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The campaign for Croatia’s presidential election started on Wednesday, as the country’s electoral commission announced eight candidates for the largely ceremonial post which is tipped to be won by the incumbent populist.
Surveys suggest that no one will win a majority in the December 29 poll, with the winner to be decided in a run-off two weeks later.
President Zoran Milanovic, 58, whose term expires in February, enjoys a comfortable lead as he is backed by more than one third of the electorate, according to opinion polls.
His main opponent is the candidate of the ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, Dragan Primorac, 59.
Primorac, a former science and eduction minister who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 2009, is more than 10 points down on Milanovic.
Trailing him are two women — independent lawmaker Marija Selak Raspudic, 42, and green-left lawmaker Ivana Kekin — but surveys indicate they are unlikely to be successful.
Milanovic, campaigning under the slogan “President for president”, has been head of state in Zagreb since January 2020 for the main opposition Social Democrats (SDP).
In recent years he has employed more populist rhetoric, denouncing the EU’s stance on Russia’s war against Ukraine, prompting Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic to accuse him of holding “pro-Russian views”.
Milanovic has been repeatedly attacking Plenkovic’s HDZ for widespread corruption, including high-profile cases involving ministers.
For many Croatians Milanovic symbolises the resistance to the HDZ and the powerful Plenkovic, prime minister since 2016, analysts say.
Primorac is pledging to be a “president who unites” the country but the vote is seen rather as another duel between political arch-rivals Plenkovic and Milanovic.
ljv/phz