Return To Slovenia
From the second half of 1999 Bajuk spent a considerable amount of time in Slovenia and, following the coalition agreement between the Slovenian Christian Democrats and the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia, assumed leadership of the expert council developing the coalition's alternative government programme. At the unification congress of the SKD and Slovene People's Party, he was elected deputy president of the unified party.
After the fall of Janez Drnovšek's centre-left government, Andrej Bajuk became the Prime Minister on 3 May 2000, and led the government until 16 November 2000. In July 2000, the newly merged SLS+SKD – Slovenian People's Party – contrary to previously agreed policy and government stance – voted in favour of an electoral system based on proportional representation. This led Prime Minister Bajuk to leave the Slovene People's Party. In August 2000, he and his supporters founded a new political party called New Slovenia (Nova Slovenija, N.Si).
In the elections of 2000, he was elected to the National Assembly, but Janez Drnovšek returned to power as prime minister. Bajuk’s party stayed in the opposition and formed a shadow cabinet jointly with Janez Janša's Social Democratic Party of Slovenia.
In the 2004 national elections, he was again elected to the Slovenian parliament. He did not stay an MP for long, as he soon took on the role of the finance minister in the newly elected government, led by Janez Janša. For his actions and work during his time in office, he was declared (the) "finance minister of the year in Europe" by the Financial Times Business magazine, "The Banker" in 2005.
In the parliamentary elections of 2008, the "New Slovenia" party suffered a severe defeat and did not secure the entry in the Slovenian National Assembly. Bajuk resigned as president of the party and was replaced by Ljudmila Novak. At that time, he completely retired from public life.
He was fluent in Slovene, Spanish, English and French. Bajuk was the father-in-law of the Slovenian diplomat and essayist Igor Senčar.
Bajuk died of a stroke on 16 August 2011.
Read more about this topic: Andrej Bajuk
Famous quotes containing the words return to and/or return:
“Athletes have studied how to leap and how to survive the leap some of the time and return to the ground. They don’t always do it well. But they are our philosophers of actual moments and the body and soul in them, and of our manoeuvres in our emergencies and longings.”
—Harold Brodkey (b. 1930)
“Athletes have studied how to leap and how to survive the leap some of the time and return to the ground. They don’t always do it well. But they are our philosophers of actual moments and the body and soul in them, and of our manoeuvres in our emergencies and longings.”
—Harold Brodkey (b. 1930)