Ljubljana - The Slovenian parliament Friday voted 50 to 36 for the country's new cabinet, led by the Social Democrat Borut Pahor. The new premier pledged to focus his government on finding "the way out of the financial and economic crisis," the Slovenian news agency STA reported.
"We must take it (the crisis) as a challenge and work as a team," Pahor said as he presented his cabinet to the parliament.
Pahor, 45, has built a youthful cabinet with five women, two of whom control the defence and interior ministries. Of the 18 ministers, seven are non-partisan experts.
"The adverse situation demands of us without exception to place the cabinet's goals above party or personal goals, Pahor said, promising "unpopular measures" in the interest of economic recovery.
His four-party coalition has controlled 59 of the 90 assembly seats since the September elections. Apart from his Social Democrats, the ruling alliance includes two smaller liberal parties, ZARES and LDS, and the pensioner party DeSUS.
Pahor replaced the conservative Janez Jansa to become the Alpine-Adriatic republic's sixth prime minister since it won independence from Yugoslavia in a brief war 17 years ago.
