Ljubljana - The National Assembly rejected on Friday the appointment of Marjan Divjak as vice-governor of the central bank. The Democrats (SDS) proposed that the vote be postponed, but their proposal was rejected and the vote went ahead with 44 voting in favour and 40 against in a secret ballot, short of the required super majority.

Divjak, director general of the Finance Ministry's treasury directorate since 2013, was nominated by President Borut Pahor after consultations with deputy groups in January.

After the consultations, Pahor's office said that Divjak was "the closest of all the candidates to mustering the necessary support of MPs to get elected."

The only party to speak up about the nomination today was the opposition Left, which accused the government of trying to postpone voting whenever it realised it did not have a majority.

Left leader Luka Mesec said the party was "making a mockery of democracy and procedure" just to make sure an "SDS insider," the husband of a long-time PR officer for the SDS, got the job.

Another proposal by the SDS to postpone voting, on legislation that would raise language standards for workers in bilingual Italian-Slovenian schools and kindergartens, was similarly rejected today.