MP Reps Met Outgoing Speaker to Prepare Maiden Session

Ljubljana, 18 October

The speaker of the outgoing parliament met representatives of factions in the newly-elected National Assembly behind closed doors to prepare the maiden session of the new legislature.

With the new parliament in place, the outgoing legislative assembly will end its term in office, as will the prime minister and his ministerial team. They will perform the caretaker function until a new government is appointed.
The outgoing speaker is in charge of preparing the maiden session of the newly-elected parliament in line with the parliament's new standing orders. At the session, Speaker Feri Horvat and interim leaders of deputy groups will determine the agenda and the seating of new MPs in the chamber. They will also nominate candidates for credentials and privileges commission, which is appointed at the maiden session.
Another matter that could be determined is the distribution of parliamentary working bodies among individual deputy groups. This is highly unlikely, though, given that a government coalition has not been formed yet. Parliamentary bodies in fact reflect the composition of parliament in terms of division between the coalition and the opposition.
Since deputy groups cannot be formed until parliament has been constituted, the parties elected to parliament have to appoint interim heads of their new MPs. The largest faction in parliament, the 29-strong group of centre-right Slovenian Democrats (SDS) will be temporarily headed by France Cukjati, who is heading the outgoing SDS deputy group.
The interim leader of the centre-left Liberal Democrats (LDS) group, comprising 23 MPs, will be the party president and outgoing PM Anton Rop, while its partner in the outgoing coalition, the left-leaning United List (ZLSD) has named Miran Potrc as the interim head of its 10 deputies after he already performed the job in the past term.
The right-leaning New Slovenia (NSi) group of 9 deputies will be headed by party president Andrej Bajuk until the deputy group head is appointed. The seven MPs of the centre-right People's Party (SLS) will be headed by Jakob Presecnik for the time being, while the leader of hardline National Party (SNS) Zmago Jelincic will temporarily head the six SNS deputies.
Franc Znidarsic will be the interim head of the left-leaning Pensioners' Party (DeSUS), which is the smallest parliamentary faction with only 4 MPs. The two deputies representing the Italian and Hungarian minority will be represented by Italian minority MP Roberto Batteli.
Under the standing orders, as parliament is constituted it must also elect the speaker. The speaker and her or his deputies are elected in a secret ballot and need an absolute majority or at least 46 votes to get elected. Candidates may be nominated by at least 10 MPs.
Three parties have already indicated that they will put forward candidates for the post of deputy speaker. The ZLDS said it would nominate Majda Potrata, while the SNS said their candidate would be Saso Pece. The SLS said it would nominate Janez Kramberger.

MP Reps Met Outgoing Speaker to Prepare Maiden Session

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