OBAMA FROM PIRAMA

Obama from Piran

Our recent U.S. midterm elections may have been nothing to tea bag about, but Slovenia's were.

Two years after a black politician made history in our country, Peter Bossman,MD has been elected mayor of Piran. Piran is Slovenia's biggest coastal town, with a population of 17,000, and Bossman is Eastern Europe's first and only black mayor. This has made headlines across Europe. Local media call him “Obama from Piran.”

Dr. Bossman was born in Ghana, but came to Slovenia in the 1970's, when it was still part of Yugoslavia, to study medicine.

He decided to stay when he married a fellow medical student

from Croatia.

He is a popular family doctor in Piran.

The local paper quotes him, "In the first months after coming to Slovenia I felt that some people did not want to be with us [African immigrants]. But for the last 10 or 15 years … I have no problems at all and I think people no longer see the colour of my skin when they look at me,"

Dr. Bossman also says, "I based my campaign on a dialogue, and I think the dialogue has won."

Now that does sound like Mr. Obama.

and " I plan immediately to introduce electric cars in Piran".

Now that doesn't.

Vlado Miheljak, a political analyst here, said the vote in Piran was a test of whether Slovenia was "mature enough to elect a non-white political representative."

That sounds like (the) US though.

But perhaps you've already heard the news.