Brussels, 09/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - Slovenia may have to deal with another political crisis. On Wednesday 9 January, Conservative Prime Minister Janez Jansa spoke of the possibility of resigning after having been implicated by the anti-corruption committee. He declared: “I will be offering my resignation as leader of the SDS (Slovenian Democratic Party) to the party committee on Wednesday. If they do not find my arguments satisfactory, this will mean that I will resign as prime minister. If they find my explanations satisfactory, I won't resign”. The decision of the party is expected to be made known in the evening but most experts believe that it will restate its confidence in the prime minister.
The Slovenian anti-corruption committee has exposed irregularities in the assets and bank accounts of the head of government and centre-left mayor of capital city, Ljubljana, Zoran Jankovic, Jansa's political rival. With regard to the latter, the committee highlighted “numerous breaches” in the declaration of certain assets. The president of the committee, Goran Klemencic, said: “We discovered that his assets increased inexplicably and disproportionately by €210,000” between 2004 and 2012. Jansa is contesting the report and has argued that certain facts have been “manipulated”. The only thing that he has admitted was that he had been late in declaring some of his assets. Jankovic also rejected the accusations from the committee, according to which, he failed to declare a €2.4 million increase in his bank account. Even if the two men remain in their posts, this small former Yugoslavian country once again faces the risk of being dragged into the spiral of political crisis that is likely to lead to the shattering of the fragile coalition currently in office, fears the Vecer newspaper. (LC/transl.fl)