By Marja Novak and Zoran Radosavljevic
LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - Centre-left political novice Miro Cerar led his party to victory in Slovenia's national election on Sunday, pledging to rewrite a package of reforms agreed with the European Union to fix the euro zone member's depleted finances.
The result will test investor nerves, given Cerar's hostility to some of the big-ticket privatisations that the EU says are key to a long-term fix for Slovenia, which narrowly avoided having to seek an international bailout for its banks late last year.
Exit polls and early official results, trickling in from across the country, appeared to confirm victory for the 50-year-old law professor, whose gymnast father was one of Slovenia's greatest ever sportsmen and whose late mother was a prominent politician.
Cerar's SMC party, just six weeks old, won 36.9 percent of the vote, well ahead of the centre-right SDS on 19.2 percent and a string of smaller centre-left parties lining up to join him in government, according to exit polls.
SMC's success is punishment by voters for the traditional parties tarnished by corruption scandals and years of economic turmoil in the ex-Yugoslav republic.
Outgoing Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek called Sunday's snap election after losing public confidence and Cerar will form the fourth government since the 2008 financial crisis, which shredded Slovenia's reputation as an economic trailblazer in ex-Communist Eastern Europe.
The country is now working through a raft of crisis measures agreed with the EU to reduce its budget deficit and remake an economy heavily controlled by the state.
Cerar, however, opposes the sale of telecoms provider Telekom Slovenia and the international airport, Aerodrom Ljubljana, fuelling investor fears of backsliding.
Suggesting he planned to revisit the crisis programme agreed under the previous government, Cerar told Reuters after the exit poll results: "Our party will aim for Slovenia to fulfil its EU obligations but within that we will seek our own ways to reach these goals in the best way for Slovenia."
"I'll do my best to have our privatisation programme in place this year," he said. "This will be one of the priorities of the government."
REFORM DOUBTS
The outgoing government suspended the privatisation process this month pending the formation of a new government, which is not expected before mid-September.
Cerar will have to find other ways to raise cash if he is to meet a target agreed with the EU to slash back Slovenia's budget deficit to 3 percent of output by 2015, from a forecast 4.2 percent this year.
Analysts expect him to turn to the Social Democrats (SD) and the Desus pensioners' party to form a coalition, but he may cast the net even wider in order to shore up support in a country plagued by political instability since the crisis broke.
Both the SD and Desus were part of the outgoing cabinet and were reluctant recruits to the toughest of outgoing Prime Minister Bratusek's crisis measures, particularly privatisation. Bratusek crept over the threshold to enter parliament.
"In the more likely scenario that the center-left assumes power, the next cabinet will likely delay or halt many of the reforms necessary to improve Slovenia's public finances," said Tsveta Petrova, an analyst at Eurasia group.
"Still, the country might see some anti-corruption initiatives in line with Cerar's election campaign."
Cerar created his Party of Miro Cerar (SMC) barely six weeks ago and shot to the top of opinion polls among voters looking for someone new and untarnished by the corruption scandals that have dogged the mainstream parties.
He owes much of his celebrity to his Olympic gymnast father, one of the greatest sportsmen the country of 2 million has produced, and his late mother, a prominent state prosecutor, politician and cabinet minister.
State meddling in the economy was at the heart of the crisis that began when the global economic downturn hit Slovenia's vital exports. Bad loans exposed years of reckless lending and an economic model that had largely avoided the privatisations pursued by others in Eastern Europe after the Cold War ended.
In December 2013, Bratusek's government poured 3.3 billion euros into the banking system to keep it afloat and avoided becoming the latest member of the 17-nation euro zone to seek a bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
(Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Susan Fenton)
