Prime Minister Borut Pahor said he would file the list of five ministerial candidates in the National Assembly as the top bodies of the coalition Social Democrats (SD) and Liberal Democrats (LDS) endorsed the candidates today.
New ministers: the current government\'s last line of defense.
While Pahor, who is the leader of the SD, remained tight-lipped about the names, the LDS confirmed that the two candidates from its ranks would be Tomaz Oresic for the economy and Branko Jarc for the interior minister.
Well-placed sources said the SD candidates are Tamara Lah Turnsek (higher education, science and technology), Zdenka Vidovic (public administration) and Samo Bevk (culture).
Speaking to the press on the sidelines of a session of the SD presidency, Pahor said that he would disclose the names after the government session tomorrow. The prime minister is to tie a vote of confidence to the appointment of the candidates.
"I will ask parliament to endorse the list and thereby give the government a vote of confidence to allow it to carry out the tasks that I believe are crucial for Slovenia both for the long term and short term," said Pahor.
The prime minister said that he was convinced that the new-look cabinet would be able to take on these challenges, which is why he has decided to tie a vote of confidence to the ministerial candidates.
The LDS executive committee meanwhile confirmed two candidates from the party ranks, and had no reservations regarding the names put forward by the SD.
LDS secretary general Uros Petohleb expects that all five candidates will be confirmed in parliament, adding that the party was unanimous about endorsing them.
"The skills and life and work experience of the candidates are a guarantee that we will get good ministers," Petohleb said.
The candidate for economy minister, the post vacated by Zares member Darja Radic, is LDS member Tomaz Oresic, an energy expert who is the director for West and Central Europe in the international energy group EFT.
There has been speculation in recent days that Oresic's nomination could be met with opposition from the SD due to his ties to the energy sector, but Petohleb rejected this today, saying that Oresic was not active in the Slovenia energy sector and should be sufficiently neutral.
Economist Branko Janc, a three-term former LDS deputy (1992-2000), is meanwhile the candidate for the head of the Interior Ministry, which was headed until 10 August by LDS president Katarina Kresal, who resigned over a controversy surrounding the lease of a building for the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
Unofficially, Pahor will nominate Tamara Lah Turnsek for the post of minister of higher education, science and technology, to succeed Zares president Gregor Golobic.
Lah Turnsek, who has been the head of the National Institute of Biology since 1996, has told the STA that she was not a member of any party.
Pahor is also to put forward Zdenka Vidovic, a deputy president of the Court of Audit between 2001 and 2004, for minister of public administration, and SD deputy Samo Bevk, an art history professor, for culture minister.
The two posts were vacated by Zares members Irma Pavlinic Krebs (public administration) and Majda Sirca (culture) as Zares left the coalition at the end of June, leaving only the SD and LDS in the government and the coalition with only 33 deputies in the 90-member National Assembly.
The National Assembly has to take a vote on the candidates or at least on the candidate for minister of higher education, science and technology by 23 September.
On this day three months will have passed since Education and Sport Minister Igor Luksic took over from Golobic as interim minister of higher education, science and technology. This is the maximum term of a stand-in minister.
The National Assembly is expected to take a vote on the candidates at its next session, which is expected to start on 19 September.
SOURCE: SLOVENIA TIMES
