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Election today Croatian opposition high hopes of victory

ZAGREB: Croatia's opposition has high hopes of putting an end to nine years of rule by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of the late autocratic president Franjo Tudjman in parliamentary elections on Monday.

The alliance of the six main opposition parties, tipped to win by numerous opinion polls, has campaigned on what it says is the need for wholesale change while blaming the HDZ for the country's economic woes.

The opposition alliance is made up two coalitions Ñ the Social Democratic Party of the reformed Communists and the Social Liberal Party on the one hand and on the other, the Liberal Party (LS), the Croatian Peasants' Party (HSS), the Croatian People's Party (HNS) and the Istria Democratic Party (IDS).

Stipe Mesic, an HNS leader said recently: "The HDZ does not have any candidates who are capable of meeting the needs of Croatia. We say that the past belongs to the past and it should not make a comeback".

Mesic said there had been "bad decisions" in the past and that "Croatia must now come out of its isolation and integrate with Europe and Nato. I am convinced the opposition will triumph," said Mesic, who was the last president of former Yugoslavia.

A total of 4,169,028 people are registered to vote in the polls which will be held under a system of proportional representation for the first time since the former Yugoslav republic became independent in 1991.

Tudjman was severely criticised for years by the Americans and the Europeans who accused the HDZ of running the country under a virtual one-party system, gagging the media and controlling the courts, delaying the return of the Serbian minority and pushing territorial claims on neighbouring Bosnia.

According to the latest opinion poll published by the independent weekly Globus, the opposition alliance will win a total of 85 seats compared with only 50 for the HDZ in a parliament of between 145 and 160 members, the upper limit set by the constitution.

"Croatia will likely enter a new era on January 3 and the political movement (HDZ) of president Tudjman will quit power while a medley of parties with different ideologies, uncompromised with the past, will take over," Globus commented.

HDZ, which won 45 percent of the votes in the 1995 elections, has itself said it expects to suffer a 10 percent fall in support on Monday. The HDZ had 75 deputies out of the 127 in the old parliament whose mandate ran out of November 27.

In spite of its varying ideologies, the opposition alliance has appeared united, compared with the HDZ, which has fallen prey to infighting between its radical and moderate wings.

"It is as if Tudjman is being buried for the second time," said the independent daily Novi List, "this time as a political model which almost no one wants to embrace and as a legend which no longer inspires anyone."

Croatia will also stage a presidential election to replace Tudjman on January 2 with a plethora of rival candidates.

But he failed to get unanimous backing from the HDZ leadership which has registered both Granic and the hardline Vladimir Seks as candidates. AFP