Slovenian President Natasa Pirc Musar announced on Saturday after consultations with political parties that she would not nominate a candidate for prime minister, as no one had managed to secure a parliamentary majority, and that the process of forming a new government would be returned to parliament, the Croatian HINA agency reported, quoted by BTA.
Pirc Musar specified in her statement that she would not give a mandate to a candidate to form a minority government.
She said that her decision to end the consultations was due to the lack of mutual respect and trust with parliamentary parties, which she said was a bad sign for her cooperation with a future government.
Pirc Musar called on parliament to take responsibility for choosing a prime minister. In Slovenia, the prime minister can be nominated by a parliamentary group with at least 10 MPs, and forming a government requires the support of at least 46 votes in the 90-seat parliament.
The president, quoted by Reuters, also said that MPs would have 14 days to nominate a prime minister. If they fail to do so in three rounds of voting, Pirz Musar would call new parliamentary elections.
Incumbent Prime Minister Robert Golob, whose liberal Freedom Movement (DS) party won the most votes in the March 22 election, said he could not secure enough support to form a government. Opposition leader Janez Janša, who heads the conservative Slovenian Democratic Party, (SDP), for its part, said it saw a chance to form a majority.
The DS has 29 deputies in the parliament in Ljubljana, and the SDP - 28.