Slovenia - Election 2014 - National Assembly
The Slovenian left, decisively influenced by the neo-communist deep state dismantled its own government after merely one year in power, triggered the second successive early national elections. Slovenia would hold a snap parliamentary election on 13 July 2014, President Borut Pahor declared on 01 May 2014. The election followed the resignation of the center-left Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek in May after she lost a battle for the leadership of the Positive Slovenia party. Two non-parliamentary parties had said they would dispute the election date at the Constitutional Court, arguing an election should not be held during summer holidays when many people will be away and turnout will be lower than usually. It was not clear when the court could rule on the matter.
"A snap election is a much, much better choice than trying to find another candidate for a prime minister," Pahor told reporters, adding that he expected the new government to be in place by the middle of September. He also said Slovenia was on its way out of an economic crisis after it narrowly avoided an international bailout in December by pumping some $4.5 billion into banks to prevent them from collapsing under bad loans piled up through years of reckless lending.
The leading governmental party, led by Prime Minister Alenka Bratušek, was utterly defeated in the 25 May 2014 European elections. The opposition Slovenian Democratic Party had been ahead in opinion polls in recent months and won the recent European Parliament election, getting 24.9 percent of the vote. However, that could change at the general election when turnout was expected to be at least twice as high as the 24.1 percent at the European vote. The center-left parties could be in a better position to form a government after the election, providing they manage to agree on an informal coalition before the vote and overcome fragmentation.
SDS would, with its good pro-European program and skilled team for the government, seemed very likely to repeat a victory from EU elections. But merely two days after SDS proposed a candidate list to the State Electoral Commission, the leader of the opposition SDS Democrats, Janez Janša, was sent to prison in connection with the long-running Patria corruption scandal. This act beheaded the party at the very beginning of the election campaign.
A parliamentary election for the 90 deputies to the National Assembly of Slovenia was held on 13 July 2014. Seventeen parties participated, including seven new parties, some of which formed only months before the election took place. Party of Miro Cerar (SMC), a new party led by law professor at the University of Ljubljana Miro Cerar, won the election with over 34% of the vote and 36 seats in the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia - the most number of seats that any single party has won since independence. That gave the 50-year-old law professor the strong mandate his recent predecessors lacked.
Second came in Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) with 20.72% of the votes or 21 seats. Along with SMC and SDS, enough votes to win seats in the National Assembly were also gained by the Democratic Pensioners' Party of Slovenia (DeSUS), which with 10.21% of the votes won 10 seats, the United Left (Združena Levica), with 5.97% of the vote won 6 seats, the Social Democrats (SD) with 5.96% of the vote also won 6 seats, New Slovenia (Nsi) with 5.57% won 5 seats, and the Alliance of Alenka Bratušek (ZaAB), with 4.34% of the vote won 4 seats in the National Assembly. The remaining two seats out of 90 are assigned to the representatives of the Italian and Hungarian minorities.
There were many new faces in the new assembly after the victory of Miro Cerar's SMC Party. One new name in parliament will be the United Left party. There were also a record number of females in the new assembly – 32. This was also the first time for an imprisoned man to attend a parliamentary session. The leader of the opposition SDS Democrats, Janez Janša, was granted temporary prison leave to attend the maiden session, as an elected MP. He arrived at the session unacommpanied by judiciary police.
Slovenia's parliament approved the new center-left coalition government of Prime Minister Miro Cerar 18 September 2014. The new government aimed to cut public spending and improve tax collection to help reduce the budget deficit to within EU limits. Cerar's 16-member cabinet was approved by 54 votes to 25. His three-party coalition held 52 of the 90 seats in parliament. His center-left SMC party won the snap general election in July and formed a coalition with the Desus party and the Social Democrats.Center-left political novice Miro Cerar indicated he would rewrite a reform package agreed upon with the European Union to fix the euro zone member's depleted finances.
After a meteoric rise to the top, the public has great expectations from the respected jurist who is promising a new brand of politics. Cerar opposed the sale of state-owned telecoms provider Telekom Slovenia and the international airport, Aerodrom Ljubljana, fuelling investor fears of backsliding. Slovenia's economy is heavily controlled by the state.
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