STA, 4 May 2018 - A total of 25 parties and lists submitted their candidates for the 3 June general election by the midnight deadline. Twenty-two parties, including all parliamentary parties, fielded candidates in all electoral units. The lists will be verified in the coming days, the National Electoral Commission said on Friday.
The Modern Centre Party (SMC), Democrats (SDS), Pensioners' Party (DeSUS), Social Democrats (SD), Left, New Slovenia (NSi) and the party of former Prime Minister Alenka Bratušek fielded candidates in the eight electoral units, ans so have several other parties.
The Marjan Šarec List (LMŠ) of comedian-turned-mayor who nearly defeated the favoured incumbent in the 2017 presidential election plans to make it among the top three parties, while Bojan Dobovšek, a former SMC deputy, and Andrej Čuš, a former SDS deputy, will try to secure another term with their respective parties, the Good State and the Greens.
The National Party (SNS) and the People's Party (SLS) will try to get back into parliament after failing to make the 4% threshold in the last and the last two elections, respectively.
Two alliances have also fielded candidates in all electoral units: the Kangler&Primc - United Right and the United Left - Unity.
Some other non-parliamentary parties and newcomers, including the list of media owner Bojan Požar, Solidarity and the Pirate Party also submitted lists in all electoral units.
The Socialist Party of Slovenia submitted candidates in seven electoral units, the ReSET party in three and Forward Slovenia in one.
Despite announcements to the opposite, the Liberal Democrats (LDS), the dominant party of the 1990s, the New Social Democrats and the Taxpayers Standing Our Ground will not enter the race.
However, Taxpayers Standing Our Ground's Vili Kovačič, whose dogged opposition to the government-sponsored bill on the Koper-Divača rail expansion led to the resignation of PM Miro Cerar just months before the regular election, will run as a candidate on Požar's list.
Electoral commissions in the eight electoral units will verify the candidacies in the coming days. The commissions will then put forward the lists of candidates in individual units by 13 May, and the National Electoral Commission will unveil the completed lists by 18 May.
The number of parties that filed candidacies in this year's election matches the record number that ran in the first parliamentary election in independent Slovenia in 1992.
The large number of slates on offer is expected, according to Tanja Starič, a senior home policy analyst at the public broadcaster RTV Slovenija.
This is likely to lead to a fragmentation of the vote, which ends up benefiting major players given that the votes of those who do not make the 4% threshold to enter parliament are distributed among the successful parties, she said.
The fragmentation is likely to be more pronounced on the left, where major players as well as many of the smaller parties are competing.
If the votes on the left indeed fragment as expected, the centre-right SDS is likely to emerge as the winner, she said, but cautioned that the race between the top players was so close it was impossible to make forecasts with any accuracy at this point.
All our election coverage can be found here, while our profiles of the major parties are here.
