Slovenian President Borut Pahor on Thursday discussed possibilities of forming a new government with leader of the centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), Janez Jansa, commenting after the talks that they agreed Jansa should inform him in a week's time if he was willing to accept the mandate to form the new government.

Speaking at a joint news conference after meeting with Jansa, whose party won 25 seats in the 90-seat parliament in an early election in June, Pahor said that he had informed Jansa that he was ready to nominate him as the prime minister-designate, and that he expected him to reply by next Thursday if he would accept the mandate.

Pahor called on all nine parties which won seats in parliament to hold talks on forming a coalition to form the new government, without excluding anyone, and regardless of whether their talks would be successful or not.

At this moment, no one, Jansa included, has the necessary majority to appoint the prime minister, and we have therefore agreed that he will inform me if he accepts my offer to appoint him as the PM-designate by 2 pm on July 19 at the latest, said Pahor, adding that if Jansa accepted the nomination, he would sign it immediately and send it to parliament to vote on it.

The final deadline by which Pahor must nominate a candidate for prime minister-designate is July 23, one month after the new parliament was formed.

If no parliamentary majority is formed by then, a new round of the procedure for the appointment of the PM-designate will be held, and in that round, apart from the president, parliamentary parties, too, would be able to propose their candidates for the post of PM-designate.

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