Šušteršič believes that the DL is turning into a party which is acting for political gain and which its partners find increasingly hard to trust due to the often changeable decisions, he wrote in his resignation, a document obtained by the STA.
Šušteršič announced his resignation on Wednesday after the party council voted in favour of joining the coalition of PM-designate Alenka Bratušek, which he criticized for lack of any sound economic policy to take Slovenia out of the crisis.
The ex-vice president is also critical of DL president Gregor Virant's decision to sign the coalition agreement despite the fact that it contains solutions which he used to oppose, seeing this is a sign of distrust into his work as finance minister.
He said he would have left the party at once if it had still borne the name of his president. Before the party was renamed into the Citizens' List it was called the Citizen's List of Gregor Virant.
If the party had decided against joining Bratušek's coalition, a snap poll would have been called shortly, wrote Šušteršič, convinced that in this way, the DL would "enable citizens to take a new decision on their representatives and to speed up the process of cleansing on the political scene". He regretted the party lacked the courage to do so.
While the DL council backed joining the government coalition, Virant said immediately after the session that the party's support for the new government in parliament was not unconditional. If they are not convinced by the ministerial nominees when they are interviewed before relevant parliamentary bodies, the DL would vote against.
Responding to Šušteršič's criticism in a letter addressed to party members today, Virant denied the allegations of double standards by saying that "in the complex political situation, the party acted consistently and in line with its principles and values".
Virant explained that after the DL left the Janez Janša government, both he and Šušteršič wanted the party to start working on a programme of a new government with the People's Party (SLS) and Pensioners' Party (DeSUS) and then invite Positive Slovenia to join in.
But when it became clear that the SLS would not take part in forming a new government, Šušteršič thought it would be best to let the Janša government continue until the prime minister decided on early elections.
Virant said he could not accept such this because it would be wrong to let rule the government which had only 30 votes in parliament, enjoyed no more than 15% support among the public and whose main priority was to get its people in top offices.
The DL president added that the party could do nothing but vote against the Janša government in parliament, and added that the problem of Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković and corruption allegations remain a problem.
However, after Janković has frozen his leadership of Positive Slovenia, the DL is entering the government with a party led by "a young and good-willed PM-designate [Alenka Bratušek] who is not burdened by corruption".
Source: SloveniaTimes
