Liberal caretaker Prime Minister Robert Golob has announced that his Freedom Movement was unable to form a government in Slovenia following a razor-thin victory in last month’s election.

The development could pave the way for Janez Janša and his Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) to return to power. Janša, who has previously served three terms as prime minister, secured 28 seats in last month’s election—one fewer than Golob’s Freedom Movement—in the 90-seat Slovenian parliament. A majority requires 46 seats.

Golob informed Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar that his party had resigned itself to leading the parliamentary opposition. Following his own meeting with Pirc Musar on Monday, Janša also acknowledged that his party had not yet secured the support required to return to power.

SDS’s Path(s) to Government

Janša’s most straightforward path to office would be through consolidating a centre-right coalition. His SDS holds 28 seats and, together with its natural allies, commands around 43 seats in total. This bloc would likely include New Slovenia (seven seats), the Slovenian People’s Party and its allies (two seats combined), and potentially the Democrats (six seats).

To reach the 46-seat majority, Janša would still need at least three additional votes, most plausibly from the five-seat Resni.ca or through defections from centrist actors, whose leverage has increased but whose options have narrowed following Golob’s failure.

Earlier this month, Janša’s party backed the Resni.ca party’s bid to have its leader, Zoran Stevanović, elected speaker of Slovenia’s parliament. The move was widely interpreted as signalling an alliance between the two parties, which could pave the way for an SDS-led majority government.

A second, increasingly realistic scenario is the formation of a minority Janša government tolerated by smaller parties. With the centre-left bloc—Freedom Movement (29), Social Democrats (six), and the Left (five)—able to muster only around 40 seats, the arithmetic suggests that abstentions could prove decisive.

‘A second, increasingly realistic scenario is the formation of a minority Janša government’

If Janša’s broader right-leaning bloc of roughly 43 MPs secures the abstention of even a handful of deputies—such as the five MPs of Resni.ca or segments of the centrist camp—he could effectively lower the majority threshold in a confidence vote and take office without a fully formalized coalition.

A third outcome remains a continued deadlock leading to snap elections, particularly if key kingmaker parties maintain their refusal to support Janša. The SDS leader has already said his party was comfortable with ‘all three options’, meaning forming a government, remaining in opposition, or participating in repeat elections.

Janša is a long-time ally of outgoing Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, holding similar views on mass migration and rejecting further EU centralization. He also maintains good relations with US President Donald Trump, while his party sits in the European People’s Party (EPP), alongside incoming Hungarian prime minister Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party.

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