Pirc Musar: No one has the necessary majority to form a new government

(Patria) - Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar said yesterday after the first consultations with leaders of parliamentary groups that for now no one has the necessary majority to form a new government, so consultations will continue.

Although the constitutive session of parliament suggested that the mandate holder could be the president of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) Janez Janša, he said yesterday after consultations with the president that he is not currently forming a government.

- In SDS, we are ready for all scenarios - whether we remain in opposition, form a government, or try again in elections - Janša said.

The president of the Freedom Movement and outgoing Prime Minister Robert Golob says he looks forward to working in the opposition. He described a possible right-wing coalition as a "coalition of fraudsters" which he estimates will not last long.

A majority of 46 votes is needed for a vote of confidence in the government. Freedom was the relative winner of the election with 29 deputies, one more than SDS.

At the end of last week, the leader of the Democrats, Anže Logar, a former Slovenian foreign minister under Janša and a former member of SDS, withdrew from negotiations with Freedom.

Freedom claims that negotiations with Logar, whose party won six seats in the election, never even took place and that this politician, who spent a large part of the pre-election campaign defending himself against accusations from other parties that he was Janša's "hidden ace", proved to be just that.

The party of Janez Janša, who on election night emphasized that he would not form "weak governments", with the support of the pre-election coalition led by NSi (eight deputies), the Democrats (six) and Resni.ca (five) would have more than the 46 deputies needed for a majority in the Slovenian parliament, which has a total of 90.

The president of the state must propose a candidate for prime minister no later than 30 days after the constitutive session of parliament, i.e., by May 10, and parliament votes on the candidate no later than seven days after the proposal is submitted, by a majority of all deputies.

If the candidate does not receive the necessary majority of votes in the first round, two more rounds are held, after which, in case of failure, the president dissolves the assembly and calls new elections.