STA, 29 November 2018 - Slovenia has been fixated on Maribor and Koper as local elections enter the run-off on Sunday. Maribor will get a new mayor in any case and in Koper the incumbent faces the biggest challenge of his career. But there are plenty of other races that could produce surprises as well.
In Maribor, Slovenia's second largest city, former mayor Franc Kangler, the candidate of the right, and businessman Saša Arsenovič, an independent running on the Modern Centre Party (SMC) ticket, are neck-and-neck with just days to go until the polls open.
The latest poll by Večer, the Maribor-based daily, puts Arsenović less than two points ahead of Kangler, but the race is too close to call. In the first round, Arsenovič was well ahead, with 38.2% to Kangler's 31.4%.
While the campaign ahead of the second round shifted a gear lower from the tense and at times aggressive campaigning for the second round, the race is lively given that the candidates represent two very distinct visions of Maribor.
The more urban Arsenovič, a businessman credited with helping to revive the struggling centre of the city, looks up to the long-term mayor of Ljubljana, Zoran Janković, as he tries to infuse town hall with a bit of business acumen.
Kangler, a former police officer and MP who was ousted as mayor in 2012 in mass protests sparked by allegations of corruption, has a can-do attitude but connects better to Maribor's suburban and rural population with his populist, salt-of-the-earth rhetoric about returning the city to its industrial glory.
The race in Koper, the biggest city on the coast and home to Slovenia's sole seaport, pits incumbent Mayor Boris Popovič, who has run the city with a penchant for strong-arming for 16 years, against radio host Aleš Bržan.
It had been widely expected that Popovič would be a shoo-in for his fifth term, but he has spent years fending off corruption allegations, and spent months in courtrooms, sometimes for cases that became statute-barred in odd circumstances.
Local political pundits say the people appear to have become fed up with his authoritarian style, hence the shift to the mild-mannered Bržan, who has led a low-key campaign while letting Popovič defend his record in office.
Popovič edged Bržan by almost 14 points in the first round, but since then nine unsuccessful candidates, who together accounted for nearly a fifth of the first-round vote, jointly backed Bržan. There have been no polls for Koper ahead of the run-off so far.
Another major race is in Kranj, the centre of the wealthy Gorenjska region, but polls suggest the result will be more clear-cut.
Matjaž Rakovec, the former boss of insurer Zavarovalnica Triglav who is running with the support of the Social Democrats (SD), is expected to carry the mayorship easily against independent Zoran Stevanović, a prominent councillor.
Both focused their campaigns on buttressing the city's economy, with Rakovec pledging to bring over a thousand jobs to the city under his watch. Rakovec is projected to win about 70% of the vote, according to a poll carried by Dnevnik.
In the absence of local polling it is difficult to gauge many other races under way in the 56 municipalities that are holding run-offs, but many are interesting merely by virtue of the illustrious and industrious candidates on the ticket.
In Jesenice, which vies with Kranj as the economic centre of Gorenjska, incumbent Tomaž Mencinger has had to surprisingly enter a run-off against Delo journalist Blaž Račić. In the first round, they were neck-and-neck at just over 23%.
In the nearby Tržič, the incumbent Borut Sajovic faces former mayor Pavel Rupar, who is attempting his second return to politics after spending time in prison for defrauding the municipality and who became a tabloid sensation after phone conversations with a mistress were published in 2006.
In southern Slovenia, all eyes are on Črnomelj, where a local member of the opposition Democrats (SDS) managed to enter the run-off with a staunchly anti-immigrant agenda, ousting the incumbent Mojca Čemas Stjepanovič in the process.
But the real surprise there was Andrej Kavšek, a local businessman who carried 45% of the vote with a distinctly pro-business platform emphasising the need to revive the economic fortunes of the community.
In Kamnik, the party of Prime Minister Marjan Šarec, who served two terms as mayor there, faces a major test. Its candidate, deputy mayor Igor Žavbi, finished neck-and-neck with New Slovenia (NSi) candidate Matej Slapar, another deputy mayor.
Smaller communities scattered around the country could deliver surprises as well, as many famous and infamous candidates are on the ticket.
Journalists Bojan Traven in Bohinj and Dejan Karba in Ljutomer are in the run-off. Disgraced former ambassador Milan Balažic will try his luck in Moravče east of Ljubljana, and Roman Leljak, a former convict and amateur historian well liked in conservative circles, is in the run-off in Radenci in the east.
Overall, the second round is much more local since only mayoral run-offs are held and parties at the national level have mostly stayed out of campaigning, which dovetails with the increasingly pronounced trend of established parties giving way to independent and semi-independent local lists in local elections.
In the first round, independents carried well over half of all mayor offices and as a bloc they are the strongest contingent in municipal councils.
All of our local elections coverage can be found here
