Deutsche Welle, 4 May 2014
Alenka
Bratusek has announced her resignation as Slovenian prime minister, pressing
parliament to call elections next month. Bratusek said she could not govern
after being ousted as leader of the Positive Slovenia party.
The
44-year-old financial expert Alenka Bratusek on Saturday announced her
resignation, just 13 months after taking the reins as Slovenian prime minister.
She was expected to formally submit her resignation to President Borut Pahor on
Monday.
Bratusek
held emergency meetings with her coalition partners on Saturday, after being
voted out as leader of her Positive Slovenia party one week ago. The mayor of
the capital Ljubljana, party founder Zoran Jankovic, initiated the coup within
the center-left party, saying Bratusek's austerity policies in Slovenia went
against the party's election promises.
The change
of leadership in the country's largest party in turn unsettled coalition
partners, not least because of outstanding corruption charges against the
61-year-old mayor. Jankovic allowing Bratusek to take the party leadership and
prime minister's post had been a key condition in the initial talks to form a
four-party coalition government.
The
outgoing prime minister said on Saturday that snap elections could be held as
soon as June 22, provided that none of the major parties presented a different
prime ministerial candidate. That development, Bratusek said, could slow the
process.
Parliamentarians
would also have the option to start negotiations on forming a new coalition
government after Bratusek leaves office.
Bratusek's
government cut public spending, privatized some industries and poured money
into the country's troubled banks in its first months in office, doing enough
to stave off outside financial assistance from the European Union.
Roughly
half of Positive Slovenia's parliamentarians quit the party in support of
Bratusek when she was dethroned, prompting domestic media speculation that she
might seek to establish a new party with these politicians.
msh/lw (AFP, AP, dpa)
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