LJUBLJANA: Law professor Miro Cerar vowed to bolster Slovenia’s shaky economy yesterday as he was voted in as prime minister of the tiny Alpine country.
The political newcomer, 51, who won snap elections on July 13 despite having set up his centre-left party just a month before, said he would push for jobs and growth.
He faces a tough task of putting the eurozone country’s finances back in order after the past two governments fell after little more a year after being hit by corruption trials and political infighting.
But the leader of the main opposition Slovenian Democratic Party, former prime minister Janez Jansa, slammed Cerar’s lack of clear policies.
“No candidate to head a government has ever presented a programme without any figures or deadlines,” said Jansa, who was allowed to attend yesterday’s session despite serving a two-year jail prison term for corruption.
A commission is currently probing whether he should remain an MP.
Cerar said the main priorities of his new government will be “economic growth, preserving existing jobs and creating new ones and increasing international competitiveness”, along with the stabilising the health system, he said yesterday.
His SMC party has already agreed to a three-party centre-left coalition with the pensioners’ DESUS party and the Social Democrats (SD), which will give them 52 seats in the 90-seat parliament.
His coalition is set to continue with the former government’s efforts to reduce the deficit and with the privatisation of state-owned companies.
AFP
