AKIPRESS.COM - Voters in Slovenia went to the polls on Sunday to decide a runoff election between a sitting president deeply rooted in the political establishment and a former actor who had appealed to the electorate by tapping into concern about the struggling economy, New York Times reported.

With all votes counted after the polls closed at 7 p.m. local time, the incumbent, Borut Pahor — described by one news media outlet as Europe’s Instagram president — received nearly 53 percent, according to results published by Slovenia’s National Election Commission.

His rival, Marjan Sarec, the former actor and mayor of a small town north of the capital, Ljubljana, received a little more than 47 percent of the vote.

Mr. Sarec, 39, congratulated Mr. Pahor, 54, for winning a second term in this tiny Alpine country that was once home to America’s first lady, Melania Trump.

Mr. Pahor, who won a five-year mandate, will become Slovenia’s second two-term president since 1991, when the Slavic nation of two million people gained independence after the collapse of Communist Yugoslavia.

Nearly 42 percent of 1.7 million eligible voters — 715,096 — cast their ballots on Sunday, just under the turnout after the first round, on Oct. 22, when 43 percent of eligible voters in Slovenia cast ballots.

The presidential election is considered a dress rehearsal for next year’s vote for Parliament. The fight for control of the government will pit the right-wing nationalist Janez Jansa, the former prime minister and the current opposition leader, against Dejan Zidan and his left-of-center social democrats.