Peter Bossman, a Ghana-born doctor, is to become the first black mayor in the former East bloc, BBC reports Monday.
Bossman, 54, who ran on the ticket of the center-left Social Democrats (SD), scored a narrow victory - 51.4% of the vote, in municipal elections in the Slovenian coastal town of Piran.
The new mayor, called already the "Obama of Piran," stated his win shows the "high level of democracy in Slovenia".
Bossman arrived in Slovenia in the 1980s, when it was still part of the former Yugoslavia, to study medicine. He initially planned to return to Ghana upon graduation, but changed his mind after marrying a fellow doctor of Croatian origin.
The Ghana native pledges to introduce electric cars in Piran; to develop an airport and a golf course to boost tourism.
"There are always small groups of people not accepting people who are different and in the first months after coming to Slovenia I felt that some people did not want to be with us," he said. But for the last 10 or 15 years, I experienced nothing like that anymore. I have no problems at all and I think people no longer see the color of my skin when they look at me," Bossman is quoted saying.
Source: BBC