Slovenia went to the polls yesterday and it looks like there will be a change of government. After virtually all the votes had been tallied, the opposition Social Democrats were being credited with 30.5% compared with the ruling conservative SDS party’s 29.3%.

The key to the final outcome depends on the two main parties’ coalition partners. Here, the Social Democrats fortunes seem assured. The centre-left parties, Zares and the Liberal Democrats, are doing better than the SDS’s partners. Also, Desus, the pensioners’ party, which is in the current coalition and which is expected to pick up about 7 seats, has said that it will side with the winner, presumably the Social Democrats.

The Social Democrats’ leader and probable new PM is Borut Pahor. The Social Democrats ruled the country from 1991 until 2004.