he spotlight for the second round of what are the sixth local elections in independent Slovenia is on Maribor, where an exit poll is also announced, but the races will be much closer in other cities.

The face-off in Maribor features incumbent Andrej Fištravec and Franc Kangler, a two-time mayor whom Fištravec helped oust in violent protests over corruption allegations in 2012.

The 57-year-old doctor of sociology is the one with clearly better chances for a new term in Slovenia's second biggest municipality, having received 41% in the first round compared to Kangler's 18%. The latest polls also projected that Fištravec is to emerge as winner with 74% of the vote.

Much tighter votes in the "city municipalities category" are meanwhile expected in Kranj and Novo mesto, and especially in Ptuj and Murska Sobota.

In Ptuj, where the present Mayor Štefan Čelan and challenger Miran Senčar were separated by a single vote in the first round, the latest survey saw 50.4% of the respondents backing the latter and 49.6% Senčar.

In Murska Sobota, the municipality with the highest unemployment rate in Slovenia, the situation seems to have changed somewhat after the first round, in which incumbent Anton Štihec got 43.4% and challenger Aleksander Jevšek, a former Slovenian criminal police director, 35%. The last poll indicated Štihec's cushion has shrunk to 0.1 percentage point.

The exit polls for Maribor and Piran, where a clear victory is projected for incumbent Peter Bossman, are expected to be released as soon as the polls close at 7 PM. The results for the remaining municipalities will start coming in later in the evening.

A record-low turnout is expected, since only 45.2% turned out already in the traditionally better attended first round - in the past turnout at local elections revolved at around 60%.