schema:articleBody
| - Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, who four days ago prematurely hailed Donald Trump as the winner of the US election, still offered no congratulations to president-elect Joe Biden on Sunday, saying simply that he hoped for "friendly relations" with Washington. "#US is our strategic partner," Jansa wrote on Twitter. "All the @govSlovenia I have led have built close, friendly relations. No matter which party the U.S. president was from. Nothing will change in the future." Trump's wife Melania is from Slovenia and earlier this week, when the vote count had only just started, Jansa tweeted his congratulations to the US Republican Party, saying it was "pretty clear that American people have elected" Trump. In his tweet on Sunday, Jansa still did not congratulate Biden, of whom he had said in the run-up to the election that he "would be one of the weakest US presidents in history". On Saturday, after US networks projected that Biden had won and congratulations started pouring in from all over the world, Jansa questioned the results, saying courts would have to decide the final outcome after Trump's team filed legal suits in a number of states. Jansa, who heads the anti-migrant Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) which took over the government in the middle of the coronavirus epidemic in March, is a close ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban who also endorsed Trump's candidature. Nevertheless, other Slovenian high officials, including President Borut Pahor, have congratulated Joe Biden. Orban has, too, wishing him "good health and continued success in performing your exceedingly responsible duties." bk/spm
|