A GHANAIAN-BORN doctor has become the first black mayor in Europe’s former communist states, after ousting the incumbent in the picturesque Slovenian port of Piran.
Dr Peter Bossman (54) was quick to play down talk of a possible career in national politics after being dubbed the “Obama of Piran” in Slovenia, a former Yugoslav republic of two million people. There black people are relatively scarce and have never held public office.
“My victory shows a high level of democracy in Slovenia,” said Dr Bossman, a member of the ruling Social Democrats. “I based my campaign on a dialogue and I think the dialogue has won.”
Dr Bossman came to Slovenia in 1977, when it was still part of Marshal Tito’s Yugoslavia. He had planned to return to Ghana after university but instead married a fellow student and stayed in Slovenia, the most prosperous Yugoslav republic, which joined the EU and Nato in 2004.
His first job as a doctor was tending to tourists in Piran, a city of 17,000 people on a pretty bay on the Adriatic Sea. He now runs a private practice and was elected to Piran city council in 1998.
“After more than 20 years in Piran, people don’t see me as a black doctor or a foreigner any more. They see me as a good doctor, a good man,” he said after narrowly beating incumbent Tomaz Gantar in Sunday’s vote.
He said he would not use his growing profile to seek higher office, after campaigning to bring electric cars and an airport to Piran. “I’ve told my patients I’ll be back in my practice. I could not quit my medical career.”
