Writing On The Wall

In a development that came as a surprise to a grand total of zero people (save possibly to the man himself), president Pahor announced on Monday that he will not be nominating a candidate for the post of prime minister. With this, the first round of attempts to form a government following the election on 3 June came to an end.


(source)

Despite the brouhaha that surrounded the event, nothing spectacular had in fact happened. Other than the fact that The Prez has once again talked himself into a corner out of which there was no clean way out which is why he resorted to fear-mongering and his drama-queen act.

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Dereliction of Duty

As expected, President Pahor announced on Thursday he will nominate leader of SDS Janez Janša for the position of the prime minister following the results of election on 3 June. In reponse, Janša said he will think about it and will get back to Pahor on that.
*record scratch*
NARRATOR: You’re probably wondering what the fuck is going on here…


The president and the guy playing hard-to-get. (source)

Six weeks after the voters have had their say, Muddy Hollows is still government-less. Not that anyone really noticed, but there you go. In the mean time, a lot has happened but the country is only marginally closer to appointing a new government than it was six weeks ago. Not in the least because President Pahor seems keen on shedding as much of his constitutional prerogative on this matter as humanly possible.

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Party’s Over For Milan Brglez

In what came as a bit of a shock late on Tuesday evening, the executive council of the SMC voted unanimously to expel from the party its No.2 man and former Speaker of the parliament Milan Brglez. Official explanation, as lacking as it was, cited “actions contravening decisions of the executive council” (*breaks open a bag of popcorn*).


The Showdown at OK SMC (source and source)

For his part, Brglez was quick to take to social media and decry the move as stifling of dissent within the party and hinted (or, rather painted in big fat letters) that he was being purged because he opposed SMC going in coalition with Janez Janša’s SDS. The SMC, naturally, didn’t see it that way.

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Mechanics of Coalition Building

It has been ten days since election in Muddy Hollows and President Pahor convened the inaugural session of the new parliament for this coming Friday. This means personnel decision are looming and with no coalition deal in sight nervousness is starting to set in.


(source)

What we have seen in the past week or so were polar opposites in approaching the conundrum at hand: One side there is the presumptive PM nominee Janez Janša playing his cards as close to the vest as possible, while on the other side there’s the nominal runner-up Marjan Šarec who is producing all kinds of chatter about “coalition exploration”, “platform compatibility” and other buzzwords du jour.

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2018 Parliamentary Election: Break Out The Popcorn

The results were in on Sunday night and… well, it is a clusterfuck. SDS won a relative majority with 25% of the vote and just as many seats in the parliament but party leader Janez Janša will be shitting Lego bricks trying to put together a workable coalition. Far behind SDS in second place is LMŠ of Marjan Šarec with 13 seats. After that, the field gets crowded. Social Democrats (SD) of Dejan Židan and SMC of Miro Cerar have 10 seats each, The Left have nine followed by NSi with seven. DeSUS of Karl Erjavec and SAB of Alenka Bratušek have five each. Rounding off the pack are Zmago Jelinčič’s nationalists (SNS) with four seats. This is the most fractured parliament Muddy Hollows has had in ages, and putting together a coalition will be a nightmare, No wonder there is plenty of talk of a repeat vote in six months’ time.


Unofficial final tally (more data at source)

However, upon closer inspection things get even more interesting. First, the fact that Zmago Jelinčič and his SNS have barely made it above the 4-percent threshold and remain vulnerable to either results of absentee votes or potential legal challenges in individual precincts. More importantly, and possibly with great ramifications for coalition negotiations, neither Alenka Bratušek nor Karl Erjavec were elected to the parliament. Which means both will have a critical interest in joining coalition where they will serve as ministers. Given that they control ten votes between them, this is a distinct possibility.

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