Slovenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006

EMA 2006 was the 11th edition of the Slovenian national final format Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA). The competition was used by RTV Slovenija to select Slovenia's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2006.

107 entries were received by RTV SLO, and a jury selected 14 songs to compete in the national final. The competing artists were announced on 24 January 2006.[1]

The final took place on 29 January 2006, hosted by Janez Škof, Aljoša Ternovšek and Boris Koba. 14 songs competed and three voting groups consisting of jury voting, televoting and SMS voting determined the winner.

EMA veteran Saša Lendero and her ethnic dance song "Mandoline", won both the televoting and SMS votes while in the end, the jury decided the outcome and Anžej Dežan with the song "Plan B" won the competition, causing much controversy. This was second time in 3 years that voting jury expelled the televoting winner from their votes. In 2004 also Natalija Verboten with Cry On My Shoulder had won televoting and SMS votes, but the jury gave her 0 points. If they had get only 1 point - both, Lendero in 2006 or Verboten in 2004 would have won this year's Slovenian preselection. Many polemics and discussions were raised after this - people and media wondering if jury did this on purpose. More dispute was caused when accusations were made that the song was a copy of a song called Santa Maria sung by Austrian singer Simone, therefore breaking the contest rules. The European Broadcasting Union, however, did not see it as a copy, and therefore the song was not disqualified.