Former Prime Minister Borut Pahor became President of Slovenia on Sunday after convincingly defeating the incumbent Danilo Tuerk in a runoff election, receiving 67.44 per cent of votes, while Tuerk gained 32.56 per cent, the State Election Commission announced on Sunday night, Hina reports.

Addressing a press conference in Ljubljana, Pahor said that he wanted to win back people's trust in the ability of politicians to deal with problems resulting from the four-year-long economic crisis. He said he would act cohesively and would help the government and the opposition reach an agreement on how to overcome the crisis.

"We can achieve that only if we work together and not against one another," he stressed.

Tuerk congratulated Pahor on the victory, saying that his five-year presidential term was successful and that the future would show the good aspects of his term in office. He said he would remain involved as "an active and informed" citizen interested in a good future for his country.

Prime Minister Janez Jansa also commented on the election result, saying that Slovenia was facing tough challenges and needed both economic and political reforms in order to remove the existing "blockades" not just in the political system but also in the judiciary.

Pahor will be sworn in in Parliament on December 23 as the fourth President of Slovenia after Milan Kucan, Janez Jansa and Danilo Tuerk.

The vote took place against a backdrop of a wave of popular protests last week against the government's policy of austerity and alleged corruption of the political and business elites, and new protests have been announced for this week. The turnout was low as only 42 per cent of 1.7 million eligible voters cast their ballots, which was seen as a sign of voters' disillusionment with the country's political elites and was also partly due to bad weather.