Croats start voting for new head of state

Sunday, December 27, 2009
ZAGREB (Reuters) - Croats started voting for a new president on Sunday, with an opposition candidate who pledges to back the government's anti-corruption drive seen as favorite to win the first round.
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The last surveys released before the weekend 'electoral silence' gave Social Democrat Ivo Josipovic, 52, a clear edge over 11 rivals, but the law professor and composer is unlikely to muster the 50 percent of votes needed for outright victory.
Josipovic, a newcomer with no blemishes in his career but seen as lacking charisma, is likely to face a January 10 run-off against either Milan Bandic, the powerful, populist mayor of Zagreb who was recently expelled from the Social Democrats, or Nadan Vidosevic, a wealthy businessman and former member of the ruling conservative HDZ party.
Voting, which also includes Croats in neighboring Bosnia, ends at 1800 GMT, with exit polls on television immediately afterwards. Official results are due five later.
The HDZ's candidate, former health minister Andrija Hebrang, will not make it to the second round, according to the surveys, which analysts said reflected the electorate's deep discontent with rising unemployment and low living standards.
The winner will replace veteran reformer Stjepan Mesic, whose second five-year term expires in February. All leading candidates back Croatia's efforts to join the EU, a goal Zagreb aims to achieve during the new president's mandate, in 2012.
NEW PRESIDENT FOR NEW ERA
The election comes at a time when Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor's cabinet has stepped up efforts to fight corruption, with several high-level investigations in state companies under way.
The president has a say in foreign policy, security and defense, but no power to veto legislation. Diplomats hope he will back the government's renewed efforts to fight corruption and enforce reforms needed to complete EU entry talks in 2010.
"Croatia needs a civil, post-war, post-transition president... who should turn his back on the legacy of the 1990s," the big-selling Jutarnji List wrote this month.
Led by its first president, the late Franjo Tudjman, Croatia gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and fought a four-year war against rebel Serbs backed by Belgrade. The West criticized Tudjman for his hardline nationalist policies and mishandled privatization of state companies.
The HDZ has been in power almost the entire period since independence. The Social Democrats ruled only from 2000 to 2003, when they started reforms and set the country on course toward NATO and EU membership.
The HDZ's rating sank after Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, the country's dominant political figure, unexpectedly quit in July without giving reasons. Economic woes and corruption further pushed voters toward opposition candidates despite the new prime minister's relatively positive image, analysts say.
(Reporting by Zoran Radosavljevic and Igor Ilic, Editing by Jon Boyle)

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