Ljubljana - Milan Kučan, Slovenia's former president, sees this general election as "a kind of a referendum against the politics that has led Slovenia over the past two years bringing it into the situation where we are today".

He said that regardless of the final outcome, the politics pursued by PM Janez Janša had been defeated. "This is hope for better, more normal life in this country," the first Slovenian president told the press Sunday.

While there are several reasons for the strong victory of Robert Golob's Freedom Movement, it shows that people wanted change so much that they voted for the one who was the greatest guarantee to bring it.

Kučan hopes the many Freedom Movement MPs and their coalition partners will do their job responsibly and deliver the promises given to the people. "I expect a very high degree of responsibility, personal integrity and ethics."

As for a new government coalition, he assessed that "it comes natural", bringing together all parties that are not in the current government. He wished the new prime minister to be up to the "difficult task with which the voters have tasked him".

The former president spoke at the campaign headquarters of the Social Democrats (SD), which won 6.6% of the vote according to partial results after more than 80% of the votes were counted, coming in fourth, after the Freedom Movement, and two parties from the current government - the Democrats (SDS) and New Slovenia (NSi).

Kučan believes that the SD's result is not bad, but could be better had the election been held in an different situation.