Slovenian President Borut Pahor on Saturday called early parliamentary elections for June 3 following Prime Minister Miro Cerar's resignation last month as multiple crises piled up on his centre-left government. Cerar stepped down three months before the end of his term after a court ruling against a referendum that approved a flagship project to upgrade transport links to Koper, Slovenia's only major port.
The project was estimated to cost around one billion euros ($1.2-billion) and the three-party coalition government had hoped to start it before the summer. Pahor also dissolved the 90-seat parliament, elected in July 2014, allowing it to hold only extraordinary sessions until a new chamber is constituted. Cerar's Modern Centre Party (SMC) won the 2014 snap vote with a 34.5 percent, but a poll published Saturday by the Dnevnik newspaper found it now has just 12.4 percent.