from all this, a truly expert, politically expert, Government could emerge.