Franc Kangler

Franc Kangler in 2010

Franc Kangler (born 8 July 1965) is a Slovenian politician. He currently serves as the mayor of Maribor, the second largest town in the country.

Kangler was born in Maribor, and attended elementary school in Duplek. He continued his studies at the Secondary Police School in Tacen. After that he obtained a first degree in law and is at the moment completing university studies in law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Maribor.

He was an employee of the Ministry of Interior of Slovenia. In 1995, he became Secretary of the Municipality of Duplek. In 1996, he was elected as a Deputy to the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia for the first time. Currently he is serving his third term of office in that capacity.

Franc Kangler has been a member of the national Commission for the Supervision of the Security and Intelligence Services for ten years. He has also been one of the three members of the Slovenian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly for ten years. He actively participated in several NATO Assemblies, including the ones in Paris, Copenhagen, Orlando, Ottawa, Warsaw, and Prague, as well as in North Atlantic Assemblies in Luxembourg, Ohrid, Bucharest, and Barcelona.

He is Chairman of the Traffic Committee and a member of the Committee on Domestic Policy of the National Assembly. In 2002 he was elected Maribor City Councillor. He is Chairman of the Local Government Commission. He is also President of the Intermunicipal Football Association of Maribor. In addition to that, he is a member of the governing boards of two Maribor institutions: the Firefighting Division and the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor.

Franc Kangler is married and has a daughter.

Controversies

Public riot against Franc Kangler

Franc Kangler has been involved in several scandals during the mayoral career, mostly accusing him of corruption and clientelism. Currently, he is facing ten pre-trial or criminal charges due to different reasons .

In November 2012, The Commission for Prevention of Corruption of the Republic of Slovenia was investigating the case of the public company Farmadent and concluded that Kangler acted in a corrupt manner at the expense of public costs and public companies. . One of his projects, the implementation of the stationary radar system in Maribor, under public-private partnership with the company Iskra Sistemi is still under the investigation.

Due to corruption allegations, pre-trial processes and criminal charges made against him, the citizens of Maribor, Slovenia demanded his resignation in two separated November's protests under the slogan Gotof je! (literally meaning He is done! in Styrian dialect). The Facebook page "Franc Kangler naj odstopi kot župan Maribora" (translated as "Franc Kangler should resign as a mayor of Maribor") has been the first one calling him to submit his resignation, but Franc Kangler refuses to resign..