Slovenian Premier Jansa refuses to resign after losing majority

Belgrade (dpa) - Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa said Thursday that he will not resign, but will attempt to carry on with a minority government after a coalition partner left his alliance.

The country cannot afford another snap election, Jansa said after a cabinet meeting in which two of his ministers handed in their resignations.

Parliament Speaker Gregor Virant‘s Civic List (DL) left the coalition a day earlier because of Jansa‘s refusal to resign in the wake of a corruption report accusing him of failure to disclose 210,000 euros (274,000 dollars) in income.

DL members Janez Sustercic and Senko Plicanic handed in their resignation as finance and justice ministers, respectively.

Two other junior partners in the alliance with Jansa‘s Democrats (SDS) - the pensioners party DeSUS and the People‘s Party (SLS)- also said that they will leave.

Jansa had denied any wrongdoing and said that he will sue the state commission that published the report on January 8.

The conservative premier said that he will attempt to secure a consensus on important reforms or to push the legislation through by tying them to confidence votes.

Meanwhile, the opposition Positive Slovenia (PS), which is the largest in parliament with 28 of the 90 seats - two more than the SDS - called other parties to discuss the situation following the disintegration of the ruling coalition.

A new coalition is, however, unlikely, as the PS leader and Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Jankovic was implicated in the same graft report as Jansa.

Virant and other leaders had also called for Jankovic to step down, but all he did was to "suspend" his party leadership until the end of the year.

Hit hard by the economic crisis, Slovenia has only just begun a reform programme aimed at reducing spending to sustainable levels. If it fails to shore up its finances, it may have to seek an EU bailout.

The previous Social Democratic government fell while trying to push reforms through, which led to snap elections in December 2011. dpa bb ar Author: Boris Babic