Presidential candidate Lojze Peterle is veteran of Slovenian politics

: Lojze Peterle is a veteran soldier of Slovenia's politics, from the early 1990s when he helped Pb the state to independency to recent modern times representing it in Europe.

He is now counting on the credits he have picked up to do him the country's 3rd president.

Peterle, 59, finished first in the first unit of ammunition of elections on Oct. 21, but gained only 28.7 percentage of votes. In the overflow ballot on Sunday, he confronts left-leaning longtime diplomatist Danilo Tuerk.

Peterle served as the country's first premier curate when his Christian Democratic Party-led alliance won Slovenia's first multiparty elections in 1990 while it was still a democracy in Communist Yugoslavia. A twelvemonth later, Republic Of Slovenia declared independence.

Peterle later served as foreign curate from 1993-4 and again briefly in 2000. He have been a lawmaker in the European Parliament since 2004. Today in Europe

Peterle basks strong championship from Prime Curate Janez Jansa's center-right coalition, although he is running as an independent. He have got vowed the two would have "cooperative, not competitive" relations.

He also got the support of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who wished him fortune in the elections in a picture cartridge holder posted on his Web site.

Merkel said Peterle "did a batch in making Republic Of Slovenia a outstanding spouse in the European Union today."

Merkel's CDU political political party and Peterle's Nova Slovenia belong to the conservative European People's Party, and the German embassy in Ljubljana emphasized she acted as party leader, not as the chancellor.

Traditionally conservative, Peterle tried to attain both right and left in the first round.

Faced with the weak results, he took a more than aggressive attack for the runoff, questioning Tuerk's loyal credentials, while pointing at his own.

He said that he and others had risked their lives in the attempt to derive independency from Yugoslavia. "I didn't seen Tuerk during that independency drive," Peterle said during a recent television duel. He even suggested that Tuerk had uncertainties about Slovenia's independence.

Tuerk fiercely denied the accusations. Some local mass media criticized it as a vilification campaign.

Peterle also tried to change his mental image as a reserved — even pious — politician. He pointed to decision as his chief trait, spoke of music, the joyousnesses of meeting ordinary people, his avocations and of "falling in love like crazy" with his wife, Branka.

He have acknowledged having malignant neoplastic disease but have offered few inside information — and it never became a political campaign issue.

Peterle talks at least six languages, including English, Russian and French. He is married and have a boy and two daughters.