Centre-left opposition wins Slovenia election

LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - Slovenia's centre-left parties defeated conservative Prime Minister Janez Jansa in a parliamentary election on Sunday, returning to power after a four-year break.

Many in this small but prosperous EU member state felt Jansa had failed to tame high inflation, which the new government will have to curb while keeping the booming economy on track despite a global financial slowdown.

With some 99.9 percent of votes in the tiny Alpine country counted, the opposition Social Democrats (SD) of Borut Pahor held a small lead over Jansa's SDS, but SD's two coalition partners were faring better than those of the SDS.

According to the partial results, the SD and its two centre-left allies, Zares and the Liberal Democrats, would together control some 43 seats in the 90-member parliament, versus 40 seats of the SDS and its present coalition partners.

"The result is tight .... but we can speak about a probability that the three centre-left parties will form the next government," Jansa told reporters, acknowledging defeat.

The State Electoral Commission said the SD had 30.5 percent, compared to 29.3 percent for SDS.

Official results, which will include the votes from abroad that represent some 2.7 percent of the electoral body, are expected by October 1. Turnout was some 62.2 percent, up from 60.7 percent four years ago.

A pensioners party, Desus, that had been a junior partner in Jansa's ruling coalition and is likely to get 7 seats, has indicated it would side with the winner.

"We will wait for the final result but I am an optimist and I think we will win," Pahor, the likely future prime minister, told reporters after preliminary results were announced.

COALITION TALKS LOOM

He said coalition talks would start as soon as the vote count was official. Analysts said they could last for weeks.

The centre-left has ruled Slovenia from its independence in 1991 until Jansa's victory in 2004. All its presidents, including incumbent Danilo Turk, have also been left-leaning.

The new government's priority will be to put a lid on overall spending and curb inflation. The SD has also promised better welfare and lower defense spending.

"It seems voters got tired of the rightist government which probably did not do quite enough to support economic development and was hurt by corruption allegations," said Janez Sustersic, a professor at the University of Primorska.

But he said major changes were not on the cards. "It is possible that a leftist government would be even less determined to lead a policy that would increase competitiveness of the Slovenian economy," he said.

Slovenia is one of 10 mostly former communist states that joined the European Union in 2004 -- the same year it became a NATO member -- and was the first of the newcomers to adopt the euro in January 2007.

While its economy has thrived, thanks to rising exports in the markets of the EU and the former Yugoslavia, inflation has risen steadily, hitting a six-year high of 6.9 percent this summer -- by far the highest in the euro zone.

"We will be happy if the future government will repeat the macroeconomic results we are leaving behind, the lowest level of unemployment in Slovenia's history and the highest growth," Jansa said.

(Reporting by Manca Ulcar and Marja Novak, Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic and Charles Dick)