Slovenia's ex-prime minister, who helped save the country from an international bailout last year, announced the formation of a new center-left party on Saturday to compete in snap parliamentary elections in July.

Slovenia was plunged into a political crisis earlier this month when Alenka Bratusek resigned after losing a leadership battle for the Positive Slovenia party. She is still leading a caretaker government.

Slovenia narrowly avoided having to be bailed out in December by pumping about 3.3 billion euros, about $4.5 billion, of budget funds into mostly state-owned banks that were beset by bad loans.

Her new party, the Alliance of Alenka Bratusek, hopes to attract voters by forming an informal coalition with other liberal arties before the election expected on July 13.

Last week, the conservative opposition Slovenian Democratic Party scored a landslide victory in the European Parliament elections, winning 24.9 percent of the vote and three out of eight Slovenian seats in the parliament.

"We are gathered here to find new energy for the necessary changes in the country ... therefore I invite our allies to join us," Bratusek told supporters of her new party.

She said the party's aim was to create more jobs and give a boost to the economy while preserving the environment and human rights.

She also said the party will support privatization of state-owned property but warned against massive sell-offs.

"We will not privatize blindly, but I will not give up searching the necessary development capital for our companies," Bratusek said.

Last year her government earmarked 15 firms for privatization of which two have been sold. Others, including telecoms operator Telekom Slovenia and the country's second-largest bank Nova KBM are due to be sold by 2015.

Analysts said Bratusek's new party stands a good chance of crossing the 4 percent threshold needed for parliament but other center-left parties will have to cooperate rather than compete in the election if they want to form the next government.