Croatia holds second round of presidential elections

Bandic was expelled from the party on the eve of the elections, since he decided to run for the country's top office independently.

As many as 4.1 million voters in the country and 400,000 members of the foreign diaspora, enjoying voting rights, will decide who will be the third runner for the presidency in independent Croatia. Analysts promise the victory to Josipovic, for the time being, with an edge of 10-15 percent of the vote. The public opinion poll agency Totus-Opiniometr predicts even a greater lead of the SDP candidate as against the Zagreb mayor (68.9 as compared with 31.1 percent).

Foreign policy priorities of the two racers differ only slightly: both of them are pro-European, pro-NATO and pro-American. There will be no substantial changes in Zagreb's foreign policy in any outcome of the voting. The results of the first round of elections, held last December 27, showed that educated residents of big cities, including Zagreb, are more sympathetic with Josipovic.

The electorate of Bandic are provinces, a considerable part of young people and his native Herzegovina, concentrating 3.5 percent of Croatian voters. Local Serbs and covertly Belgrade side with the SDP candidate. Serbia hopes that given Josipovic carries the elections, he will help to improve bilateral relations, which landed in the dead-end during the presidency of incumbent President Stjepan Mesic.

Many lawyers and political scientists now believe that not a single side can win a case in the Hague on charges of genocide during the military conflict in the first half of the 1990s. Incidentally, it is quite evident that the coming court hearings will have an extremely negative influence on relations between the two neighbouring countries, which are now "at a freezing point", Kainform cites Itar-Tass. See www.itar-tass.com for full version.