Slovenia doesn’t have a government and it’s been an absolute delight. Our last government stepped down in a huff; the boiling point being us voters having one good laugh too many at the prime minister’s expense. This prompted early elections, the results of which created such a hot mess that there’s a strong hope that nobody will be able to come up with a viable coalition. The most votes were scooped up by the party all the other parties swore they didn’t want anything to do with because its platform is “based on division and hate” (I suspect the irony is lost on them). The election losers’ general attitude to the results is that the voters got it wrong, but they’re not entirely oblivious to the fact that the voters might get it even more wrong next time. So, if the relative winner is shunned by all the potential coalition partners who in turn patch together a motley crew of a coalition by themselves, there’s a strong hope that we won’t end up with a functioning government because there will be too many pigs fighting at the trough. Even if new elections are called it’s quite possible the same jumble will happen all over again, which is great. Because if you’re Slovenian and know what’s good for you, a functioning government is about the last thing you want.

Much like everywhere else, our political set is made up of people who desire power and influence so much that they’re willing to dedicate their entire lives to it. Not unlike reality TV stars, with the notable exception of a somewhat lower earning power and possibly a higher risk of being assassinated, which of course frustrates the politicos and makes them super grabby. It’s just the nature of the beast and nowhere in the world are the people in power genuinely interested in the well-being of their subjects. Their own interests always come first and the rest of us need to open our eyes to this instead of always hoping to elect some messiah who will put things right. There won’t be any messiah until we the electorate stop day-dreaming and start forcing our leaders to act in our interest and own up to their misdeeds. One of the things that complicates matters here in Slovenia is that there are many “publicly-owned” companies, which opens up a huge thieving potential that attracts all kinds of crooks. And what makes it especially ugly is that our country, being so small, doesn’t have a particularly large budget, which makes it difficult for the people in power to furtively syphon away enough to fund the lavish lifestyle that they think themselves and six generations of their descendants deserve. I guess our political elite should just accept that it sucks to be the ruler of a small kleptocracy and downscale its materialistic ambitions accordingly. Unfortunately, it is so strikingly resistant to common sense that it keeps trying to emulate the lives of the Rich Kids of Instagram anyway.

I think I’ll just keep enjoying the muck-flinging show for now, knowing that just for a while we might get to live in the relative absence of stupid new laws and large-scale theft of taxpayers’ money. Not only is democracy great, it’s also fun if you play it right.