January 30 (SeeNews) - Slovenian president Borut Pahor said he has launched unofficial talks with political leaders about the forming of a new government following the resignation of prime minister Marjan Sarec earlier this week.
Unofficial talks started on January 29 with Sarec and parliament speaker Dejan Zidan, Pahor said in a statement on Wednesday.
The president will continue with unofficial talks with the leaders of the remaining parties represented in parliament in the coming days, after which official negotiations will be held between February 4 and February 6, Pahor said.
The president now has up to 30 days to inform the parliament whether he has decided to give the mandate to form a new government to a certain political party, or not. If Pahor decides against giving the mandate to any party, the parliament will have 14 days to propose a mandate-holder and then 48 hours to vote a new government into office.
Prime minister Sarec resigned on Monday, calling for early elections. His move followed a major disagreement between his health and finance ministers on how to eliminate the supplementary health insurance in the country, which led to the resignation of finance minister Andrej Bertoncelj earlier the same day.
Public broadcaster RTV Slovenije quoted Dejan Zidan as saying on Monday that potential early elections could take place in the second half of April.
Sarec's coalition cabinet of five parties was sworn in September 2018 as Slovenia's first minority government, formed after the centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) led by Janez Jansa won the snap vote but failed to attract partners to form a cabinet.
Sarec's cabinet is made up of representatives of Sarec's centre-left LMS party, the social-liberal Modern Centre Party (SMC), the Social Democrats (SD), the Alenka Bratusek Party (SAB) and the Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia (DeSUS).
The coalition holds 43 of 90 seats in Slovenia's parliament. It was voted into office with the support of 9 MPs from the Left party which has remained in opposition.
According to the results of an opinion poll published a day before Sarec's resignation, support for LMS rose to 15.1% in January from 13.1% in December. SDS, the main opposition party which has the largest group of member of parliament remained second with support for it growing to 14.1% from 12.7%.
The third place was occupied by SD and Left party with 7.2% each, with support for the former up from December's 6.7%, while support for the latter has dropped from 8.9%.
Support for Sarec's government rose to 48.9% this month from December's 45.4%, according to the survey carried out by Mediana agency for POP TV among 767 people.