Almost 1.7 million Slovenians will head to the polls to elect a new parliament in a vote that will determine whether right-wing nationalist Prime Minister Janez Jansa will remain in power. The vote could be critical for Jansa, who has been in office since 2020. He and Robert Golob, the lead candidate of the liberal opposition Freedom Movement, are the main contenders and are roughly neck and neck, according to recent polling. However, neither candidate appears likely to gain an absolute majority in Slovenia's 90-seat national assembly. Jansa has few potential allies among the smaller parties for a coalition government, while Golob, with his new movement, is seen as having good chances of winning the support of the country's other centre-left parties for a possible coalition. Jansa became prime minister in March 2020 after drawing the support of some politicians away from the previous centre-left coalition. Before his third premiership began in 2020, Jansa was prime minister from 2004 to 2008, and again from 2012 to 2013. However, critics say he has sought to curtail media freedom and pays scant respect to democratic values or the rule of law. A close ally of controversial Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, he is also seen as trying to bring the media and judiciary under his control. Australian Associated Press