Fifteen candidates, including one woman, are running for Mayor of Ljubljana in the 2026 local elections. Zoran Janković is seeking his seventh term and faces 14 challengers who clearly still haven’t worked out how to take on a man who has run Ljubljana for 20 years. Judging by the debates so far, some of them haven’t learnt much from previous elections.
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Besides Zoran Janković (Zoran Janković List), the candidates for Mayor of Ljubljana are Luka Mesec (The Left), Aleš Primc (Voice for Children and Families), Anton Rop (We Are All Ljubljana), Klemen Boštjančič (Freedom Movement), Aleš Vrhovec (SDS), Marko Koprivc (Social Democrats), Matjaž Tomlje (Resni.ca), Mojca Sojar (New Slovenia and Fokus), Kajetan Bajt (Greens of Slovenia), Jasmin Feratović (Pirates), Gregor Novak (Revival), Apolonija Simon (Vesna), Izidor Predan (Christian Socialists) and Aleksandar Repić.
Fifteen candidates is quite a crowd for a city that has been run by the same man for two decades. While it is perfectly legitimate for Ljubljana’s residents to want change, it seems to me that most of his challengers are going about this race the wrong way. Rather than setting out their vision for Ljubljana, they are trying to beat Janković on his own turf. With accusations, scandals, figures and projects that Janković knows far better than they do.
There is one thing you need to understand about Zoran Janković. You do not take him on in his own field, because he will beat you there. However much you may disagree with him, you have to acknowledge that he knows Ljubljana inside out. He knows the projects, the figures, the deadlines, the contractors and the details that his challengers often do not even know. Once a discussion turns to a particular project, he can pull so much information out of his sleeve that his opponents are often left without an answer. That does not, of course, mean he is always right, but it does mean he is very difficult to beat on that ground.
That is precisely why it seems rather pointless when candidates keep trying the same tactics over and over. They drag up old scandals, repeat accusations and try to create the impression that everything Janković has done in Ljubljana is bad. In doing so, they often do him a favour. Janković is a politician who thrives on conflict, and attacks allow him to cast himself as the man who gets things done while others merely oppose him.
If I were running against Janković, which of course I will not be, I would approach the race very differently. I would acknowledge his contribution to Ljubljana’s development, highlight what has been done well and show him respect for the work he has done. Then I would clearly explain why, after 20 years, it is time for a different way of running the city. No personal score-settling, no obsessive hunt for mistakes, and no need to declare everything the current mayor has done a catastrophe.
Ljubljana has enough real problems that deserve discussion. Housing, traffic, access to public services and the city’s future development are all issues where candidates could show what they are capable of and what sort of Ljubljana they envisage. Instead, much of the political debate keeps revolving around Janković. As though there were no other issues at all.
The most recent debate also showed how different the candidates are, and how similarly some of them approach political combat. Everyone would change something, everyone has their own solution, but when it comes to explaining how they would deliver it, the story becomes far less convincing. Janković, meanwhile, can always fall back on his greatest advantage: 20 years of experience at the head of the city and an intimate knowledge of it.
In the 2022 election, he won almost 62 per cent of the vote. The latest Ninamedija poll gives him considerably lower support, 32.3 per cent, while Luka Mesec stands at 23.7 per cent. But polls are not elections, and above all, such figures alone do not tell us who will ultimately win over Ljubljana’s voters.
Will Zoran Janković win another term? I do not know. But I do know that a strategy based mainly on attacking him does not put him to the toughest test. If his challengers want to show that it is time for change, they will first have to prove they can offer more than mere opposition to the current mayor.
After 20 years of Janković running Ljubljana, the question is no longer simply what he has done wrong, but what someone else could do better. Above all, why should Ljubljana’s residents believe them?