Presidential elections were held in Croatia on 27 December 2009 and 10 January 2010. Twelve candidates participated in the first round, prior to a run-off between first-round winner Ivo JosipoviÃÂ and runner-up Milan BandiÃÂ. In the run-off, JosipoviÃÂ won a landslide victory, receiving 60.3% of the vote becoming the first elected president nominated by the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP). The incumbent president Stjepan MesiÃÂ, who was first elected in 2000 as the candidate of the Croatian People's Party and re-elected in 2005 as an independent, was ineligible to seek re-election to a third term due to term limits.
As the incumbent was ineligible for re-election, several candidates took the opportunity to run for the presidency. Most mainstream Croatian political parties participated in the elections either by nominating a candidate or endorsing one. The relatively low nomination threshold (ten thousand signatures in a country of four million voters), turmoil in the largest political party (Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ) due to the departure of long-time leader Ivo Sanader and the ongoing economic crisis, as well as a significant one-man revolt in the second-largest party (Social Democratic Party of Croatia, SDP), led to a record number of candidates contesting the elections.
In the first round, the left of centre vote was split between 3âÂÂ4 candidates, while the right of centre vote was split between 5âÂÂ6 candidates. Owing to the increased fragmentation of the right, two candidates who were both long-time members of SDP progressed to the run-off. The election polls accurately predicted the winner, while the runner-up projections were usually within a statistical margin of error, lifting many candidates' hopes and enabling a sense of drama stirred by the Croatian media.
The second round was marked by more intense polarization. The BandiÃÂ campaign shifted their political message significantly to the right, with the JosipoviÃÂ campaign put on the defensive. However, a sudden reappearance of Sanader interrupted the election campaign and cemented JosipoviÃÂ's advantage; in the end, he won by a large margin, and was inaugurated as the third President of the Republic of Croatia on 18 February.
After serving two consecutive five-year terms, the incumbent president Stjepan MesiÃÂ was not eligible to run in the 2009 election.
The elections officially began on 4 November, with the start of the period for the collecting of signatures needed to become an official candidate. Each candidate had 12 days to collect 10,000 written signatures from citizens who are eligible to vote. After the 12 days expired, the signatures were verified and on November 18 the State Electoral Commission announced the 12 candidates that managed to collect the necessary number of signatures. The next day the official 37-day campaign began and went until 24 hours before Election Day, which happened to be Christmas Day, midnight.
The first round was held on 27 December and no candidate managed to obtain 50% + one vote, so a second round was held on 10 January 2010 between the two candidates that achieved the most votes, Ivo JosipoviÃÂ and Milan BandiÃÂ. Each candidate could have withdrawn from the election at any time.
Although officially the campaign started on 19 November, in reality it began as early as summer of 2009. The main political parties had not yet announced their nominees for president in the summer, but certain high-ranking politicians had expressed their interest in running very early.
The governing HDZ saw considerable drama in selecting their candidate for president. Ever since late 2008, there was much speculation that prime minister Ivo Sanader would run for the presidency, although he frequently denied such speculation. After the local elections, the speculation grew as no other candidates publicly hinted they would run. However, Ivo Sanader unexpectedly decided not only to not run for the presidency, but to resign as prime minister and retire from active politics altogether, announcing his decision on 1 July 2009.
Sanader nominated Andrija Hebrang as the party's candidate for president, a decision that was backed by the remainder of the party's presidency after a while, but not before widespread rumours started about the HDZ member Nadan Vidoà ¡eviÃÂ, a prominent businessman, being the presidency's favorite candidate. Vidoà ¡eviàhowever rejected these claims. Hebrang also hesitated before accepting the party nomination, explaining it with health reasons. Vidoà ¡eviàformally announced his bid as an independent candidate on September 2, and was expelled from his party soon after that. Also, Ivo Sanader was not the only member of the cabinet to resign as Minister of Education Dragan Primorac also announced his retirement on the very same day as the prime minister. There was much speculation that Primorac resigned as he was not his party's candidate for president and that he resigned so he could run as an independent. The speculation proved to be true and Primorac announced his candidacy on 9 November 2009. He was then also ejected from HDZ membership.
The Social Democratic Party of Croatia also saw some controversy in the process of nominating a candidate. Immediately after the 2009 local elections and Milan BandiÃÂ's landslide victory in Zagreb as a candidate of the Social Democrats, there was much talk of his potential candidacy for president. Before the election, many influential members of SDP urged Zoran MilanoviÃÂ, the president of the party, to intervene and nominate someone other than BandiÃÂ, referring to numerous corruption and malversation allegations made against him during his tenure as the mayor of Zagreb. However, MilanoviÃÂ denied the widespread rumours about internal turmoil and publicly supported Milan BandiÃÂ in the mayoral campaign, making him the target of an open letter signed by many prominent left-wing intellectuals, in which they attacked BandiÃÂ and endorsed Josip Kregar. Although MilanoviÃÂ dismissed these charges, SDP conspicuously put BandiÃÂ at the bottom of the electoral list for the city council, which prompted further accusations of hypocrisy from their opponents.
On 20 June the SDP presidency chose two of their members of parliament as candidates for the SDP nomination: Ivo JosipoviÃÂ, a law professor and known jurist, and Ljubo JurÃÂiÃÂ, an economics professor and former Minister of the Economy, Labour and Entrepreneurship. Other candidates were allowed to be submitted, however, Milan BandiÃÂ refused. On 12 July a primary election was held between the two social democrats and Ivo JosipoviÃÂ won with 64.78% of the vote from around ten thousand party members.
However, the 'BandiÃÂ problem' escalated in the coming months as the media continued to speculate about his potential candidacy. BandiÃÂ started to travel throughout Croatia without a stated common agenda, and the press followed his every step and constantly asked him if he would run for the presidency. He consistently refused to comment, drawing more and more media attention with his indecisiveness. Finally, the drama was concluded when he officially announced his candidacy for president in a speech on 5 November at 7 am on Sljeme criticizing Zoran MilanoviÃÂ and his former party for turning against him saying that he was one of the founders of SDP emphasizing that he stood with the party through the good and the bad times. BandiÃÂ was automatically expelled from SDP, losing his position as a member of party's presidency and leader of the Zagreb branch of SDP. Despite that, he declared on Croatian national television HRT that he still finds himself as true Social Democrat and that he'll proudly keep his SDP membership card nr. 2. SDP later made a statement that BandiÃÂ's membership card number was 38159.
By the time the nominations period started, most major political parties nominated their candidates for president:
The major independent candidates originating in the two largest parties are:
Several other candidates also had a history of association with major parties:
Political party candidates were selected within party elections, or were elected by party bodies, and they are the party's sole official candidates. All parliamentary parties have a policy to support only one candidate, and if their member announces an independent nomination, he or she automatically loses their party membership. Parliamentary parties that do not candidate their member for the president, usually publicly support someone. These parties can be listed on the electoral list for the president, but sometimes their support is just a public endorsement. Regional-right wing HDSSB supported independent candidate Milan BandiÃÂ, and regional-centrist PGS supported independent Nadan Vidoà ¡eviÃÂ.
After the election, the Constitution does not allow the President to be a member of any political party so he or she must resign from membership, if there is one.
Out of 19 persons who submitted signatures to the State Electoral Commission, 13 of them were regular, but one of them withdrew. The following 12 candidates ran for Sunday, December 27, 2009, presidential elections.
The official campaign began on 19 November as the country's electoral commission announced the 12 candidates eligible to run. Andrija Hebrang collected more signatures than any other candidate with over 140,000, Ivo Josipoviàwas second with just under 120,000, Milan Bandiàcollected around 60,000, Vesna Pusiàjust under 50,000, while Dragan Primorac and Nadan Vidoà ¡eviàeach collected over 30,000 signatures. At the beginning of the campaign, most polls showed Josipoviàwith a healthy lead over his opponents. Although Hebrang held the second spot in most opinion polls during the summer, he fell to as low as fifth place by November. He claimed opinion polls have never been kind to his party as most conservative voters refuse to participate in them and expressed conviction that come Election Day he will be the victor. Despite BandiÃÂ's indecisiveness, he held second or third place in most polls during autumn. After he officially announced his campaign, most political observers expected him to get a bump in the polls, however that never materialized. After announcing his candidacy he continuously dropped in the polls, but still managed to claim second or third place. Nadan Vidoà ¡eviàled most polls during 2008 and early 2009, but never managed to take the lead after officially becoming a candidate.
Josipoviàbased his campaign on the slogan 'Justice for Croatia' and kicked off his campaign with a rally in front of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. He attacked the current Croatian government and the prime minister Jadranka Kosor for ignoring the needs of the little man and criticized her for not dealing with corruption. Andrija Hebrang started the campaign with patriotic rhetoric with the slogan 'For a proud and European Croatia'. He praised Jadranka Kosor and her policies, mostly criticizing Dragan Primorac and Nadan Vidoà ¡eviàfor abandoning their party, calling them deserters and traitors of their party. He argued that he offered Primorac and Vidoà ¡eviàan opportunity to settle the question of who will be their party's nominee for president through a primary challenge stating that they both refused.
Nadan Vidoà ¡eviàused his knowledge of economic issues to gain popularity during the 2008 financial crisis. He emphasized his business success during the 1990s as well as his post as the president of the Croatian Economic Chamber (CEC). However, the press continuously raised the subject of his estate and property and how was he able to amass such an enormous wealth in a short period of time. He usually responded saying that everything he has he built with hard work and smart business moves. On 9 December Dragan Primorac accused Vidoà ¡eviàof nepotism and criminal, claiming that he employed three of his nephews in the CEC and that his secretary was related to him. Vidoà ¡eviàresponded by saying he does not need someone who hits women teaching him moral lessons referring to allegations made to Primorac long ago which claimed he beat his former partner. Primorac accused Vidoà ¡eviàof lying and threatened a lawsuit if he did not apologize to him and his wife. During a debate held on 10 December Primorac and Vidoà ¡eviàexchanged insults, Vidoà ¡eviàrepeating his allegations and Primorac demanding an apology. Finally, on 14 December Primorac announced he will be pressing charges against Vidoà ¡eviàclaiming he caused great emotional damage to him and especially his wife. Vidoà ¡eviàresponded by saying Primorac would do anything to gain attention saying his campaign was falling apart.
Milan BandiÃÂ avoided most debates saying he was a man of work, not of words. Most political pundits, however, thought he was afraid of confronting the other candidates as he usually tends to perform badly in debates. He based his campaign on the message that he was just one of the people, not an intellectual, but an ordinary hardworking patriot. Vesna PusiÃÂ heavily emphasized her gender in the campaign claiming it was time for a woman to make it to PantovÃÂak. Most commentators noticed she made the biggest change of image during the campaign out of all candidates claiming she lost her strict appearance of a professor becoming more accessible and open about her personal life. She based her campaign on her liberal and pro-European positions as well as her foreign policy experience.
The presentation of candidates on national television is customarily a contentious issue, with minor candidates complaining of lack of coverage and the major candidates complaining about dilution of campaign on fringe issues. Croatian Radiotelevision, as the public television operator, is legally obliged to give each candidate equal airtime, and they all got a half-hour interview in the late prime-time political show "Otvoreno". There were three televised debates held in the first round. The first was held on 20 November on HRT with 10 candidates present. Andrija Hebrang and Boris Mikà ¡iàrefused to attend claiming they were discriminated on all national television networks. The second was held on 10 December on Nova TV hosted by Mislav Bago. Five candidates that were ahead in the polls were present, Ivo JosipoviÃÂ, Nadan Vidoà ¡eviÃÂ, Andrija Hebrang, Dragan Primorac and Vesna PusiÃÂ. Milan Bandiàrefused to attend. The main topics were the fight against corruption, the economy and the European Union. A poll conducted after the debate showed Vesna Pusiàwon the debate with 30% of those polled responding she did best, with Ivo Josipoviàcoming in second with 26%. The poll also showed Ivo Josipoviàwas the most specific in his answers with Vesna Pusiàfollowing closely. The audience considered Nadan Vidoà ¡eviàthe most likable and Andrija Hebrang the most entertaining. The final debate was once again held on HRT on 22 December and was the only one with all 12 candidates present. The main topics of discussion were campaign spending, corruption and the suggestion of removing political immunity. There were four debates planned with the final one to be held on Nova TV on 23 December with six major candidates to be present. However, the six candidates behind in the polls objected saying they were discriminated by Nova TV, particularly Josip JurÃÂeviàwho threatened to sue the television station and filed a complaint against it to the country's electoral commission. Finally, Nova TV canceled the scheduled debate and called for the change of Croatia's laws concerning media coverage of presidential campaigns.
By Croatian law all presidential candidates are required to publicly disclose the amount they have raised and spent throughout the official campaign. They submit it through a standardized form to the State Election Committee (, DIP).
The first set of statistics was reported by the candidates before the final week of the campaign. The final amounts were reported to the DIP with the final deadline of January 25, 2010, and have been reported in Narodne novine.
In addition to the input statistics, Croatian NGOs GONG and Transparency International Croatia have decided to hire a media analysis agency which calculated the amount of money that was necessarily spent on advertising on television, radio and print media. They point out that this is only the observable media spending, while they estimate actual cost to be in excess of twice the amount spent on the media.
All numbers apart from votes are in Croatian kunas.
Immediately after the official results were published shortly after midnight 28 December and it was clear the two candidates to face in a runoff would be JosipoviÃÂ and BandiÃÂ all the major candidates gave their speeches. JosipoviÃÂ called for voters to vote for the light, not for the dark, while BandiÃÂ insulted JosipoviÃÂ saying he was a pawn of Zoran MilanoviÃÂ and nothing more than his remote-control. The following morning the official campaign for the second round began. JosipoviÃÂ denied being an SDP project calling himself independent and accusing BandiÃÂ of being a remote-control of Ivo Sanader, referring among other things to claims by Dragan Primorac that BandiÃÂ was the favorite of the former prime minister. BandiÃÂ denied the rumors, however the following day the media published a story claiming that BandiÃÂ and Sanader had a secret lunch that very day in a Zagreb restaurant. BandiÃÂ denied the rumors calling the journalists who published the story liars, saying the media's favorite is JosipoviÃÂ and that they would do anything to discredit him.
On Monday 28 December, the first day of the runoff campaign, the incumbent president Stjepan MesiÃÂ indicated that he supports Ivo JosipoviÃÂ to be his successor. He praised his manifesto and said Croatia needs a president working actively against corruption and for justice. He also insulted Milan BandiÃÂ saying it was impossible he only spent 3 million kuna for the campaign saying he knows how much a campaign costs. He pleaded for more transparency and called on him to release the names of those who were really financing his campaign. BandiÃÂ responded by saying that MesiÃÂ hasn't released the names of his donors to this day and that he was a part of both of his campaigns so he knows how nontransparent they were. MesiÃÂ called BandiÃÂ a liar saying he was the only one in those days to release the name of every single person who contributed to his victory. He said his campaign reports were published, on Croatian, not English, clearly referring to the fact that BandiÃÂ couldn't speak proper English. He also suggested there could be one debate held entirely in English, mocking BandiÃÂ since he previously claimed he speaks the language. BandiÃÂ responded saying he would be glad to attend that debate only if MesiÃÂ was moderating it, referring to the fact that the president himself was also not an English speaker. He also called the president an 'old man' saying it was only natural he forgot about the help he provided him during his two campaigns.
On 29 December JosipoviÃÂ gave a speech on an SDP convention held in Rijeka where he said that with the following presidential election the political map of Croatia would change forever and that by the next parliamentary election Croatia would be colored red, referring to his party's official colour being red. BandiÃÂ did not waste time and the next day attacked JosipoviÃÂ arguing that the next president should not be biased once again repeating his claim that JosipoviÃÂ is nothing more than a pawn of Zoran MilanoviÃÂ who would work in his benefit if he should win. The prime minister Jadranka Kosor also criticized JosipoviÃÂ's remarks as unfitting.
The first two second-round debates were held on the same evening, 30 December, the first on HRT starting a couple of minutes after 8 p.m., and the second on Nova TV starting a couple of minutes before 10 p.m. During the debates JosipoviÃÂ emphasized his untarnished political career as well as his knowledge of the law and the Constitution. He defended himself from attacks made by BandiÃÂ earlier in the week that he was one of those responsible for writing criminal indictments against Croatia's generals during the war, denouncing the claims as flat-out lies, saying that he offered legal aid to captured Croatian soldiers during the war.
The most direct attack by BandiÃÂ on JosipoviÃÂ came at the very end of the first debate when he accused him of damaging the city of Zagreb in 1998 by allegedly abusing his position as the head of the oversight board of a savings bank Zlatica to make a series of financial maneuvers that enabled him to collect his deposit of 138,000 Deutsche Marks from the bank Komercijalna banka that had been blocked and later went bankrupt. BandiÃÂ cited a court ruling from 2006 that had invalidated those maneuvers. JosipoviÃÂ defended himself saying that was merely a civil case which he was not even a part of and that he did not commit any illegal actions. JosipoviÃÂ also had to defend his damaging quotation that Croatia would be coloured red by the next election, saying that it was only natural for a political party to be ambitious saying he does not consider the remarks to be unfitting repeating once again that, if elected, he would be the president of all citizens.
The issue of whom Ivo Sanader supports unexpectedly escalated when Sanader announced he was returning to active politics at a Sunday, January 3 press conference, which resulted in a blitz uproar among the coalition partners, and subsequently his ejection from the HDZ party. President Mesiàattacked Bandiàsaying the former prime minister returned to support him, trying to once again link Bandiàto the most unpopular politician in the country. Bandiàdenied such claims calling them lies and distractions and once again accused Josipoviàof being a pawn of Zoran MilanoviÃÂ. At the same time, BandiÃÂ's ally à ½eljko Kerum publicly stated that Ivo Sanader would be an "ideal president", but afterwards he backtracked somewhat, while repeating his well-known attitude on how the media is biased against him and BandiÃÂ.
Milan BandiÃÂ heavily used religion as an issue in the campaign, calculating that JosipoviÃÂ's agnosticism would be a turn-off for a largely Catholic country as Croatia. He constantly repeated the only one he fears is God and that he was raised as a true believer and a humble Christian, also making claims that he has the support of the Catholic Church. JosipoviÃÂ largely ignored BandiÃÂ's attempts saying he would be the president of all Croatians no matter their religious beliefs. The incumbent president Stjepan MesiÃÂ was elected twice despite his atheism. However, the BandiÃÂ campaign used all tactics to force the issue, even distributing fliers in front of churches after the Sunday mass across the country urging believers to choose between the cross and a red star, referencing communism.
Eventually, JosipoviÃÂ responded to the other side's discrediting tactics based on religion as well as the savings fund affair by raising the issue of how BandiÃÂ had divorced his wife in 1996 and because of that managed to buy out another apartment from the government with a discount, claiming BandiÃÂ violated the most sacred sacrament of marriage with the intent of making profit. BandiÃÂ responded in outrage saying he went through great emotional pain during his divorce saying JosipoviÃÂ was not a man unless he apologized.
On 3 January the third debate took place, hosted by RTL Televizija. The main topics were the return of former prime minister Ivo Sanader to the political scene, the economy, taxes and foreign relations, especially with Slovenia. BandiÃÂ once again repeated he was a man of work who would do anything for the people, while JosipoviÃÂ demonstrated his knowledge of law and foreign policy. On the next day, the results of a second set of election polls were published, showing BandiÃÂ made some gains, but JosipoviÃÂ's support was mostly unchanged.
The Josipoviàcampaign released a list of 20 Croatian generals who allegedly supported him in the second round. This endorsement was subsequently used in campaign advertisements by JosipoviÃÂ. One of these generals, Nojko MarinoviÃÂ, denied any participation in the endorsement, calling it a "coarse manipulation". Petar JanjiÃÂ-Tromblon was also listed and he released a statement denying his support, saying he "doesn't want to be part of their games". The name of Tihomir Blaà ¡kiàwas also floated in the media in this context. Josipoviàwas confronted about it during the third debate, and he claimed that the disavowals were made because of peer pressure. The Bandiàcampaign also released their own list of associations of Croatian defenders who allegedly supported him in the second round, including the Association of the 105th Brigade of the Croatian National Guard, but the war-time commander of the 105th Brigade of the Croatian Army Stjepan Ivaniàcame forward to state that their association was both named and listed wrongly and said that their members were "appalled by the disinformation".
The BandiÃÂ campaign created a negative campaign television ad that used a recording of JosipoviÃÂ's words, but after the JosipoviÃÂ campaign complained, the State Election Committee banned it as a violation of campaign rules, while BandiÃÂ campaign complained of censorship. They eventually released a modified version of the same ad, just avoiding the use of JosipoviÃÂ's own voice.
The January 7 debate on Nova TV was held at 21:45, moderated once again by Mislav Bago. The two candidates had a somewhat more intense exchange regarding most issues previously discussed in the campaign. They once again compared tenure in the League of Communists of Croatia and SDP, their personal properties as well as moral values. JosipoviÃÂ called on BandiÃÂ to compare their physical and stock properties in court, which the latter refused. There was some talk of endorsements, and some reflections on talking points. They finished in a more cordial tone with the mention of future private visits as well as family pets.
The last debate occurred on January 8 on HRT, moderated by Branimir BiliÃÂ. Most common topics were covered once again, ending with some larger themes of international politics such as global warming and the inequality of the third world.
The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) stated that they will not endorse any candidate in the second round, and have censored local branches that attempted to explicitly endorse BandiÃÂ. This happened to HDZ's mayor of Zadar Zvonimir VranÃÂiÃÂ who first endorsed him but later disclaimed official support, and also to the HDZ branch of Makarska which also retracted their support under threat of sanction.
The Catholic Church in Croatia claimed that they're neutral in this; the Croatian Bishops' Conference states that they never endorse anyone. But, there are some signs of subtle pro-BandiÃÂ attitude: Croatian archbishop Josip BozaniÃÂ was visited by Milan BandiÃÂ in the Archbishop's office on January 2. The editor of the official church gazette Glas Koncila Ivan MikleniÃÂ, otherwise known as a vocal critic of President MesiÃÂ, did not endorse any candidate and instead expressed disappointment with both candidates, but later made statements that were interpreted to favor BandiÃÂ. During the campaign, numerous minor violations related to Church members were observed by GONG, in favor of BandiÃÂ.
Many first-round candidates endorsed the second-round candidates, but some made public statements regarding the second round but did not endorse. Dragan Primorac made several public statements - he initially tried to stay completely neutral, but later released one where he listed some characteristics of the future president that he would want, without naming a candidate, but focusing on the fight against corruption. The reception was mixed â VeÃÂernji list said he chose no one, while Jutarnji list said that he chose JosipoviÃÂ, reading between the lines. The Josipoviàcampaign later decided to include Primorac in their endorsement list and Primorac did not seem to come forward with a public rebuttal. On the other hand, Josip JurÃÂeviàmade a late public statement telling voters to void their ballot.
These following amounts were submitted to the DIP before the final week of the campaign. The rest will be delivered and published after the second round. The amount spent calculation was done by GONG and TIH for the same period.
All numbers apart from votes are in Croatian kunas.
The first round of the election saw the lowest turnout of any presidential election in Croatia's history with only 43.96% of all the citizens eligible to vote participating in the election compared to 50.57% five years ago and 62.98% ten years ago. Most political observers noted the public's increasing distrust in politicians and the political system as the main reason for the low turnout.
Nationwide, Ivo JosipoviÃÂ obtained 32% and Milan BandiÃÂ 14%, meaning the two of them combined achieved less support than Stjepan MesiÃÂ did in 2005 in the first round only. The fact that there were only three actual left-leaning candidates meant the left was relatively united under JosipoviÃÂ, while the votes of the right were spread out on several prominent candidates, including BandiÃÂ, which was one of the reasons why no right wing candidate managed to qualify for a run-off. As such, this election became historic as a run-off would feature two candidates once in the same party, JosipoviÃÂ, who rejoined SDP a year before the election, and BandiÃÂ, who left SDP a month before the election so he could run as an independent.
The candidate of the governing centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) Andrija Hebrang came in third with 12% of the vote, a result noticeably better than most polls had predicted, but still seen by many as a debacle for HDZ as he achieved the lowest ever result for the party on a national level and also became their first presidential candidate not to secure a second round since Mate Graniàin 2000. Nadan Vidoà ¡eviÃÂ, who was seen by many as a front-runner for the presidency in the beginning of the year, came in fourth with 11% of the vote. Dragan Primorac was the third prominent right-wing candidate who invested huge sums in his campaign, but in the poll he achieved only 6%, lower than what many polls had predicted. Primorac was indeed surpassed even by the centre-left candidate Vesna Pusiàwho was fifth, obtaining 7.25%.
No other candidate achieved more than 5% on a national level. Left-wing Damir Kajin made a decent showing in his home county, but was nevertheless surpassed by the right-wing Miroslav TuÃÂman in the overall tally. Slavko Vukà ¡iÃÂ's final number of votes was even smaller than the number of signatures that originally supported his nomination.
Josipoviàcarried all 21 counties except for two, the LikaâÂÂSenj County which was carried by Andrija Hebrang and the Istria County carried by Damir Kajin. He also won the all major cities including the capital of Croatia, Zagreb, a sort of embarrassment for Bandiàwho is the mayor of the city. Bandiàhad won the 2009 Zagreb local elections with almost 150,000 votes just seven months prior, but with a turnout of 41.69%/33.62% and under the SDP banner. This time he won only some 59,000 votes or 15.64% in Zagreb, with a local turnout of 52.40%.
As all the polls around the country closed at 7 p.m., the first exit polls were published by the major television networks. They showed Ivo Josipoviàeasily claiming first place, but failing to obtain an outright majority winning 32%. The polls showed Milan BandiÃÂ, Andrija Hebrang and Nadan Vidoà ¡eviàin a statistical tie with each of them achieving 14%, 12% and 11% respectively. Andrija Hebrang's third place was seen as a great success as most opinion polls before the first round showed him with only single-digit approval, while Nadan Vidoà ¡eviÃÂ's placing was seen as a disappointment since most polls before the vote showed him battling for second place with Milan BandiÃÂ. The polls predicted Vesna Pusiàand Dragan Primorac would be the only other candidates to pass 5% with each of them collecting 7% and 5% respectively. In 2007, during the parliamentary election, all exit polls predicted SDP would narrowly win, when in the reality HDZ turned out as the victor. With that in mind, Andrija Hebrang expressed conviction that when actual results were published, he would overtake Bandiàand qualify for second round. He claimed that exit polls do not take into account the votes coming from the citizens living abroad and that conservative voters do not participate in exit polls as much as liberal voters. However, the exit polls predicted the outcome almost perfectly as the country's electoral commission's results later confirmed.
Ivo JosipoviÃÂ gave a short speech after the exit polls were announced saying he was confident the official results would match the results they predicted. After the official results were published, he gave a victory speech shortly after midnight thanking his colleagues and especially his voters for their support and expressed conviction he would be the victor once again two weeks later. He said the citizens of Croatia have a choice between the light and the dark, with him being the light, referring to his untarnished political record, and BandiÃÂ being the dark, referring to his allegations of corruption. Milan BandiÃÂ arrived to his campaign headquarters just a couple of minutes before midnight and just a couple of minutes after the results were announced he gave his speech. He congratulated all the other candidates and said a new race began that night. He said he would be an independent president, not a remote-control of Zoran MilanoviÃÂ and accused JosipoviÃÂ of being a project of the highest-ranking members of SDP. He claimed Croatia needs a president that works for them, not for his party. While he was speaking, most television networks were showing scenes from JosipoviÃÂ headquarters in the corner, with MilanoviÃÂ observing BandiÃÂ's remarks. During the middle of his speech, right when BandiÃÂ was bashing his former party and its leader, JosipoviÃÂ came to the stage and all television stations switched to hear what he had to say.
Andrija Hebrang accused his party's dissidents, Vidoà ¡eviàand Primorac, as well as most right-wing candidates for 'stealing' his votes saying the result was that two left-wingers would face-off in the second round. Despite this, he called the election a great victory of the right claiming that right-leaning candidates combined achieved better results that left-leaning candidates combined. In making this assertion, he failed to consider Bandiàas left-leaning, and ignored Vidoà ¡eviÃÂ's appeal to the left-leaning voters as well. Vidoà ¡eviàconceded defeat saying that one should never blame his failures on others, but himself. He urged the public to continue believing in a better tomorrow saying that Croatia should be a country of knowledge and justice, not of corruption and divisiveness. Pusiàgave a short teary speech calling Croatia a country with a lot of potential with only the right leadership. She also noted that no government would ever be able to win without the support of HNS. Primorac said he would be forming a new party which would be independent from both HDZ and SDP and said he saw a bright future for Croatia.
This election night also saw great drama with the war of the television networks. Nova TV and RTL Televizija organized the exit polls together and offered HRT to participate, however HRT refused claiming they were unaware exit polls would be permitted as electoral silence lasted until midnight. HRT showed the results of the exit polls during their prime-time news show Dnevnik. Nova TV and RTL Televizija objected and demanded HRT to pay for distributing their polls.
The first round of the election saw the lowest turnout for any Croatian presidential election ever, so many political pundits at the beginning of the runoff campaign predicted an even lower turnout for the second round. However, as the campaign started to become more heated and the electoral body more divided, it was evident the runoff election would have a greater turnout than the first round. The increase in turnout was 277,661 people, of which 268,166 cast valid votes. Overall, 50.13% of citizens who are eligible to vote fulfilled their public right. That's a little more than 6 percentage points higher turnout than the first round and on pair with five years ago, but 10 percentage points less than 10 years ago and the lowest turnout for a runoff presidential election ever.
Nationwide, Ivo JosipoviÃÂ achieved 1,339,385 votes, or 60.26%, while Milan BandiÃÂ won 883,222 votes, or 39.74%. Most polls before the election were showing JosipoviÃÂ with a hefty double-digit lead, but never as much as 20 percentage points as he achieved during the election. The difference between the two candidates came as a surprise to many pundits and analysts for two reasons: the polls usually favor the more liberal candidate since left-leaning voters tend to participate in opinion polls more than conservative voters; and the fact that most polls before the election didn't include the votes from the citizens living abroad, which was expected to be a strong boost for BandiÃÂ come Election Day. Nevertheless, the final result is similar to the result of the last several polls when only the certain voters were taken into account, which may indicate that few undecided voters actually went to the polls in the second round.
JosipoviÃÂ won all Croatian counties except for the Lika-Senj county, the least populated Croatian county. Similarly, he won all cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants and all cities that are county seats, except for GospiÃÂ, which is also the smallest. The capital city Zagreb was also won by JosipoviÃÂ, with a margin that was slightly higher than the national average. BandiÃÂ was unsuccessful in the majority of Zagreb boroughs, but he did win Lika and the extraterritorial electoral unit, where the majority of votes came from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The closest margins were in the traditional right-wing strongholds in parts of Slavonia and Dalmatia.
According to the exit polls Josipoviàwon more than 90% of Vesna PusiÃÂ's voters and 70% of Nadan Vidoà ¡eviÃÂ's voters. He also managed to consolidate the traditionally centre-left voters winning 90% of his party's as well as more than 80% of HNS voters and more than 70% of the centrist HSLS and centre-right HSS voters, at the same time appealing to every fourth HDZ voter. Bandiàwon almost 80% of all Hebrang voters as well as 57% of Primorac's voters and obtained 3 quarters of all HDZ voters, confirming the assumption that Bandiàmostly appealed to the right.
The result was not received particularly well by the Church gazette Glas Koncila editor Ivan MikleniÃÂ, who stated JosipoviÃÂ's legitimacy, but first pointed out that he was elected by less than a third of the total population, and claimed that he was supported by "obscure power centers". He concluded that the election is the result of a policy of continuation and "not a democratic breakthrough". The secular Jutarnji list editor Davor Butkoviàlambasted that opinion, saying he was personally a Catholic but was offended by the notion that the Church would undermine the election result. Having a third of the electorate's votes is not relevant because not even the late Franjo TuÃÂman or even any single Government was ever elected with more than a half of the electorate. He concluded by asking why the Church is "insulting its faithful who voted for JosipoviÃÂ" and saying that as long as this kind of a stance persists, the Croatian churches will "remain empty other than on major holidays". The secular VeÃÂernji list chief commentator Milan Ivkoà ¡iàonce again called on Josipoviàto stay away from former President MesiÃÂ's "selective finger-pointing" which in his opinion particularly impacted the President's relations with Kaptol, in addition to a perceived "complaisance in the defence of Croatian national interests". He also noted that the new president remains "marked" by his agnosticism in relation to the right-wing voting body, but called on the Croatians to determine a basic consensus and avoid any accusations of "treason". Josipoviàindeed explicitly stated that he "will not step into that whole polemic" and that he has no comment.
When the polls around the country closed at 19:00 RTL and Nova TV published the results of the exit polls conducted by Ipsos PULS. They predicted a landslide win for JosipoviÃÂ, giving him an advantage of almost 30 percentage points, significantly larger than all of the second-round polls. This shifted much of the political commentary and rendered much of the expected drama moot. The JosipoviÃÂ headquarters started celebrating immediately after the polls closed claiming that the difference is too large for BandiÃÂ to overcome and the exit polls don't feature such a large statistical margin of error. The BandiÃÂ campaign said they'll wait for official results, but admitted it would be very hard for BandiÃÂ to overtake JosipoviÃÂ's 30 point lead even when the votes from abroad were tallied. The exit polls predicted the outcome well as the ratio between the two candidates was 9 to 1 for BandiÃÂ abroad, where there were no exit polls, which narrowed JosipoviÃÂ's victory to a final difference of 21 percentage points.
After the official results were announced at midnight it was evident that Ivo JosipoviÃÂ was elected the third president of the Republic. He gave a victory speech shortly after thanking everybody who voted for him, but also saying he would be the president of all, not just the left. He called his victory a step in the right direction and said he would work hard for justice and a better Croatia. JosipoviÃÂ did not finish his acceptance speech before BandiÃÂ started his concession speech, using the opportunity to decry "hate, contempt and intolerance from everyone" towards him. The BandiÃÂ self-victimization was ultimately not well received by both the voters and the media.
During election night, MilanoviÃÂ gave an interview to the three major television networks where he congratulated Ivo JosipoviÃÂ and called on Jadranka Kosor to hold a meeting with him where they would discuss the major political differences between their two parties and find a way to agree on how to help the economy further. The prime minister responded the very same night when she congratulated JosipoviÃÂ saying she invited the opposition leader for a coffee over six months ago claiming he refused. MilanoviÃÂ responded the next day by saying he doesn't want finger-pointing, but a constructive discussion about jobs, the budget and tax reform. They came to an agreement the following week and they held a meeting on 21 January.
Although HRT admitted they crossed the line two weeks ago when they reported the results of the exit polls conducted by RTL and Nova TV, they once again 'borrowed' the results for the second round election night. This caused a stir within HRT against the main editor of the news program Hloverka Novak-SrziÃÂ who was faced with scandals long before the election night incident. Finally, exactly nine days after the election, on 19 January, she was released of her duties as chief editor.