With 99% of the votes counted, Nataša Pirc Musar was ahead with 53.8% of the vote, ahead of conservative veteran Anže Logar with 46.1%. While both candidates had run as independents, they were backed by the center-left and right-wing political blocs in the small eastern European country of 2 million, which has been a member of the EU for 15 years. Logar, foreign minister in the last government of right-wing populist former prime minister Yanez Jansa, had won the first round in October without winning the required majority. However, polls in recent weeks have shown that popular support has rallied around Pirc Musar. There were signs Logar was suffering after failing to distance himself from his former boss, a divisive figure and close ally of Hungary’s far-right leader Viktor Orban. Slovenia’s environmentalist Prime Minister Robert Golob, who succeeded Janša in June, had warned that a vote for the conservative candidate would plunge his country back into “dark times”. Turnout for Sunday voting was up on the last election in 2017, at 50.6%. A former journalist and presenter on Slovenia’s main news programme, Ljubljana-born Pirc Musar received additional training at CNN and the University of Salford’s media department before completing his PhD in Law at the University of Vienna. Elected Slovenian Commissioner for Access to Public Information in 2004. She was also hired to protect the interests of Slovenian-born Melania Trump during her husband’s US presidency, preventing companies from trying to market products under her name. During the election campaign, much media attention was focused on the lucrative network of companies owned by her and her husband, amid allegations that they had put some of their wealth in tax havens. In one passage, former prime minister Janša described the second round as a clash between the values of Slovenian independence on the one hand and the values of tax havens on the other. In Slovenia’s parliamentary system the role of the president is mainly ceremonial. But Pirc Musar has said she would behave differently from outgoing president Borut Pahor, who rarely intervened in domestic political matters during his two five-year terms. Subscribe to This is Europe The most central stories and debates about Europeans – from identity to the economy to the environment Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “I’ve never been quiet when I’ve had to speak, especially not in the last two years,” she said when she entered the presidential race in late September. “After the last government Janez Janša took over I spoke, because the rule of law was collapsing before our eyes.” The 54-year-old said she would like to see Slovenia connected to the “core of Europe”, especially countries that believe in human rights and constitutional values.
