Page 15 - bne_newspaper_November_17_2017 700

Southeast Europe
November 17, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 15
"Barbie" narrowly wins second presidential mandate in Slovenia
bne IntelliNews
Slovenian incumbent Borut Pahor — also known as “Barbie” because of his former career as a model — narrowly won the second round of the presidential elections on November 12. Pahor ran against a relatively new name on the Slovenian political scene, Marjan Sarec, a former comic and journalist who has been mayor of the small town of Kamnik since 2010.
Ahead of the election, polls indicated an easy win for Pahor but voter lethargy helped Sarec to make the race harder for the incumbent. The Kamnik mayor is also expected to build on his unexpectedly strong performance in the presidential poll in the upcoming 2018 parliamentary elections.
According to the latest data from the country’s election commission, based on 99.98% of votes counted, 52.94% voted for Pahor, while Sarec took 47.06% of the vote. Turnout was 41.74% and over 715,000 people voted. Slovenia has a population of about 2mn.
As in all ex-Yugoslavian republics, the president in Slovenia has mainly a representative role and is also supreme commander of the armed forces.
Most people believe the president can’t significantly influence any political decision, adding to the lethargy and low interest in the presidential candidates, Miran Videtic, director at management consulting company VI-PU based in Kamnik, told bne IntelliNews.
“At the finish line, but not alone, along with you. Thank you!” Pahor — a long-distance runner who competes in the Ljubljana marathon each year — wrote on his Facebook page after the elections on November 12. The sentiment was illustrated with a picture of Pahor in hiking gear.
Pahor, who is a non-party candidate, is seen
as the most progressive and modern president in the region. He’s an enthusiastic user of social networks, thanks to which he gained the nickname “King of Instagram”. He has also been dubbed “Barbie”, and even used the name to describe himself in the latest radio duel
with Sarec.
“If I quote a host of a radio show in Slovenia,
I have to say that presidential elections in Slovenia are like the Miss Universe competition. And,
as Pahor himself said, he had an advantage
there because his nickname is ‘Barbie’,”
Videtic quipped.
Pahor has been involved in politics for a couple of decades and he became prime minister in November 2008, though he served less than three years before losing a confidence vote in September 2011. His tenure as prime minister was also marked by one of the Eurozone's deepest recessions with Slovenia’s GDP shrinking more than 7.8% in 2009. Two years after he left office, Slovenia’s largest banks had to be bailed out by the state.