Slovenia's PM: Cabinet might resign after opposition candidate elected president

"Slovenia's Prime Minister Janez Jansa said Tuesday that his Cabinet might resign following the overwhelming victory of the opposition-backed candidate in a weekend presidential vote.

'We will analyze the situation further, but all possibilities are open, including the resignation of the government,' Jansa told reporters after a meeting of his center-right Cabinet.

Longtime diplomat Danilo Tuerk, who was supported by several leftist opposition parties, was elected president in Sunday's elections with 68 percent of the vote — more than twice as much as Lojze Peterle, who was backed by Jansa's governing coalition.

Jansa insisted that Tuerk's campaign 'was directed entirely at settling accounts with the government.'

'It is particularly worrying that a lot of energy was invested in blackening the government abroad,' Jansa said, claiming his opponents portrayed Slovenia 'as Belarus' or some other authoritarian country.

'That makes the government's work more difficult, even its routine duties, and especially its preparations for taking over the European Union presidency,' he said.

Slovenia, which joined the EU and NATO in 2004, will assume the EU's rotating, six-month presidency Jan. 1."

Source: International Herald Tribune