Clashes ahead of Slovenia vote

Reuters/LjubljanaPolice used water canon to break up rock-throwing protesters in Slovenia’s capital late on Friday after a rally against budget cuts and alleged corruption turned violent two days ahead of a presidential election.Officers said it was the first time they had used that level of crowd control since the country’s independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and 15 people, mostly police officers, were injured.Thousands of Slovenians took to the streets in Ljubljana and six other cities in the financially troubled eurozone country, the latest in a series of protests.“I’m protesting against the government because they are destroying our state, our educational, heath and social systems. “We have to show that we are against them and that they are not untouchable,” a 47-year-old engineer Ziva Brcar told Reuters.Some members of the crowd started throwing granite blocks and firecrackers at police in the capital, where about 30 people were arrested, said police.Slovenia, which joined the eurozone in 2007 when it was the fastest-growing economy in the bloc, was badly hit by the global crisis due to its dependency on exports.It is now in recession and struggling with weak exports, a fall in domestic spending due to budget cuts and increasing unemployment, while local banks are hit by rising bad loans.The conservative government of Prime Minister Janez Jansa this year cut all public sector wages and most social benefits in order to reduce the budget deficit to 4.2% of GDP from 6.4% last year.It plans further budget cuts in 2013 to bring the deficit to about 3% of GDP, normally the maximum level allowed for eurozone members.The country holds a presidential election today with former centre-left prime minister Borut Pahor, who advocates a need for co-operation between the government and the opposition, expected to beat the incumbent centre-left president Danilo Turk.The president, who has a five year mandate, is mostly a ceremonial figure.On Thursday Janza called upon citizens to keep demonstrations peaceful.