Das Comeback von Janez Jansa

Einen Monat nach den Parlamentswahlen scheint sich in Slowenien
die Bildung einer neuen Mitte-Rechts-Regierung anzubahnen,
so Borut Mekina in Transitions
Online.

After a week of consultations with party leaders and two
representatives of national minorities, President Janez Drnovsek
has now proposed to parliament that Janez Jansa, leader of the
Slovene Democratic Party (SDS), be asked to form a government. If
parliament ratifies his decision, Slovenia could have a new
center-right government by the end of November.

Jansa’s elevation to the prime minister’s seat is not in
question, nor has it been in the month since the parliamentary
elections, which were held on 3 October. The SDS managed to
overturn ten years of nearly unbroken dominance by the Liberal
Democratic Party (LDS) by almost doubling its popularity in four
years, from 15.8 percent in 2000 to 29.0 percent. 

The question, though, was with whom the SDS could partner. The
SDS feared it would have to be seek the support of the extreme
right Slovene National Party (SNS) in order to form a majority
government. Rather than do that, it chose to question whether the
weakest party in parliament, the Pensioners Party (DeSUS), had
really crossed the 4 percent threshold needed to gain seats. The
party won only a few hundred more votes than it needed. Without the
DeSUS, SDS and its likely center-right partners–the Slovene
People’s Party (SLS) and New Slovenia (NSi)–would have had gained
just enough extra seats to eke out a majority. 

Ultimately, after asking several electoral commissions for a
recount, the SDS withdrew its challenge to the vote. Ironically, it
is the DeSUS that now looks likely to ensure the SDS can lead a
majority coalition. Despite protests within its ranks, the DeSUS
has decided to enter a coalition following an offer from Jansa that
was, in the words of the DeSUS’ leader Anton Rous, „too good to be
true.“ 

The SDS, the SLS, and the NSi together hold 45 mandates, exactly
half the number of seats in parliament. With the DeSUS, they would
have 49 or what Jansa calls a “minimal majority.”

Read the full article on the Transitions
Onlinewebsite.

Borut Mekina
is a journalist with the Ljubljana-based
daily Vecer.