LJUBLJANA - Slovenian voters on Sunday elected Natasa Pirc Musar, an independent candidate, as the first female president of the country.

Musar will take office on Dec 23 when the second mandate of the incumbent president Borut Pahor expires.

According to preliminary results after about 98 percent of the votes were counted, Musar received 54 percent of the votes against 46 percent going to her rival Anze Logar, who is a former foreign minister and a member of the opposition center-right Slovenian Democratic Party.

In the first round of the presidential election last month, Logar received the most votes among seven candidates with Musar clinching second place. The two best-positioned candidates competed in the second round.

Musar, 54, is a lawyer, a former journalist and a former national Information Commissioner who oversees the security of personal data and general access to public information in the country.

She ran as an independent candidate but was in the second round supported by Prime Minister Robert Golob's center-left Freedom Movement and one of its coalition partners, the Social Democrats.

Although the role of the Slovenian president is mainly ceremonial, the president is the head of the Slovenian army and has the right to nominate many high officials. Most of the nominations have to be confirmed by parliament.