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Bloomberg
Slovenians are voting in a presidential election pitting a human-rights lawyer who has vowed to uphold the rule of law against the ally of an ousted nationalist leader criticized for undermining the country’s democratic values.
Natasa Pirc Musar, who once served on the legal team of former US First Lady Melania Trump, had the edge in opinion polls before Sunday’s runoff ballot and has a chance to become the European Union country’s first woman president.
She is facing off against former Foreign Minister Anze Logar, an ally of right-wing former Premier Janez Jansa, who was unseated in April elections by parties that accused him of polarizing the Balkan state’s political environment with vulgar attacks against opponents and the media and by undermining state institutions.
While the presidential post is largely ceremonial, the contest underscores the continuing battle in Europe between pro-EU political forces and parties that have challenged the bloc’s liberal, multi-cultural values in an environment of runaway inflation and tensions over the war in Ukraine.
“Jansa’s last government had ramifications: People felt restricted, and human rights were trampled,†Pirc Musar said in a televised debate on Thursday. Logar, who won the first-round ballot with more than a third of the vote only to see most other political parties endorse his opponent, called himself “a moderate politician with moderate views†and vowed to find common ground among the nation’s 2.1 million people.
Voting to replace incumbent Borut Pahor, who served two five-year terms and can’t run again, will conclude at 7 p.m. First official results should arrive shortly after.
In her law practice, the 54-year-old Pirc Musar worked for Melania Trump, who was born in Slovenia and has citizenship there, when she sued a tabloid in a libel case that was settled for an undisclosed amount. The presidential frontrunner was also part of the team hired to protect the former first lady’s legal and trademark interests.