Slovenia will hold a presidential runoff on Sunday with incumbent President Danilo Tuerk and former Prime Minister Borut Pahor vying for this post after they were the two top vote-getters in the first round of the election on 11 November.
According to media opinion polls, Pahor, who won 40% of the vote three weeks ago, is very likely to defeat Tuerk, who finished second with 36% of the vote.
According to an opinion poll conducted among 800 respondents earlier this week by the Delo daily, as many as 55% of those polled would vote for Pahor and 24% for the incumbent president, while 21% were indecisive.
The Ljubljana-based newspaper also warns that the turnout in Sunday's election will be low, with only 41% of eligible voters likely to go to the polling stations.
Three weeks ago, the turnout was also low, 47%, when the third candidate, Milan Zver, mustered 24% of cast ballots.
The Maribor-based Vecer conducted a poll among 700 respondents and of them, 65-75% were in favour of Pahor, while 25-35% would vote for Tuerk.
According to analysts, Pahor's lead over Tuerk is still convincing despite the fact that Pahor lost parliamentary elections last year after which he failed to remain at the helm of his Social Democrats (SD). Nevertheless, the new SDS leader, Igor Luksic, and this party supported Pahor's candidacy for the head of state.
Pahor's advantage lies in the fact that voters close to centrist parties, and a majority of those who support the current cabinet led by Prime Minister Janez Jansa, seem to prefer Pahor to Tuerk.
Tuerk, 60, is running for a new, five-year term, as a nonpartisan candidate, however, the strongest opposition party - Positive Slovenia - led by Zoran Jankovic, has openly expressed its support to the current president. He also enjoys the support of the DESUS, a party representing the interests of pensioners and one of junior partners in the ruling majority.
During the campaign, Tuerk, a university professor and a former Slovenian diplomat to the United Nations, seemed to have made a feeble impression, while Pahor, a political scientist, conducted a more dynamic campaign.
The two rounds of the presidential election are being held against a backdrop of protest rallies organised by Facebook members in major Slovenian cities. The protests are said to be organised against "corrupt political elites" and try to shift the attention of the public to social and economic problems which are expected to be the main topics of a televised debate between Tuerk and Pahor on Friday evening.
