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Prense Latina (18 November 2018)

Slovenians go to the polls on Sunday to elect the 212 mayors of the localities of the country, as well as 3,400 seats in the municipal councils.
Citizens with the right to vote -1,712,677 according to the parliamentary elections in June- will decide between 688 candidates for the mayoralties and 22,331 for the councilors.

According to official sources, some of the mayoral candidates for reelection are in that position since their municipalities were created, others maintain their post for two decades and more than 30 will have no rival today.

Among those who intend to continue is Zoran Jankovic, a businessman born in Serbia and founder of the center-left party Positive Slovenia, which opinion polls consider him the winner, despite the powerful challenge posed by the center-right candidate, Anze Logar.

In Maribor, once an industrial power that lost the markets of the former Yugoslavia and bids for recovery, there are 18 candidates for the post. But the list focuses on the current mayor, Andrej Fistravec, and his predecessor, Franc Kangler, who had to resign in 2012 accused of corruption and patronage, as well as plagiarism of academic degree, but despite that the surveys place him as a favorite.

The rivalry among the aspirants was limited to issues such as problems of local economies, the transit of vehicles and only in the municipality of Crnomelj, near the southeastern border with Croatia, illegal migration emerged as the main issue and confronts those who advocate strong restrictive measures and those who want more flexibility.

Prime Minister Marjan Sarec called for citizens to go to the polls, which will close at 19:00 local time, and stressed the relevance of local powers for the prosperity of this small European state of 20,273 square kilometers and 2,067,120 inhabitants according to the 2017 census.

https://www.plenglish.com/index.php?o=rn&id=36006&SEO=local-elections-begin-in-slovenia