Janša confident government will serve out its term

Brdo pri Kranju – Prime Minister Janez Janša expects his government to continue business as usual after 15 January when the centre-left opposition plans to file a vote of no confidence. Janša as well as other two coalition leaders expect the government will successfully complete its term.

Janša, addressing reporters at Brdo estate on Friday along with the leaders of the other two coalition parties, noted the likelihood of the vote coinciding with the peak of coronavirus epidemic, should the opposition parties go ahead with their plan to file the motion on 15 January, with the vote held in parliament a week later.

Should such a coinciding be the case, it would mean the epidemic was being used to serve political goals. “The procedure is legitimate, but as far as the moral basis and the background is concerned you should form an opinion yourself,” said Janša.

The Marjan Šarec List (LMŠ), Social Democrats (SD), the Left, the Alenka Bratušek Party (SAB) and the Pensioners’ Party (DeSUS) are seeking a vote of no confidence in the government by nominating DeSUS leader Karl Erjavec for prime-minister designate to form a new government after DeSUS recently quit the Janša government.

Janša noted that the parties and MPs seeking to form a new government were mostly the same that made up the previous minority government, led by Marjan Šarec, who stepped down in late January.

“The interesting thing is they say that in the rest of the term, during an epidemic, they will do everything they failed to do at the start of the term when there was no epidemic.

“Those who believe that can believe it, but there will be no bread from this flour even if the dough is put in the oven,” Janša said, in a take on a well-known Slovenian proverb.

He said the government was doing its best not to be bothered by repeated announcements of a vote of no confidence.

Similarly, Matej Tonin, the defence minister and leader of New Slovenia (NSi) opined that the debate on the no-confidence motion would be a waste of time, “but procedures are procedures, so we’ll adapt”.

He believes that if the centre-left parties had in fact had a majority support for the motion, they would testify that support by means of signatures. He repeated that there can be no government this term without the NSi in it.

Zdravko Počivalšek, the economy minister and the leader of the Modern Centre Party (SMC), said the priority for the party was stability and reliability within the SMC and the government and they thought unity was needed to fight the epidemic and the economic crisis.

The party, which is being wooed to join its former coalition partners in a new attempt at forming a government, was working on a reform of its platform and profile, and a strategic rethink of future steps, according to Počivalšek.

“Most of all we deem important the political project to link the centre ground […] From our point of view this is urgent for a balance in any future government as the current situation of dispersed small parties is weakening the liberal centre,” he added.

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