Robert Golob elected Slovenia’s environmentalist prime minister

Parliament elected Robert Golob prime minister by a 54 to 30 vote on Wednesday, just over a month after his green Freedom Movement won the general election in a landslide on a pledge to reform politics in the country.

Immediately after being sworn in, Golob submitted his cabinet line-up to parliament with hearings of ministerial candidates before the parliamentary working bodies set to start this weekend. The goal is to have the government in office by 3 June.

“A month ago, voters made it clear that they want to live in a normal country, where they won’t be facing constant uncertainty about what the next day will bring,” the 55-year-old former energy executive said. Golob said he was aware of the big expectations but added that “challenges should sometimes be huge so that you work even harder”. He said he accepted the responsibility to build a Slovenia that the people wanted.

Even though he was taking office in “unfriendly circumstances”, Golob expressed confidence in his team. Golob will lead a three-way centre-left coalition with the Social Democrats and the Left which has 53 MPs in the 90-member legislature and has set out a blueprint of broad-based reforms separated into immediate measures and long-term plans that Golob has said would take two terms to complete.

Golob identified tackling problems in healthcare and containing rising energy and food prices as the priorities of his government. Long-term measures to address rising energy prices will be to work intensively to increase the deployment of solar panels rapidly.