By: Sara Bertoncelj / Nova24tv.si
Last week, they confirmed the coalition agreement and the party’s ministerial candidates, and the leaders of the parliamentary groups will hold consultations with President Borut Pahor today on who should be given the mandate to form the government, reported STA. The interim leader of the Gibanje Svoboda parliamentary group and candidate for Prime Minister, Robert Golob, will be the first to visit the president. Pahor has also already announced that he will not delay the process of nominating a candidate for Prime Minister if Golob is shown the majority support of the leaders of the parliamentary groups. In this case, Pahor will sign a letter to the Chairwoman of the National Assembly, and in the middle of the session of the National Assembly they will then decide on the election of the Prime Minister.
At the conference with President Borut Pahor, Robert Golob will be followed by other leaders of parliamentary groups. Jelka Godec will take over the leadership of the SDS parliamentary group, Jožef Horvat will lead the NSi parliamentary group for the time being, and Janez Cigler Kralj will take over the leadership after the handover of jobs at the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. Jani Prednik will take over the leadership of the SD parliamentary group, while Matej T. Vatovec will continue to lead the Levica parliamentary group. The parliamentary group of national communities will continue to be led by the representative of the Italian minority, Felice Žiža. Both, also including the representative of the Hungarian minority, Ferenc Horvath, are invited to the consultations with the President of the Republic, reported STA.
The Slovenian Constitution stipulates three rounds for the search for a Prime Minister – in the first round he can be nominated by the President of the Republic, and in the second round also by parliamentary groups or at least ten MPs. In the third round, the required majority for the election of the Prime Minister is reduced: in the first and second rounds, at least 46 votes are needed for the election, and in the third only a relative majority. If the Prime Minister is not elected in the third round, the President of the Republic must dissolve the National Assembly and call for new elections. No problems are expected this time, as Golob has enough support or votes in parliament to form a government. “By the way, today with Borut Pahor, a new achievement of the Slovenian transition: Golob from the Gibanje Svoboda party, as the leader of the parliamentary group, will propose himself as the new Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia. This will happen for the first time, because now there is freedom,” commented journalist Bojan Požar on Twitter.
They are proposing to the future government to consider the law on the government, which was submitted by the SDS party
After a consultation with President Borut Pahor, the leader of the SDS parliamentary group, Jelka Godec, said in a statement for the media that Robert Golob had submitted signatures of support of 53 MPs. Gibanje Svoboda, SD, and Levica parties have a majority in the National Assembly, she admitted, but the SDS will not support it. According to STA, they will do the same in NSi party. Godec added that most of the future coalition for the SDS was expected. Given the number of coalition parties, Godec described the announced intention to expand the future government as nonsense. SDS is proposing to the future government to use rationalisation, as they believe that the expansion of the government will not contribute to the continuation of the trend established by the current government. “The expansion of ministerial posts will not help Slovenia to advance on the scale of various international scales and to further increase economic growth and reduce public debt,” she said. Godec also reminded that on Tuesday the leaders of the parliamentary groups will hold a consultation in the National Assembly, at which they will determine the division of parliamentary seats in the working bodies of the National Assembly. The SDS party has six presidential seats and will hold consultations with certain demands. “Then it is a matter of procedure, how things will go, but we will certainly not allow working bodies to be convened or formed that are not in accordance with the rules of procedure of the National Assembly or legislation,” she added.
Golob intends to replace everything in one go
Today, Požareport also revealed Golob’s “silent plan to change everything in one go – even the cleaners of the current Prime Minister Janez Janša” – as Golob himself announced in Odmevi show. “This is a special law on the merger of the Slovenian State Holding and the DUTB (bad bank), where the transitional provisions state that the enactment of this law automatically triggers the fall of all management bodies of SDH and DUTB,” explained Požar, whose sources reveal that with Golob the mentioned law means the automatic resignation of the entire Supervisory Board and the Management Board at SDG, and at the DUTB the resignation of the Board of Directors and all executive directors. The adoption of the law is expected to be followed by assemblies of individual state-owned companies, where the supervisory boards or at least most supervisors will be recalled en masse. Požar also predicts that the media will in all probability accuse those who will receive high severance pay – saying that they were politically inclined.