Almost six weeks after the parliamentary elections in Slovenia, which resulted in a clear majority of center-left parties, the new government under Prime Minister Robert Golob was elected by the parliament in Laibach (Ljubljana) on Wednesday.

Golob takes over the official business from his national conservative predecessor Janez Janša.

The new government is to be expanded to 20 ministers.

But because the opposition led by Janša used a procedural trick to block the speedy passage of the corresponding law, only 17 ministers with the departmental structure of the previous government could stand for election.

Stephen Lowenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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After the victory of his freedom movement in the April 24 elections, the former energy manager Golob completed the coalition negotiations in record time, as he announced.

He benefited from the clear election result.

Voters have given the green-liberal freedom movement, along with close partners SD (Social Democrats) and Linke, a majority of 53 out of 90 MPs.

Above all, the traditional fragmentation of Parliament into many small and medium-sized groups has been cleaned up.

Instead of the previous nine parties, only five have made it over the four percent hurdle.

With Janša's SDS, the Christian Democratic NSI now forms the opposition.

There are also two MPs representing the Italian and Hungarian minorities respectively.

Golob, who, if necessary, could have formed a majority with the Social Democrats alone, obviously wants broad support.

This is also evidenced by the fact that he brought into his government team two leaders from parties who did not make it back into parliament.

Both are former Prime Ministers: Marjan Šarec is Defense Minister.

Alenka Bratušek is to become Minister for Infrastructure, but still has to wait for the new form of government to be enshrined in law.

With this step, Golob is also likely to be trying to broaden the base of his own party, which he only took over and tailored to himself at the beginning of this year.

Slovenian media reported that Šarec's list (LMŠ) and Bratušek's party (SAB) are to merge with the freedom movement.


Golob said on Wednesday the new government team was made up of experienced politicians and professionals to get started immediately.

The future foreign minister is SD chairwoman and former MEP Tanja Fajon.

At her hearing in Parliament at the beginning of the week, she said that she wanted Slovenia to orientate itself more towards Western EU countries in terms of European policy than towards Hungary and Poland, to which Janša had leaned.

She wants to visit Brussels and Berlin first.

Golob, whose election as prime minister took place last week, said his government's goal was to build a socially just, solidarity-based and knowledge-based state.

The first thing to do is to deal with the problems in the health system and to contain the energy and price crisis.

He also valued a higher proportion of women in his government.

In the future, 40 percent of ministers will be women, as will the speaker of the parliament, Urška Klakočar Zupančič (freedom movement), for the first time.

The 63-year-old Janša has to change from the office of head of government to the opposition bench for the third time.

His SDS, which he has led for almost 30 years, had the second-worst election result since 2000 at 23.5 percent.

However, there is no talk of Janša's withdrawal from politics.

He even sees his parliamentary group as strengthened because it has two more mandates than before, namely 27, due to the many parties that failed at the four percent hurdle his twitter account.

However, he recently received a dampener because of an entry six years ago in which he had badly insulted two journalists and was sentenced to three months' probation in the second instance.