Slovenia's prime minister announces resignation

Ljubljana:  Slovenian Prime Minister Marjan Sarec on Monday announced he would step down, calling for fresh elections, following his finance minister's resignation from the minority government.

"With these members of parliament and this coalition I cannot fulfil the people's expectations," he told journalists.

"The most honest thing we could do now would be early elections... to ask people whether they trust me and they want me to continue to work," added Sarec, a former comedian who became prime minister in 2018.

The resignation comes just after Finance Minister Andrej Bertoncelj announced he would quit and follows internal conflicts within the five-member coalition.

In December, the coalition barely managed to appoint a new cohesion minister after the populist Slovenian National Party agreed to abstain from the vote.

Slovenian President Borut Pahor will now have to start talks with parliamentary parties to see whether any of them can form a new coalition that commands a parliamentary majority.