A doctor from Ghana was voted in as mayor of a Slovenian city on Sunday, becoming the first black mayor in an eastern European country.
Published: 12:26AM BST 25 Oct 2010
Peter Bossman, 54, became mayor of the picturesque seaside city of Piran in the second round of local elections after beating the centre-right incumbent, according to preliminary results.
"My victory shows a high level of democracy in Slovenia," said Mr Bossman, who came to Slovenia from Ghana 33 years ago to study medicine.
He is a member of the Social Democrats, the leading party in the centre-left government.
Mr Bossman had aimed to return to Ghana after completing his studies but changed his mind after marrying a fellow student of Croatian origin and getting his first job as a doctor for tourists visiting the Slovenian seaside.
"I fell in love with this country. Slovenia is my home. Even my first impression of the country was good, it was so clean and green," he said.
Slovenia, an Alpine state of 2 million people, declared independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and became the only former Yugoslav state to join the European Union in 2004.
Some 12 percent of people living in Slovenia were born abroad and only a fraction come from Africa.
Mr Bossman said he had faced no discrimination because of his origin over the past decade.
"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 (immigrants from Africa)," he said.
"But for the last 10 or 15 years I experienced nothing like that any more. I have no problems at all and I think people no longer see the colour of my skin when they look at me."
telegraph
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