Croatia - Liberals Beat Conservatives

[Menydh]

Mesic takes victory in Croatia
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/eu...eut/index.html

ZAGREB, Croatia (Reuters) -- Croatia's liberal pro-Western President Stipe Mesic won a second mandate in an election runoff on Sunday with a landslide victory over the ruling conservatives' top woman, official preliminary results showed

The state electoral commission said the 70-year-old reformer, credited with putting the former Yugoslav republic on the road to European Union membership, had 66 percent of votes.

Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor trailed him on 34 percent with 99 percent of the votes counted.

Kosor is a close ally of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, who conceded defeat even before official results were out.

"Perhaps the time is not ripe yet to have a woman president. I will call President Mesic to congratulate him a bit later," he said.

"We have cooperated well in the past and will continue to cooperate in the future."

Mesic will oversee the country's EU entry, planned for 2009. His foreign policy adviser Ivica Mastruko told Reuters his victory would be greeted as good news in European capitals.

"Mesic guarantees continuity, in terms of relations with Balkan neighbours, with the European Union and with the United Nations war crimes tribunal," he said.

Western diplomats see Mesic as a useful counterweight to the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which controls the cabinet and parliament, and praise him for his courage in denouncing war crimes committed by Croats during conflicts that tore apart socialist Yugoslavia.

"In many respects, Mesic has been the moral correction in this country," a senior EU diplomat in Zagreb said. "If Kosor won, there would be a change of atmosphere. It would be more limiting with the same party having presidency and cabinet."

Croatia is due to start EU accession talks on March 17 if it cooperates fully with the U.N. war crimes tribunal, particularly in tracking down fugitive general Ante Gotovina.

"We now must prepare for the European Union and meet all its standards. I have brought the country close to the EU and believe I can help further," Mesic said on Sunday.

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.