A total of 1,390 male and female candidates ran in the election, organized into 155 lists.

Five candidates applied for the seat of the representative of the Hungarian "national community" (as minorities are officially called in Slovenia) and only one candidate applied for the seat of the representative of the Italian national community.

In the previous election (2000), fewer than 1000 candidates on 155 lists applied.

In Slovenia, elections in the National Assembly are held in eight voting units, each of which further divides into 11 districts.

The remaining two seats are assigned to the representatives of the Italian and Hungarian minorities, which get elected separately (in the ninth and tenth voting units) by the Borda count.