Croatia’s pro-Western President Stjepan Mesic comfortably won a second term in an election run-off on Sunday, pledging to step up efforts to lead the former Yugoslav republic to European Union membership.
The state electoral commission gave the 70-year-old liberal 66 percent of the votes with 99 percent of the ballot counted.
Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, the ruling conservatives’ top woman and a close ally of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, trailed on 34 percent.
The president has limited powers under Croatia’s post-communist constitution, but Mesic has vowed to carefully monitor the government’s work in his new five-year term. He will probably oversee the country’s EU entry, planned for 2009.
“Croatia is moving towards Europe. That is our strategic aim and we must be united to realize it,” said Mesic, flanked by dozens of well-wishers.
Croatia is due to start EU accession talks on March 17 if it cooperates fully with the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, particularly in tracking down fugitive general Ante Gotovina.
“What we must now do is create conditions to reach the standards Europe expects us to have as soon as possible and I will fulfil all my obligations in that regard,” said Mesic.
Western diplomats see Mesic as a useful counter-weight to the center-right Croatian Democratic Union, which controls the cabinet and parliament, and praise him for courage in denouncing war crimes committed by Croats during conflicts that tore apart socialist Yugoslavia.
Mesic’s foreign policy adviser Ivica Mastruko said the victory would be greeted as good news in European capitals.
“Mesic guarantees continuity, in terms of relations with Balkan neighbors, with the European Union and with the United Nations war crimes tribunal,” he said.
Mesic emerged as the surprise winner of a landmark ballot in 2000, replacing the late Franjo Tudjman who led Croatia to independence but was later shunned by the West for nationalism.
His laid-back attitude and a knack for witty repartees quickly cemented his popularity, although many nationalists disapproved of his drive to repair ties with neighbors after the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.
“The people did not want the same party to have all key pillars of power. They wanted a head of state who will act as a corrective. And he will be well received in Europe,” said political analyst Zeljko Trkanjec.
