The outgoing President of the Slovenian Republic, Borut Pahor easily drew ahead in the first round of the presidential election on 22nd October with 47.07% of the vote. He will face Marjan Sarec, Mayor of Kamnik, in the next round of voting on 12th November. M. Sarec is a former actor and is standing as an independent, but has the support of his party "the Marjana Sarca-Naprej Kamnik List". He won 24.96% of the vote.

"I shall do everything I can to convince voters that I will be the best president of the Republic over the next five years," declared Borut Pahor when the results were announced. He said he was confident of his re-election. "I dare to say that I shall win the election in the second round in three weeks' time. In the end I think my political experience and my work in Slovenia and abroad will prevail."

The outgoing Head of State will, amongst other things, have to mobilise the abstainers, who were legion in the first round, since turnout was the weakest ever recorded in the first round of a presidential election in Slovenia: 43.58%

MEP Romana Tomc (Democratic Party SDS) came third with 13.74% of the vote, followed by Ljudmila Novak (New Slovenia, NSi), who won 7.16% of the vote. The five other candidates each won less than 3% of the vote including the representative of the Prime Minister Miro Cerar's party, the Modern Party of the Centre (SMC), Maja Makovec Brencic (1.72% of the vote).

"In the second round everything is still possible, even though Borut Pahor is the main favourite," indicated Peter Jancic, director of the website Spletni Casopis. "Borut Pahor won twice the number of votes as Marjan Sarec and it will be difficult to beat him. To do this Marjan Sarec has to recover all of the votes from the seven other candidates in the first round," stressed Otilia Dhand, analyst of the Teneo Intelligence Agency.

Source : Central Electoral Commission http://volitve.gov.si/vp2017/#/rezultati