Borut Pahor

Borut Pahor ( born 2 November 1963) is a Slovenian politician who served as President of Slovenia from 2012 to 2022.

He rose to prominence in the late 1980s, when he became one of the strongest supporters of the reformist wing of the Communist Party, led by Milan Kučan and Ciril Ribičič.

After graduating from Nova Gorica High School in 1983, Pahor enrolled in the University of Ljubljana, where he studied public policy and political science at the Faculty of Sociology, Political Science, and Journalism (FSPN, now known as Faculty of Social Sciences, FDV).

He graduated in 1987 with a thesis on peace negotiations between members of the Non-Aligned Movement.

His bachelor's thesis was awarded the Student Prešeren Award, the highest academic award for students in Slovenia.

According to the Slovenian press, Pahor worked as a male model to support himself during his university studies.

Pahor became involved in party politics already in high school.

At the age of 15, he became the chairman of the high school student's section of the Alliance of Socialist Youth of Slovenia in Nova Gorica, the autonomous youth branch of the Communist Party.

In his college years, Pahor joined the ruling League of Communists of Slovenia.

In 1987, he ran for the Presidency of University Section of the Alliance of the Socialist Youth of Slovenia.

This internal election was important, as it was the first election in Yugoslavia organized entirely according to democratic principles.

In the election, in which the members could freely choose between two antagonistic teams, Pahor's team lost to a more liberal faction.

During the political crisis caused by the so-called Ljubljana trial in the spring and summer of 1988, Pahor was the first high-ranking member of the Communist Party to propose that the Party renounced the monopoly over the Slovenian political life, and thus opened the path to full-fledged political pluralism.

In 1989, Pahor co-founded and chaired the Democratic Forum, a youth section within the Slovenian Communist Party established as a counter-force to the Alliance of Socialist Youth, which was now already openly opposing the communists' policies.

The same year, he was appointed to the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Slovenia, thus becoming the youngest member of this body in its history.

As a consequence, the Youth Alliance emancipated from the control of the Communist Party: a process that resulted in the formation of the Liberal Democratic Party in 1990.

Due to this shift, Pahor continued his political career in the main apparatus of the Communist Party.

In 1990, he participated in the Slovenian delegation at the last Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in Belgrade.

In the first free elections in Slovenia in April 1990, in which the communists were defeated by the Democratic Opposition of Slovenia (DEMOS), Pahor was elected in the Slovenian Parliament on the list of the League of Communists - Party of Democratic Reform.

Together with Milan Balažic, Pahor emerged as the leader of the pro-reformist wing of the party, which advocated a clear cut with the communist past and a full-fledged acceptance of free-market economy; they even went so far to propose the merger of the party with Jože Pučnik's Social Democratic Party of Slovenia.

As the party continued to lose support during the whole 1990s, falling under 10% of the popular vote in 1996, Pahor's positions grew in strength.

In 1997, he was elected as its president on a Third way-centrist platform.

In 1997, he was involved in the attempt of creating a common left-wing government between Pahor's United List of Social Democrats, the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia, the Slovenian National Party, and the Pensioner's Party.

Pahor was proposed as Minister of Foreign Affairs in this left-wing coalition government, but the proposal failed to gain a majority in the parliament.

A longtime member and former president of the Social Democrats, Pahor served several terms as a member of the National Assembly and was its speaker from 2000 to 2004.

Instead, the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia formed a coalition with the conservative Slovenian People's Party, based on a centrist platform, which ruled until 2000.

Pahor's Social Democratic party remained in opposition, although it supported the government in several key decisions.

In 2000, Pahor led his party in the coalition with the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia led by Janez Drnovšek.

Pahor was elected speaker of the Slovenian National Assembly (the lower house of the Slovenian Parliament).

This was his first important institutional office.

In 2004, he was elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP).

He previously served as Prime Minister of Slovenia from 2008 to 2012.

Following the victory of the Social Democrats in the 2008 Slovenian parliamentary election, Pahor was appointed as Prime Minister.

In September 2011, Pahor's government lost a confidence vote amidst an economic crisis and political tensions.

He continued to serve as the pro tempore Prime Minister until he was replaced by Janez Janša in February 2012.

In June 2012, he announced he would run for the office of President of Slovenia.

He defeated the incumbent Danilo Türk in a runoff election held on 2 December 2012, receiving roughly two-thirds of the vote.

In November 2017, Pahor was re-elected for a second term against Marjan Šarec.

Pahor was born in Postojna, SR Slovenia, in the former Yugoslavia, and spent his childhood in the town of Nova Gorica, before moving to the nearby town of Šempeter pri Gorici.

His father died at a young age and his mother, Iva Pahor Martelanc, a seamstress and Nazi concentration camp survivor, raised him as a single mother.