Russia/Ukraine 2022-Present
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After a month of trying, Golob was unable to form a new ruling coalition. Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar said she would not nominate anyone for prime minister as no one was able to get the 46 votes needed in Parliament.
Enter Janša, who many analysts call a master coalition builder. After two weeks of discussions, his future government would end up receiving 51 votes in a secret ballot of the National Assembly: 48 from his coalition and their partners, two from the representatives of the Italian and Hungarian minorities in Slovenia… and, surprisingly, one from an anonymous member of the opposition.
Janša has been involved in Slovenian politics since before there was an independent Slovenia. In 1988, he was arrested, tried "in camera" in a military court, and imprisoned by the Yugoslav People’s Army in what became known as the "JBTZ affair". He was alleged to have shared military documents with journalists. After public outcry at the time, Janša was released after serving six months of an 18-month sentence.
In 1989, Janša helped form the Slovenian Democratic Union, one of the first opposition parties in the then-Socialist Republic of Slovenia. After Slovenia’s first free elections in May 1990, Janša was named minister of defense, helping lead Slovenia’s 10-day war of independence against Yugoslavia in the summer of 1991.
In June 2013, the Ljubljana District Court ruled Janša and two others had sought about €2million (about $2.3 million) from a Finnish firm, Patria, to help it win a 2006 military supply contract. Janša was sentenced to 2 years in the same prison in which he began his 1988 imprisonment. He called the case politically motivated and, again, he was released after serving 6 months. The conviction was unanimously overturned by the Constitutional Court in April 2015.
Janša is expected to come to the U.S. to address the United Nations General Assembly in September. It is not known if he will meet with President Trump and the First Lady.