It is hard to understand and explain why it happened, but it illustrates the situation in Slovenian politics, according to Kučan.

"Key people in the party did not ask themselves whether the party that took over the government one year ago could afford to provoke a new government crisis and consequently a new political crisis in the country," Kučan stressed in the interview, which was published before Prime Minister Alenka Bratušek announced her resignation on Saturday, paving the way for early election.

He said that the PS's programme was the most social-democratic programme out there and sees the government's work in the past year as a potential foundation for its long-term implementation.

However, the government had to live up to the promises made to Brussels by the previous governments and make compromises with the PS's coalition partners.

"That is the reality of coalition governments. Looking form the outside, one could maybe say that more could have been done nonetheless."

Touching on allegations that the new old PS president Zoran Janković was his political project, the former president stressed that the Ljubljana mayor was "his own project and his own man who must take responsibility for his own actions".

Kučan also thought that early election was the only realistic possibility to address the crisis following the election of Janković to the helm of the PS, which according to him was a wrong decision.

"The country cannot afford a long political crisis so the election should be held as soon as possible - in a time-frame that allows the parties to get ready for it."

While coalition parties agree that the best way to go is to hold the election before the summer, Kučan sees an election in September as more realistic, as it could be held at the same time as the local elections.

The former president moreover believes that the final ruling in the Patria case, which saw former Prime Minister Janez Janša sentenced to two years in prison, has not changed Slovenia, but it has outlined its real image.

"Nobody can be happy about the verdict. The final ruling against a former prime minister for corruption shows the country in a bad light."

According to him, the ruling is a serious warning about the potential scope of corruption in state and party structures and should serve as a trigger for political structures to take a zero-tolerance stance against it.

Responding to allegations of some that the ruling had been written in Murgle (the Ljubljana borough in which he lives), he stressed that they were absurd: "However, they are in line with the logic that people are nothing but tools to be used. In the case that they do not serve that logic, they are enemies and an extended arm of conspiracies."