European elections in Slovenia will take place on 26 May. The country has 8 seats in the European Parliament and is a member of the EU since 2004. However Slovenia has a very low turnout in EU elections since the beginning. A 28% voted in 2004 and 2009 elections while only 24.55% voted in 2014.
103 candidates are running on 14 lists for the elections. In Slovenia the European elections will take place on 26 May 2019.
Seven (out of eight) outgoing MEPs, will run again. Dr. Milan Zver heads the list SDS+SLS, which is an alliance between the Slovenian Democratic Party and the Slovenian People’s Party. The list includes MEPs Romana Tomc and Patricija Šulin of the SDS as well as Franc Bogovič of the SLS.
Alojz Peterle will run with New Slovenia – Christian Democrats (NSi) while Tanja Fajon heads the list of the Social Democrats. Dr. Igor Šoltes heads the DeSUS list.
In Slovenia the electoral system has no threshold for access to the European Parliament.
According to the latest polls the political situation in the country it is changed since 2014.
In 2014 the three EPP members won together five seats. The populist SDS, which is heavily influenced by Viktor Orbán won 3 seats while SLS and NSi one each. The Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals elected one MEP each.
The Slovenian Democratic Party led by Janez Janša formed an electoral Alliance with the Slovenian People’s Party. They expect to win 2 seats with 23-24% of votes.
The List of Marjan Šarec (LMŠ) founded by the Prime Minister Marjan Šarec, who is an ally of the French President Emmanuel Macron shares the second place with the Social Democrats with approximately 16% each.
The Left (Levica) enjoy support of 10% of the voters and is expected to win one seat. One seat will win the NSi-Christian Democrats with 9%.
A far-right party emerges for the first time in Slovenia and it is expected to elect one MEP. It is the Slovenian National Party (SNS), with strong tendencies to revisionism regarding historical events in the country during World War II as well as a friendly position towards Russia. The party enjoys support of 8.2% of the voters.
According to the polls the Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia (DeSUS) has 7% and the Modern Centre Party of the former Prime Minister Miro Cerar has 1.66%.
