LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) — A former comedian whose party finished second in Slovenia’s parliamentary election has been proposed to become the new prime minister-designate more than two months after the inconclusive vote.

The candidacy of 40-year-old Marjan Sarec was formally put forward Wednesday by five moderate parties, including his own Marjan Sarec list.

The five groups have garnered support from 43 lawmakers in the 90-member assembly. They hope to win backing from a separate leftist group to form a minority government.

The center-left parties have allied to sideline the relative winner of the June 3 vote, the anti-immigrant right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party led by former prime minister Janez Jansa.

Slovenia’s parliament is expected next week to vote on Sarec’s bid to become the premier-designate. Analysts say a minority government would be unstable. </s> LJUBLJANA (Reuters) – Slovenia’s five centre-left parties nominated Marjan Sarec, a comedian turned politician, to become prime minister and form a government following an inconclusive June 3 general election.

The nomination is expected to end Slovenia’s longest political stalemate since an election.

The anti-immigrant Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) of former Prime Minister Janez Jansa, the strongest single party in the parliament with 25 seats, could not find a coalition partner to form the government.

Under Slovenian law, lawmakers may nominate candidates for prime minister if the president fails to name a candidate because no party holds a majority in parliament.

The parliament is due to vote on Sarec’s nomination on Aug. 17. He would need support of an absolute majority — at least 46 out of 90 parliamentary members — to be elected.

Sarec is a former actor and comedian whose second term as mayor of Kamnik in northern Slovenia expired this year.

His LMS party has agreed a minority coalition with the Social Democrats, the Party of Modern Centre, the Party of ex-Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek SAB and pensioners’ party Desus.

The coalition also expects to get the backing of the Left party, though it earlier said it would not participate in the government.

The five parties together hold 43 seats, and with the Left’s nine seats they expect to secure a slim majority in the parliament. If confirmed, Sarec will have 15 days to nominate his cabinet.

One of the first tasks of the new government would be to start the sale of Slovenia’s largest bank, state-owned Nova Ljubljanska Banka. Slovenia has committed to sell a 75 percent stake in NLB in exchange for European Commission approval of state aid to the bank in 2013.

(Reporting by Maja Zuvela in Sarajevo, editing by Larry King) </s> LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — A former comedian whose party finished second in Slovenia's parliamentary election was proposed on Wednesday as prime minister-designate, more than two months after the inconclusive vote.

The candidacy of 40-year-old Marjan Sarec was formally put forward by five moderate parties — including his own Marjan Sarec list — in a bid to break a political deadlock after weeks of negotiations.

The five groups have garnered support from 43 lawmakers in the 90-member assembly. They hope to win backing from a separate leftist party to form a minority government.

The center-left parties have allied to sideline the top party in the June 3 vote, the anti-immigrant right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party led by former prime minister Janez Jansa. Jansa, an ally of Hungary's anti-immigrant Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has failed to win support from other parliamentary groups for a right-leaning coalition in traditionally moderate Slovenia.

Slovenia's parliament is expected next week to vote on Sarec's bid. If elected, he would become the youngest-ever prime minister in Slovenia, the official STA news agency said.

Sarec is a relative newcomer in top-level politics in Slovenia. He has served as the mayor of the central town of Kamnik and also ran in the presidential election last year, surprisingly forcing a close race in the runoff with incumbent veteran Borut Pahor.

Analysts, however, have predicted that Sarec's minority government likely would be unstable. </s> MPs from five parties will nominate Šarec for Prime Minister

MPs from five parties, LMŠ, SD, SMC, SAB, and DeSUS, are nominating Marjan Šarec to become Slovenia's next Prime Minister. The parties want cooperation from the Left, with which the minority government would need to cooperate. The Left is in the final stages of a referendum about its possible cooperation with Šarec's government.

The five parties have been in talks with the Left about cooperation, but the blueprint for that cooperation has not yet been finalized. The Left wants firm assurances that the five parties - if they receive support from the Left - will not change the partner and the cooperation agreements. The National Assembly will vote on Šarec's candidacy on Friday, August 17.

After Tuesday's coordinating talks, LMŠ issued a statement that an important step has been made, but the Left remains more skeptical. They are worried that after they give their votes to Šarec, the other parties could remove welfare measures, which had been introduced by the Left, from the coalition agreement. Meanwhile, some of the five parties are cautioning that the measures were introduced under the assumption that the Left would join the government. </s> LJUBLJANA, June 3 (Reuters) - The opposition anti-immigrant centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) was set to win the Slovenian general election on Sunday with 24.4 percent of the votes, according to exit polls by the national TV channel TV Slovenia.

The centre-left party of the Mayor of Kamnik Marjan Sarec, LMS, followed with 12.6 percent of the vote. Preliminary results will be issued by the State Election Commission later on Sunday. (Reporting by Marja Novak; editing by Ivana Sekularac) </s> LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - The opposition anti-immigrant centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) was set to win the Slovenian general election on Sunday with 24.4 percent of the votes, according to exit polls by the national TV channel TV Slovenia.

The centre-left party of the Mayor of Kamnik Marjan Sarec, LMS, followed with 12.6 percent of the vote. Preliminary results will be issued by the State Election Commission later on Sunday.

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. </s> The opposition anti-immigrant centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) was set to win the Slovenian general election on Sunday with 24.4 percent of the votes, according to exit polls by the national TV channel TV Slovenia. But the party’s leader, Janez Jansa, said forming a government would not be easy, as he cast his ballot in a town in the country’s east.

LMS, the centre-left party of the mayor of Kamnik, Marjan Sarec, followed with 12.6 per cent of the vote.

In a hugely fragmented vote, the Adriatic country’s 1.7 million-strong electorate chose between 25 parties, with final opinion polls putting the centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) first on up to 24.5 percent. But most other parties have said they are reluctant to join a coalition with the SDS, and Mr Jansa acknowledged any post-election negotiations would be difficult.

“We will probably have to wait for some time [after the election] before serious talks on a new government will be possible,” Mr Jansa – a two-time prime minister – told reporters after voting in the village of Sentilj, near Velenje. The election was called in March after centre-left prime minister Miro Cerar resigned, weeks before the scheduled end of his term of office, after the Supreme Court ordered a new referendum on a railway investment project championed by his government.

According to a Mediana poll published by daily newspaper Delo on Friday, Mr Cerar’s Party of the Modern Centre was running third with around 6.8 per cent, behind the centre-left List of Marjan Sarec, the mayor of the city of Kamnik, on 8.2 per cent.

The divided nature of the vote means the SDS would need to ally with at least two other parties to gain a majority in the 90-seat parliament. But so far most other parties have demurred at joining forces with the SDS, which has the open support of Hungary’s nationalist prime minister Viktor Orban.

“We believe that today a first step will be made towards Slovenia becoming a country that will put the wellbeing and security of Slovenians first,” Mr Jansa said.

Analysts said the SDS would win, but predicting what the future government might look like was hard, and another election could not be ruled out. “It seems clear that the SDS will win but everything else about this election is unclear because the question is whether the SDS will be able to form a government coalition,” said Meta Roglic, a political analyst with daily Dnevnik.

Otilia Dhand of political risk advisory firm Teneo Intelligence described the election as an open race. “The real winner will be the party that can form a coalition with a majority of seats in a likely highly fragmented parliament,” she said.

Slovenia, which narrowly avoided an international bailout for its banks in 2013, returned to growth in 2014. The outgoing government expects the economy to expand by 5.1 per cent this year versus 5 per cent in 2017, boosted by exports, investments and household spending.

High on the agenda for the next government will be the privatisation of the country’s largest bank, Nova Ljubljanska Banka, which the previous administration agreed to sell in exchange for European Commission approval of state aid for it in 2013.

The next cabinet will also be expected to reform an inefficient state health sector and Slovenia’s pension system. “I want changes for the better, particularly in the health sector and judiciary. I was quite disappointed with the current government so I will not vote for them,” said Sonja, a 60-year-old retired teacher who voted in Ljubljana. Some other voters praised the outgoing government.

“I expect that things will be at least as good as now or a bit better. I hope we get another centre-left government although I do agree changes are needed, particularly in the health sector,” said 52-year-old pharmacist Vida. </s> Janez Jansa, leader of Social Democratic Party (SDS), casts his vote at a polling station during the general election in Velenje, Slovenia, June 3, 2018. REUTERS/Borut Zivulovic

LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - The opposition anti-immigrant center-right Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) was set to win the Slovenian general election on Sunday with 24.4 percent of the votes, according to exit polls by the national TV channel TV Slovenia.

The center-left party of the Mayor of Kamnik Marjan Sarec, LMS, followed with 12.6 percent of the vote. Preliminary results will be issued by the State Election Commission later on Sunday. </s> The Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) emerged victorious from Slovenia’s early election on Sunday.

With 99.9 percent of the votes counted, SDS topped the poll on 25 percent, likely giving the anti-immigrant party 25 seats in the parliament. Center-left LMŠ, led by comedian and political satirist Marjan Šarec, came in second on 12.7 percent and 13 seats, and the Social Democrats third on just under 10 percent of the vote, winning 10 seats.

SDS leader Janez Janša acknowledged his party will face an up-hill battle attempting to form a governing coalition.

“We will probably have to wait for some time … before serious talks on a new government will be possible,” he told reporters after voting on Sunday, according to AP.

Sunday’s election came a week earlier than scheduled, after Prime Minister Miro Cerar of the Modern Center Party (SMC) quit due to a referendum defeat on a railway project and worsening relations with his coalition partners. The SMC came in fourth on Sunday, with 9.75 percent of the vote and a likely 10 seats in parliament.

Janša, a liberal dissident under communism and a two-time former prime minister, transformed himself into an anti-immigration conservative, modeling his campaign on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s political playbook.

“[Our] party puts Slovenia, Slovenians first,” Jansa said after preliminary results were released, and pledged to hold talks with any potential coalition partners from other parliamentary parties. “We are open for cooperation, Slovenia is facing times which need cooperation,” he said.

Turnout was 52 percent, on par with the 2014 poll, but lower than in 2011, when it was 66 percent.
Five center-left political parties nominate Marjan Šarec to become Prime Minister of Slovenia.