Slovenia to appoint new PM amid economic woes

PanARMENIAN.Net - Slovenia's parliament is expected to oust conservative Prime Minister Janez Jansa on Wednesday, February 27 and give opposition financial expert Alenka Bratusek a one-year mandate to bring the country back from the brink of an international bailout, Reuters said.

Parliament's "constructive no-confidence vote" takes place at the height of a financial crisis in the tiny Alpine euro zone member, which is struggling with a recession and a huge amount of bad loans strangling its banks.

Centre-left Positive Slovenia, led by Bratusek, struck a deal last week with the Social Democrats and two of conservative Jansa's former allies to give her the reins for a year, with an option to keep her at the helm until an election due in 2015.

If confirmed, Bratusek, who turns 43 in March, will become Slovenia's first female prime minister. She had studied management and oversaw the state budget at the Finance Ministry for six years before entering parliament in December 2011.

Slovenia, a former star of post-communist transition, has been gripped by street protests against austerity and corruption since November, as unemployment hit a 14-year high and living standards plunged in the wake of the government's spending cuts.

The new government will have to reform the banking system, which is nursing 7 billion euros of bad loans, increase labor flexibility, sell some state firms and possibly raise the value added tax to reduce the budget gap.