STA, 19 November 2018 - Zoran Janković won his fourth straight term as mayor of Slovenia's capital as voters overwhelmingly endorsed his vision of Ljubljana's development in Sunday's local elections and his list regained majority in the local council.
According to incomplete results, Janković secured 61.4% of the vote, which is slightly more than in the 2014 election (57.3%).
Anže Logar, the candidate of the Democratic Party (SDS) who enjoyed the support of the entire right-wing bloc, won 28.8% of the vote, more than any other candidate challenging Janković in his 12-year stint as Ljubljana mayor.
Janković's list won 23 seats in the 45-seat city council to regain the majority he held in his first two terms, after winning 21 seats in the 2014 election.
The SDS will be the second strongest faction with ten councillors, three more than in the current council, followed by the Left, which gained one seat to four. The conservative New Slovenia (NSi) and the Social Democrats (SD) will have two seats each.
The Marjan Šarec List (LMŠ), the Modern Centre Party (SMC) and the Alenka Bratušek Party (SAB), which together with the SD make up the minority national government, secured one seat each.
In his first comment on the election victory, the 65-year-old Serbian-born manager said the outcome showed the people of Ljubljana "want the kind of development they have seen so far".
Janković's time as Ljubljana Mayor has seen a transformed city, with allegations of corruption
Over the past 12 years, Janković and his team transformed Ljubljana through a series of projects, including a complete makeover of the city centre, large sections of which have been pedestrianised.
However, Janković has been facing recurring allegations of corruption, cronyism and shady ways in which the city has been awarding contracts to private partners, as well as criticism of his autocratic style of leadership.
Janković said that the people of Ljubljana showed they wanted an open, solidarity-based and comrade-like town, a reference to Logar's party, which has been promoting anti-migrant views, and Longar's statement that he would not attend a gay pride parade.
Both Janković and Logar said they were glad that the turnout was higher than four years ago. Data available so far show that 29.86% of the voters turned out in Ljubljana until 4 PM, which compares to 22.06% four years ago when the final turnout was 35.92%.
Janković said he would have wanted the turnout to be even higher, but that the outcome had obviously been clear beforehand. "Many reckoned that I'll win in the first round and they chose to stay at home or take a trip."
Looking at his new term, Janković announced 500 more projects in Ljubljana, which he said would bring greater quality of life and more global awards. Ljubljana won the title of the European Green Capital in 2016. He dismissed criticism as talk devoid of argument and populism.
Janković congratulated Logar on his showing, saying that he unified the right bloc. But he also said that the voters in this election was split along the left-right divide and that the proportion won by Logar was obviously as much as the right could count on winning in Ljubljana.
Commenting on the outcome of his list, he pledged to build a coalition even though his list won a majority, "with those who support the development programme. But I won't engage in dealing out."
Logar expressed his satisfaction that more people turned out in Ljubljana than four years ago, which he suggested was thanks his "agile election campaign" which "woke the electoral base from sleep".
Logar said considering that he and Janković won 90% of the vote, the question was that meant for the government coalition parties. He also said that if the ruling coalition "offered one strong candidate, we would have a run-off".
Logar's party boss, Janez Janša commented that Janković's "method appears to be more effective than a classic approach to democracy", while he would not say whether Logar was his successor.
Asked who could defeat Janković, Janša said it was the people of Ljubljana. "I doubt though that anyone of potential political competition in a position to apply the same methods as he [Janković] does".
Of the remaining eight mayoral contenders, Milan Jakopovič, the candidate of the Left, came in third with 3.8% of the vote.
The best result among the candidates of the government coalition parties appears to have been secured by Dragan Matić of the Modern Centre Party (SMC) in fifth with 1.5%.
Born in a village near Serbia's Smederevo on 1 January 1953, Janković moved to Ljubljana with his family when still a child. He graduated from the Ljubljana Faculty of Economics and in 1984 took his first executive post as he was appointed acting director of Mercator Investa.
In 1997 he was appointed chairman of Mercator, which he built into a market leader in the region before being served a government-sponsored no-cause dismissal by Mercator owners in 2005, at the time of the centre-right government of Democrat (SDS) leader Janez Janša.
Ever since he has been portrayed, and treated, as an arch-rival of Janša's even though they appear less dissimilar as they are willing to admit.
They both suffered heavy political setbacks; despite winning this year's general election, Janša was unable to form a government, which was exactly what happened to Janković during his foray into national politics in 2011.
They have both had run-ins with law enforcement and they both faced revelations by the anti-graft watchdog in early 2013 that they misreported their assets.
All our stories on Zoran Janković can be found here
