Sun Jul 13, 2014 5:32am EDT
* Euro zone country narrowly avoided international bailout
* Son of Olympic athlete ahead in polls, aims to lead recovery
* PM frontunner cool on some privatisations (Releads with voting under way, quotes)
By Zoran Radosavljevic
LJUBLJANA, July 13 (Reuters) - Slovenians voted on Sunday in a snap election likely to put political novice Miro Cerar in charge of a quest to fix the country's shaky finances and implement reforms already agreed with the European Union.
If opinion polls prove right, the centre-left Cerar will form Slovenia's fourth government since the financial crisis in 2008 shredded the country's reputation as the best-performing new European Union member.
"I expect people will recognize that Slovenia needs a change and vote for our party," Cerar, 50, a former law professor and parliamentary adviser, said after voting in the capital, Ljubljana.
However, given his reluctance to sell some of Slovenia's major state assets, analysts expect a limited makeover rather than the sweeping change that many believe is needed after the country only narrowly avoided having to seek an international bailout for its banks late last year.
Investors are still nervous about what will happen to a package of measures agreed with the European Commission. Chief among those is the sale of big state enterprises that outgoing Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek put on hold last month until a new government is in place.
Cerar created his Party of Miro Cerar (SMC) barely six weeks ago and shot to the top of opinion polls among voters looking for someone new and untarnished by the corruption scandals that have dogged the mainstream parties.
He owes much of his celebrity to his Olympian gymnast father, one of the greatest sportsmen the small southeast European country of 2 million people has ever produced, and his late mother, a prominent state prosecutor, politician and cabinet minister.
Cerar's main rival is the centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS). Its leader and two-time prime minister, Janez Jansa, was jailed for graft last month for two years.
The new government is unlikely to be in place before mid-September. Cerar is expected to turn to at least two smaller parties to form a coalition government - the Social Democrats (SD) and the Desus pensioners' party.
Both were part of the outgoing cabinet and were reluctant recruits to the toughest of Bratusek's crisis measures, particularly privatisation.
PRIVATISATION IN DOUBT
Cerar has told Reuters he supports a plan to cut Slovenia's budget deficit to three percent of national output by the end of next year, to trim red tape, liberalise the economy and reduce the state's roughly 50 percent stake in it.
But he said he would oppose the sale of companies deemed strategic to Slovenia, among them telecom operator Telekom Slovenia and airport Aerodrom Ljubljana. He said he would support the sale of No. 2 bank Nova KBM, due later this year.
"Given that the most likely electoral outcome will involve a coalition comprised of leftist parties ... the next government will continue to muddle through without dealing with the true underlying problems facing the Slovenian economy," said Egon Zakrajsek, a Slovenian economist at the U.S. Federal Reserve System, stressing that he was speaking on his own behalf.
State meddling in the economy was at the heart of the crisis that began when the global economic downturn hit Slovenia's vital exports. Bad loans exposed years of reckless lending and an economic model that had largely avoided the privatisations pursued by others in Eastern Europe after the Cold War ended.
In December 2013, Bratusek's government poured 3.3 billion euros into the banking system to keep it afloat and avoided becoming the latest member of the 17-nation euro zone to seek a bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
"We want something to change for the better. I think we need new options, younger people in power," said a 69-year old pensioner who gave his name as Dimitar. "I am optimistic; it is already a little better than in the last few years." (Editing by Larry King)
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UPDATE 1-Political novice Cerar bids to win Slovenia snap election
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