Nothing Decided as Presidential Vote Heads to Second Round
The first round of the presidential poll in Slovenia has raised more new questions than it answered, with a near three-way tie at the top auguring a politically-charged three weeks in Slovenia ahead of the run-off. Veteran Slovenian politician Lojze Peterle was the victor with 28.54%, well short of the 50% needed for an outright win and below what the polls had forecast for him, as two left-leaning candidates fought it out for second place.
While Peterle looks a sure run-off contender, as even votes from abroad cannot change his lead, it is as yet unclear who will be his rival due to an extremely close finish by former senior UN diplomat Danilo Tuerk and ex-central bank governor Mitja Gaspari. The latest unofficial results give Tuerk 24.52%, ahead of 24.15% for Gaspari for second place. Zmago Jelincic of the National Party, the only candidate who had stood for the presidential office before, got 19.28%.
Peterle, who is a former Slovenian prime minister and currently serves as a member of the European Parliament, believes the close election outcome can be attributed to the fact that all candidates were fairly equal. Happy with the election result, he is optimistic before the second round.
Commenting on the outcome of the first round, Prime Minister Janez Jansa said he was disappointed with the turnout, but he was not surprised about the result. "Lojze Peterle is reliably the winner of the first round," Jansa, whose Slovenian Democrats (SDS) joined the other centre-right coalition parties in endorsing Peterle, said in his first comment on the election results.
The other three candidates won less than 3% of the vote; Darko Kranjc got 2.17%, Elena Pecaric 0.88% and Monika Piberl 0.47.
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