Leftist Turk Wins Slovenia Presidential Runoff

The new president will take office shortly before Slovenia takes over the European Union presidency in January.

Leftist former diplomat Danilo Turk won Slovenia's presidential runoff on Sunday ahead of a government-backed conservative and will lead the country when it takes over the European Union presidency in January.

Preliminary results on the National Electoral Commission Web site showed that Turk, 55, a law professor supported by the left, gathered 68.2 percent, after most of the votes had been counted. Conservative contender Lojze Peterle, backed by most of the centre-right government, had 31.8 percent of the votes.

Final results will be available by Nov. 20 and the president, who has a say in defence and foreign policy, will be sworn in shortly before the small but wealthy former communist country assumes the EU presidency on January 1.

Analysts said Turk's margin of victory confirmed the growing discontent with Prime Minister Janez Jansa's conservative cabinet and would boost the opposition social democrats ahead of a parliamentary election due in autumn 2008.

"This result is definitely a strong warning to the government. People are unhappy because of the mistakes it made and particularly because of high inflation," Borut Hocevar, a political analyst at daily newspaper Zurnal 24, told Reuters.

Turk is an independent who is backed by three centre-left opposition parties.

"I'm very happy with the results as they appear now. I want to be a president who is uniting people. I believe that conditions here are such that people have a strong desire for something new," Turk told reporters after exit polls were shown.

BLOW TO GOVERNMENT

Prime Minister Jansa's popularity plunged this year, mainly because of rising inflation since Slovenia adopted the euro in January.

His government suffered another setback in a referendum vote that took place on Sunday, where 71.2 percent of the voters rejected its proposal under which 35 percent of the top local insurer, state-owned Triglav, was to be managed by state investment fund KAD.

The opposition demands this stake in Triglav be distributed to some 750,000 Slovenians who were policy holders in the insurer in 1990, as the authorities had promised earlier.

"The referendum result as well as the presidential vote are a no-confidence vote, a blow to the government, a clear signal that people want change," former prime minister Anton Rop, now a parliamentary deputy for Social Democrats, told TV Slovenia.

Turk will succeed Janez Drnovsek, a popular left-winger who did not seek a second five-year mandate.

"My message to the Slovenian people is 'Let's work together for the further improvement of our country in all fields,' Turk told Reuters television at his election headquarters.

"To the EU I would say: Slovenia is your solid, faithful and credible partner. Rely on us, and we'll be a good president of the European Union next year," he said.

Turk was Slovenia's first ambassador to the United Nations. He chaired the U.N. Security Council in 1998-1999 and then became U.N. assistant secretary general for political affairs.

He came second to Peterle in the first round of the election in October but has since gained support from backers of a losing leftist candidate.

All Slovenia's presidents have been left wingers since the country quit communist Yugoslavia in 1991, and a Turk victory would continue this tradition.