Party boss: DeSUS council denies support to govt

Ljubljana – The council of the Pensioners’ Party (DeSUS) adopted a document on Tuesday whereby it denies any further support to the government, while calling on the government to resign immediately and call a snap election, DeSUS leader Ljubo Jasnič told reporters after the council’s session.

“It may be good for some individuals in DeSUS to support the government, but it’s certainly not good for the party, on the contrary, it’s extremely harmful,” reads the document, which was drawn up by Jasnič and endorsed by the party council today.

The party formally quit the ruling coalition in December last year, but its MPs have kept supporting the centre-right minority government of Prime Minister Janez Janša in parliament, which has led to repeated changes in the party’s top job and a loss of membership over the past year.

In September Jasnič proposed for the MPs to be called on to resign, but the party’s executive committee did not endorse the proposal.

Speaking to reporters today, Jasnič said the party had departed from its values over the past two years, in particular after joining the Janša government. The party thus collapsed not only below the threshold to enter parliament, but could also fall below the threshold guaranteeing its financial existence.

“Continuing on this path is a path toward DeSUS’s demise,” said Jasnič, who in the document adopted today found that in supporting government measures so far, DeSUS had contributed to the country becoming “divided, rift apart, with a deep chasm between the government and citizens”.

He said the party council today agreed that DeSUS “will no longer support day-to-day, let alone legislative measures of this government”. This also meant the party would not back the budgets for 2022 and 2023 in the vote in parliament.

The decision does not mean, however, that the MPs will follow suit. MPs Branko Simonovič and Ivan Hršak, who were present at the session, opposed the document and Simonovič confirmed that he had voted against it.

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