Pro-West president wins second term in Croatia

Croatia’s incumbent president Stipe Mesic promised today to align the former Yugoslav country more closely with the West after overwhelmingly winning a second term in a run-off election.

Mesic, 70, won 66% of the vote late last night, the state-run Electoral Commission said, after nearly all the votes were counted.

His conservative rival, the Cabinet minister in charge of families and war veterans, Jadranka Kosor, had 34%.

Mesic called on all Croatian parties to help build “a modern and just Croatia, a country of all of its citizens”.

Croatia, which gained independence only 13 years ago, “has passed a long way in building its democracy and … that’s why we’re now before the doors of the European Union”, he said.

He also offered a conciliatory hand to the governing Croatian Democratic Union after a fierce campaign, saying: ”Croatia is walking into the mainstream Europe by big steps and now we have to be united.”

Kosor congratulated Mesic, but said that her showing was ”respectable”.

The result gives Mesic a mandate until late 2009, when the nation of 4.5 million people hopes to join the European Union. He is to be sworn in later this month.

It also is a blow to prime minister Ivo Sanader’s party, which returned to power a year ago, and could indicate a trend ahead of local elections in the spring. Mesic was backed by eight opposition parties, as well as minority groups.

Mesic insisted he should keep the post so that the governing party – which only recently distanced itself from its nationalist past to build itself as a European-style centre-right group – would not control all pillars of power.

The president holds a largely ceremonial role, but co-creates foreign policy with the prime minister and influences domestic affairs.

About 4.4 million people – including 400,000 living abroad – were registered to vote yesterday, but the turnout was just above 50%.

Staunchly pro-Western and easygoing by nature, Mesic won his first term in 2000 by casting himself as the opposite of autocratic and nationalist President Franjo Tudjman, who died two months earlier after ruling Croatia for a decade.

Shunned by the West for most of Tudjman’s rule, Croatia is to open membership talks with the European Union on March 17, provided that it fully co-operates with the United Nations court that charged several Croatian generals with war crimes committed during the 1991 war with rebel Serbs.

Mesic has co-operated with the court, which won him praise from Western governments, but enemies among war veterans and nationalists who accused him of betraying the nation.

Kosor had appealed to nationalists, who still have a prominent voice in Croatia, often suggesting that Mesic lacked patriotism and insisting she would put national interests “above all”.

Mesic vowed to maintain good relations with the United States, even though he opposed the US-led war in Iraq, insisting that it should have been authorised by the United Nations.

He also opposes exemption of US troops from prosecution before the International Criminal Court.

In a recent AP interview, he said it would be “illogical” to send Croats to war crimes trials while sparing American troops.