(21 Sep 2008)
1. Wide Social Democrat leader, Borut Pahor shaking hands with Premier Janez Jansa
2. Jansa walking out
3. Pahor greeting supporters
4. Pahor and his coalition candidates on stage holding hands together
5. Jansa walking on stage
6. Cutaway of cameras
7. SOUNDBITE (Slovenian) Janez Jansa, Slovenian Prime Minister:
"We wanted to form a majority in parliament to proceed with the development of Slovenia, but obviously we will not have the mandate to do this, so we will have to admit the result of these elections."
8. Jansa giving interview
STORYLINE
Slovenia's opposition Social Democrats held a razor-thin lead over the ruling centre-right party of Premier Janez Jansa in parliamentary elections on Sunday, nearly complete results showed.
But the vote was too close to predict the outcome with certainty.
The Social Democrat leader, Borut Pahor, who, with his two certain allies is close to winning majority in parliament, called his party's results a "success," but did not declare victory.
Jansa would have a much more difficult time trying to cobble together a majority to stay in power. He acknowledged that Pahor and his partners would probably form the new Cabinet.
"We wanted to form a majority in parliament to proceed with the development of Slovenia, but obviously we will not have the mandate to do this, so we will have to admit the result of these elections," he told reporters.
Still, he said his congratulations to Pahor would wait until results are final.
Results from the state-run Electoral Commission showed that, with about 99 percent of votes counted, the Social Democrats held a lead of one percentage point.
The results give the party 29 seats in the 90-seat parliament; Jansa is projected to control 28.
With support of his two certain allies, Pahor will control about 43 seats, just three short of a majority.
Jansa seemed to be in a much less favourable situation: One of his two allies did not make it into Parliament at all, the results showed, making it difficult for Jansa to find allies to challenge the leftist opposition.
The president gives mandate for forming a new Cabinet to a party or coalition that can guarantee that it controls majority of the seats in Parliament.
The Pensioners' Party, a nationalist group, and even two minority representatives, representatives of Italian and Hungarians ethnic minorities, could be kingmakers.
About 1.7 (m) million people were eligible to vote for 90 Parliament members, 88 of whom are elected from political parties and two of whom are chosen by Italian and Hungarian minorities.
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