Slovenia Bulletin: Elections bring new government

ponedeljek, november 15, 2004

Elections bring new government

On 3 October, Slovenes went to the polls to elect a new parliament, and with it a new government. The left-leaning Liberal Democracy of Slovenia (LDS), which has been in power nearly continuously since Slovene independence in 1991, has found itself leading the parliamentary opposition, while the right-leaning Slovene Democratic Party (SDS) has for the first time taken the driver’s seat.

Five other parties won seats in parliament: New Slovenia (NSi), the Slovene People’s Party (SLS), the United List of Social Democrats (ZLSD), the Slovene Nationalist Party (SNS) and the Pensioner’s Party (DeSUS).

The breakdown of the results looks like this:

SDS - 29.0% - 29 seats

LDS - 22.8% - 23 seats

ZLSD - 10.2% - 10 seats

NSi - 8.9% - 9 seats

SLS - 6.8% - 7 seats

SNS - 6.3% - 6 seats

DeSUS - 4.1% - 4 seats

A new governing coalition will be formed around the SDS. They will be joined by their ideological cousins, the right-leaning NSi and SLS. However, the three parties together hold only 45 seats, i.e., one seat less than a simple majority. Talks are underway to try to include DeSUS in the coalition, in order to secure a comfortable majority.

The Slovene Youth Party (SMS), which held four seats in the last parliament, won less than four percent of the vote, and therefore won no seats this time around. A total of 23 parties participated in the election.

Turn out was around 60 percent, the lowest recorded for a parliamentary election in the country. Turn out during the last election, in 2000, was 70.37 percent [SW / 03.10.04 / Slovene Democratic Party Victorious].

[See also: ICE / 08.10.04 / Centre-right Slovenian Democrats sweep to victory at Slovenia's parliamentary elections, ST / 11.04 / Parliamentary Shake-up, TOL / 08.11.04 / The Comeback of Janez Jansa.]