Lawmakers in Ljubljana voted, 51 for-36 against, to oust Prime Minister Borut Pahor's administration after two parties left over pension reform and the country will now go for early elections, likely to be held as early as December, the press in Slovenia announced.
The daily Delo predicted an "endless spiral of political crisis" for Slovenia in the coming months.
Slovenian President Danilo Turk urged leaders to settle squabbles that toppled the government of the first former communist euro-region member, risking a delay in the approval of the European Union's rescue fund, known as the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), amid a sovereign-debt crisis.
“The vote deepens the political crisis," Turk said in an e-mailed statement, noting he will cut short his current visit to the US.
“The political situation in Slovenia is serious and strained and demands responsible action from all political subjects. Now is the time for quick and well-thought action," he said, quoted by Bloomberg. The Slovak government has recently failed to find backing among all four parties in the ruling coalition to support the EFSF.
Slovenia, along with other newer EU nations such as Slovakia, are showing little empathy for countries that aren't showing the fiscal discipline they were forced to endure as part of becoming members in 2004, the agency reminds.
Janez Jansa, a former premier and the leader of Slovenia's Democratic Party, is likely to emerge as the winner of an early vote, according to a survey by Episcenter polling agency. Jansa's group would win 27 percent of the vote compared with 15 percent for Pahor's Social Democrats, according to the Sept. 3 survey.
In a recent exclusive op-ed contributed to EurActiv, Jansa's Democratic Party of Slovenia, the country's main opposition party and a member of the European Parliament's centre-right European People's Party (EPP) group, argued that the leftist government had attempted a revival of the pre-democratic system of the former Yugoslavia.
