Liberal lawyer wins Slovenia’s presidential vote: Partial results

Preliminary outcomes present liberal lawyer and former TV presenter with eight-point lead over conservative rival.

Natasa Pirc Musar, a liberal lawyer and former TV presenter, is on the right track to develop into Slovenia’s first feminine president after preliminary outcomes confirmed the 54-year-old has gained the presidential runoff.

Pirc Musar, backed by the centre-left authorities, gained 54 p.c of the votes in Sunday’s runoff whereas her rival, right-wing politician and former overseas minister Anze Logar, gained 46 p.c, based on election fee knowledge primarily based on 77 p.c of the votes counted.

“We have to unify to have the ability to do one thing good for our stunning homeland,” she stated at one in all her household properties on the outskirts of the capital, Ljubljana. It was crowded with supporters as outcomes began to trickle in.

The human rights advocate has promised to be “the voice of ladies” in Slovenia and overseas and a “ethical authority” in her new function, which is a largely ceremonial publish.

“The president can’t be impartial … and don’t have any opinion,” Pirc Musar, who headed the info safety authority for a decade, advised the AFP information company forward of Sunday’s vote. “… I’ve by no means been afraid to talk out.”

As a lawyer, Pirc Musar was employed to guard the pursuits of Slovenian-born Melania Trump throughout her husband’s US presidency, stopping corporations making an attempt to commercialise merchandise along with her identify.

In the course of the marketing campaign, Pirc Musar got here underneath assault due to her husband’s profitable investments, particularly in tax havens.

The outcomes mark a contemporary setback for conservatives in Slovenia, a European Union nation of two million individuals.

Logar, 46, ran as an impartial however is a longtime member of the Slovenian Democratic Celebration of Janez Jansa, who failed in his bid to be re-elected as premier in April.

Critics accused Jansa of attacking media freedom and the judiciary and undermining the rule of regulation in his newest time period in workplace.