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Slovenia's president says he will offer a mandate to form the government to a right-wing opposition leader whose party won most votes at weekend parliamentary elections in the European Union nation.

Borut Pahor said Monday that former prime minister Janez Jansa should be given a chance to gather a parliamentary majority after his anti-immigrant Slovenian Democratic Party won some 25 percent of the vote on Sunday.

Other parties that have made it into the 90-member parliament have ruled out a coalition with Jansa because of his extremist position. They are more likely to form a centrist coalition.

Pahor says: "I am not obliged to award the mandate to the relative winner of the election, but I will do so because I strongly believe in democracy."