Slovenia – Local elections

On Sunday, local elections were held in Slovenia. As ever, they were considered, in some senses, a test of the government’s popularity. The next legislative election is due to be held in 2012. The current government is a coalition led by the Social Democrats (SD) and including Zares, the Liberal Democracy (LDS), and Desus.

The Slovenia Electoral Commission is reporting (if my Slovenian is correct) that the turnout was 45.23% in terms of valid votes cast. This is a decline of about 13% from the previous local elections. District-by-district results are available here.

On the basis of preliminary results, Reuters is reporting that the SD won about the same level of support (12%) that it won at the 2006 local elections. However, this figure is much lower than the 30% that it won at the 2008 general election. The opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) won about 19% of the vote, slightly up on its 2006 figure.

As ever, local elections are likely to be a poor guide to national elections. For example, in the capital, Ljubljana, independent candidate Zoran Janković was re-elected winning 64.78% of the vote. However, he supports the government and, in any case, his candidacy will have taken votes from the SD and other parties too.

Given SD is poorly implanted at the local level and given the party’s performance, the results are not being seen as either a major vote against the incumbent government or a resounding endorsement of its policies.

There is an overview of results in English at Slovenia Times.

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