Joze Oberstar is the owner and managing partner of his law firm, “Oberstar Law Office”. He was head of the Board of Directors at DARS, a state-owned enterprise that operates and maintains the Slovenian motorway network and the related infrastructure. Later he was the President of the Financial Commission of DARS, and according to him, following his departure from DARS in late 2022 under the Golob administration, he was retained as an external lawyer to DARS. Oberstar still maintains high-level connections at DARS and has described himself as “the most important man there” at times.

According to Oberstar, DARS is used by Golob as a political tool to hurt his enemies. Since DARS (and other state owned enterprises) is a buyer of media, and can choose the media where it invests, it navigates the funds to supporters of Golob and his coalition. Alternatively, the government, or persons in it, can have DARS sponsor an NGO or political outlets which are aligned with Golob and his coalition. 

Oberstar explains that contracts are given or taken by DARS, according to political instructions from Golob or his administration. He provides two concrete examples, the first is a construction project which was given to Kolektor, which is owned by Stojan Petric, a close friend of Kucan, the former President. This was instead of giving the contract to CGP, in order to damage its owner Vesna Južna, who controls Petrol. Petric owns the newspaper “Delo” one of Slovenia’s most widely read publications. During the same time, Tina Gaber Golob was hired at Delo. Oberstar also explains how KPL, a firm owned by Mladen Milanović, a close friend of Jankovic, the mayor of Ljubljana, received preferential treatment and work from DARS as a result of Jankovic’s personal connection to Golob.

Oberstar brings up the quid pro quo relationships between Otmar Zorn, Kucan and Golob, describing Zorn and Kucan as the most powerful players in Slovenia, and affirms that they are the figures propping up Golob. Oberstar claims that Zorn is now backing Anze Logar, who is currently running to be the Prime Minister of Slovenia. Oberstar also confirms that while at DARS under Golob’s tenure as Prime Minister, he personally was under pressure to find reasons to remove Valentin Hajdinjak from the board of DARS, due to him not being part of the clique.