Zagreb - Croats will have a choice of 13 candidates when they vote for their new president on December 27, the daily Vecernji List said Tuesday. Incumbent President Stjepan Mesic has served two five-year terms, the maximum allowed by law.
Recent surveys predict a tight race between two front-runners from the opposition Social Democratic Party: the "official" candidate, Ivo Josipovic, and the party "dissident," Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic.
Both Social Democrats lead against Nadan Vidosevic, the candidate from the ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).
Amid corruption scandals that have recently shaken HDZ, Jospiovic has based his campaign on a pledge to implement a "clean hands" policy, while Bandic is appealing to the growing ranks of economically troubled voters by promising to "stir up" the nation's political scene.
Vidosevic has broken off from the mainstream of HDZ by acknowledging Croatia's economic hardship and insisting on reforms to reverse the recession.
Unless one of the candidates wins more than 50 per cent of the votes cast, which is unlikely, the top two vote-getters will go into a runoff vote on January 10.
One of the candidates, Veljko Dzakula, is an ethnic Serb. His candidacy has been seen as a sign of further relaxation of ethnic relations since the Belgrade-backed, four-year Serb insurgency was put down by Croatia in 1995.
The candidates had to collect at least 10,000 votes to join the race. The state election commission is due to confirm the list by Wednesday morning.
The presidential vote will be the fifth since Croatia claimed independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
There are about 4 million voters in Croatia, which held its last parliamentary elections two years ago, when HDZ won its second consecutive mandate to run the country.
