Favourite and incumbent Borut Pahor duly won the run-off election for the Slovenian Presidency today, but with a narrower majority than some commentators had anticipated. The former Social Democrat Prime Minister, standing in this election as an independent, took 53 per cent of the votes cast, a slender six-point advantage over challenger Marjan Sarec, Mayor of Kamnik and a former actor and comedian.

Pahor had been quite close to a first-round win, taking 47.2 per cent of votes in a field of nine candidates. He managed to add just 6 per cent to his tally, while Sarec nearly doubled his first round score of 24.8 per cent.

Best of the four opinion polls published between the two rounds was that from Ninamedia for Dnevik on 9 November, which called the outcome almost exactly at 53.2 to 46.8 per cent for Pahor. The following day Mediana reported 52 per support cent for Pahor. Also on 10 November, a Delo poll gave Pahor a 12-point advantage: twice his eventual winning margin.

Voter turnout at 41.7 per cent represented a new low in the history of Slovenian Presidential elections. While only down slightly on 2012, it was a far cry from the 58.5 per cent participation of 2007 and the 65.4 per cent of 2002.

 

SLOVENIAN PRESIDENCY 12 November 2017
Second round. Five year term.

1. Borut Pahor (Independent) 373,877 or 52.94%
2. Marjan Sarec (Independent) 332,366 or 47.06%

Eligible voters: 1,713, 473
Voted: 715,250
Invalid votes: 8,853
Valid votes: 706,243
Turnout: 41.74 per cent (2012: 42.41%)

Source: Slovenian Election Commission. Provisional results with 99.98% counted. Visit the results page of the Commission here.

 

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