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The 2007 Slovenian presidential election was held in order to elect the successor to the second President of Slovenia Janez Drnovšek for a five-year term. France Cukjati, the President of the National Assembly, called the election on 20 June 2007. Seven candidates competed in the election's first round on 21 October 2007; three entered the race as independent candidates, the other four were supported by political parties. Several political events, as well as tension between the Government and the political opposition, overshadowed the campaign. The front runner Lojze Peterle, supported by the governing conservative coalition, won the first round with far fewer votes than predicted by opinion polls. In the second round, held on 11 November 2007, Peterle faced the runner-up, the left-wing candidate Danilo Türk. Türk won the second round in a landslide, with 68.03% of the vote. In a referendum called by the National Council, and held on the same day as the second round of the presidential election, the electorate voted to overturn a law providing for the nationalization of citizens' share in the major national insurance company. Nearly three quarters of the votes were cast against the law.〔 After both election and referendum results were announced, the Prime Minister Janez Janša announced that he might resign, following what he perceived to be a heavy defeat for the Government. The Government later won a vote of confidence in the National Assembly. ==Background== The role of the president of Slovenia is mainly ceremonial. One of the president's duties is to nominate the Prime Minister, after consulting with political groups represented in the National Assembly. The president also proposes candidates for various state offices, as well as judicial appointments to the Constitutional and Supreme Court, which must be approved by the National Assembly. In rare circumstances, the president possesses the power to pass laws and dissolve the National Assembly. The President is also the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Unlike the majority of the government, which is chosen by the National Assembly and elected through proportional representation, the president is directly elected by the majority of Slovenian voters. The previous presidential election in 2002 brought major changes to Slovenian politics. The former president Milan Kučan, in office since the first free elections held in the Republic of Slovenia in April 1990 (before the country's independence from Yugoslavia), was forbidden by the constitution from running for President again, and announced his retirement from active politics. Prime Minister Janez Drnovšek of the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia stood for the office, comfortably winning the runoff against conservative candidate Barbara Brezigar. The 2004 legislative election brought further changes and a political swing to the right. Janez Janša, the leader of a right-wing coalition, formed the new government. In Slovenia, this was the first time after 1992 that the President and the Prime Minister had represented opposing political factions for more than a few months. Between 2002 and 2004, the relationship between President Drnovšek and Janez Janša, then leader of the opposition, were considered more than good and in the first year of cohabitation, no major problems arose. In the beginning of his term, Drnovšek, who was ill with cancer, stayed out of public view. When he reemerged in late 2005 he had changed his lifestyle: he became a vegan, moved out of the capital into the countryside, and withdrew from party politics completely, ending his already frozen membership in the Liberal Democracy. Drnovšek's new approach to politics prompted one political commentator to nickname him "Slovenia's Gandhi". The relationship between Drnovšek and the government quickly became tense. Disagreements began with Drnovšek's initiatives in foreign politics, aimed at solving major foreign conflicts, including those in Darfur and Kosovo.〔 Initially, these initiatives were not openly opposed by the Prime Minister, but were criticized by the foreign minister Dimitrij Rupel, Drnovšek's former collaborator and close political ally until 2004. The disagreements moved to issues of domestic politics in October 2006, when Drnovšek publicly criticised the treatment of the Romani family Strojans. The neighborhood had forced the Strojans to relocate, which in turn subjected them to police supervision and limitation of movement.〔 The disagreements however escalated when the parliamentary majority repeatedly rejected President's candidates for the Governor of the Bank of Slovenia, beginning with the rejection of incumbent Mitja Gaspari. The friction continued over the appointment of other state official nominees, including Constitutional Court judges. Although the President's political support suffered after his personal transformation, the polls nevertheless showed public backing of the President against an increasingly unpopular Government.〔 The tension reached its height in May 2007, when the newly appointed director of the Slovenian Secret Service Matjaž Šinkovec unclassified several documents from the period before 2004, revealing, among other, that Drnovšek had used secret funds for personal purposes between 2002 and 2004. The President reacted with a harsh criticism of the government's policies, accusing the ruling coalition of abusing its power for personal delegitimation and labeled the Prime Minister as "the leader of the negative guys". After years of speculation about his health and intentions, Janez Drnovšek announced in February 2007 that he would not run for president again. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Slovenian presidential election, 2007」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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