Slovene Double 'yes' to Nato and Eu Leaves Pollsters Red-faced

Slovenia decided by a comfortable majority yesterday to join Nato, despite public opposition to the war in Iraq which had clouded the government's chances of winning a referendum.

More than nine out of 10 voters also backed joining the European Union next year, according to poll projections last night.

While the government celebrated, the victories were slightly sullied by the low turnout, with only 45% bothering to vote on a bright spring Sunday in a country where general election turnouts are well above 70%.

According to three exit polls last night, 90-93% of voters gave a green light to joining the EU in what was the first referendum in central Europe among the eight countries joining next year.

If the scale of the EU "yes" verdict was a surprise, the outcome of the Nato ballot was even more unexpected and left the Slovene opinion pollsters embarrassed at their sceptical pre-referendum prognoses.

The three exit polls last night put the pro-Nato vote between 56% and 71%.

The Iraq war had been expected to dampen enthusiasm for the US-led western alliance. On Saturday the Ljubljana newspaper Delo found in a poll that 80% of Slovenes opposed the war. The Slovene government has been the only one in central Europe to resist US pressure for assistance in the Iraq campaign.

Government officials in Ljubljana, the capital of the small former Yugoslav republic, were relieved at the victory in a vote they would rather have avoided.

Slovenia is the only country of seven east European states invited to join Nato last November to ballot the public on their views. All the other governments are refusing to hold referendums. The result clears the way for the winding up of negotiations this week on joining Nato next year.

An anti-Nato campaign led by the large student population of Ljubljana and the middle class gathered such a head of steam that by last month it looked as though the government was losing the argument.

Ljubljana has been decked out for weeks in large posters of a cowboy-clad, gun-toting president George Bush ordering Slovenia to join Nato. In the posters, he makes the verbal gaffe of confusing Slovenes with Slovaks.

But a government campaign, conflating the twin issues of EU and Nato membership through the "at home in Europe, safe in Nato" slogan, paid off despite nervousness at EU headquarters over the tactics.