The 90-seat Slovenian parliament on Friday appointed Marjan Sarec to be Prime Minister Designate, with 55 to 31 votes.

Sarec is expected to nominate his cabinet ministers in the next 15 days, with a vote of confidence set for mid-September.

On August 8, lawmakers of five left Slovenian parties nominated Sarec, a comedian-turned-politician, for Prime Minister-Designate, and his nomination pulled the country out of a political standstill that has been lasting since the June 3 parliamentary elections with no outright winner.

The signatures for Sarec’s nomination were given by MPs from his party – the List of Marjan Sarec (LMS) — as well as deputies of the Social Democrats led by Dejan Zidan, the Party of the Modern Centre led by the outgoing PM Miro Cerar, the Party of Alenka Bratusek (SAB) and the Democratic Party of Pensioners (DESUS) led by Karl Erjavec.

Sarec, formerly a two-term mayor of the northern town of Kamink, has managed to collect 43 signatures in the parliament. Slovenia’s Democratic Party (SDS) led by Janez Jansa won the most seats, 25, but they have not managed to find a coalition partner to form a new government.

Sarec is three seats short of ensuring the absolute majority in the parliament, and the Ljevica (L) party, which is not to be part of government, promised to support his cabinet during a secret ballot.

Sarec announced prior to the vote that his priority as Prime Minister will be reorganising the health system and maintaining good relations with neighbouring countries. He also said he would continue the policy of insisting on including Slovenia in the club of the most tightly integrated EU member countries.

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