Slovenia – Presidential election

The first round of the presidential election in Slovenia was held yesterday.

There were three candidates. The incumbent president, Danilo Türk, was standing again. He classes himself as an independent, though he has the support of certain smaller parties. The former PM (2008-2012) and former leader of the Social Democrats, Borut Pahor, was also standing. The third candidate was Milan Zver from the Slovenian Democratic Party, which is the party of the incumbent PM.

The Slovenia Electoral Commission is reporting the following vote:

Borut Pahor: 40.01%
Danilo Türk: 35.83%
Milan Zver: 24.16%

So, there will be a second round of voting on 2 December.

The result was a surprise, because all of the pre-election opinion polls had Danilo Türk leading by a clear margin. Borut Pahor had gained some publicity by his on-the-ground campaigning style this time around, whereby he did a series of different jobs for a short period in order to meet ‘ordinary’ citizens and workers. The polls had shown him narrowing the gap, but still he outperformed expectations. His supporters are reportedly confident that he will win at the second ballot, but then they would be.

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