Slovenian development minister Marko Bandelli resigned on November 13, as required by the prime minister, after threatening to use his government clout to influence the local elections in the town of Komen, STA news agency reported.

This is the first departure from the government led by Marjan Sarec but the scandal has also revealed how fragile the minority coalition government is, as forecast during the lengthy post-election negotiations. 

The coalition, which holds only 43 out of 90 seats in parliament, is made up of the List of Marjan Sarec, the Social Democrats (SD), the Modern Center Party (SMC) of former prime minister Miro Cerar, the Alenka Bratusek Party (SAB), and the Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia (DeSUS). It is unofficially backed by left wing Levica. 

Bandelli is a member of the SAB. He was asked to resign after he explicitly said that his hometown Komen will not get his support or that of the infrastructure ministry, both major departments disbursing funds to local communities, unless the voters pick the SAB candidate in the local election, according to STA.

Party leader Alenka Bratusek praised his activity at the ministry and at the same time criticised the procedure for dismissing and replacing a cabinet minister, noting that Sarec was supposed to have first discussed the situation with her.

"If these are the communication channels that the coalition will be using, our time here will be preciously short," Bratusek said.