ACE IN THE HOLE Ljubo Jurcic, as one of Croatia's best economists, has the fact that getting out of the economic crisis will be one of the central themes of the upcoming campaign working in his favourLjubo Jurcic, an SDP Member of Parliament and one of Croatia's leading economists, intends to run in the coming presidential elections. His nomination is to be announced in the second half of March or in early April. By then Jurcic wants to pool a group of associates that would form the core of a team that would see him into the presidency as Stipe Mesic's successor at the start of 2010. Jurcic's nomination is not the only news related to the upcoming presidential campaign, but is certainly the most intriguing. Only Ivo Josipovic has announced his nomination so far, and is now getting a challenger.

There is no doubt that the announcement that Ljubo Jurcic will enter the race has significantly changed the current status of Ivo Josipovic. Although there are no exact points of reference, some things work in his favour. Outside of his party Jurcic is seen as an excellent economic expert, and economic issues and their resolution will be one of the focal points of the upcoming campaign. However much it sounds unpopular, the recession and deepening crisis is his chief ace in the hole. The other is no doubt his conciliatory public image and the placement of messages that appeal to a great many Croatians.
Within the SDP Jurcic also enjoys broad member support. This was evident at last year's SDP electoral convention, when he won by far the most votes for membership in the central committee. It was, however, Josip Leko who was picked to the post of president of the body, with the strong backing of Milanovic. The result was a severe cooling of relations between Jurcic and Milanovic, but that too is changing of late.
After a break of almost a year the two sat down for a long meeting in late 2008 that, it appears, resolved most open issues. If nothing more, Jurcic can now be confident that the SDP leader will not oppose his presidential nomination. That does not exclude the possibility that Milanovic is closer to Josipovic, but he will likely try to remain neutral in the party primary. The SDP's presidential nominee is selected by the hundred members of the central committee, and getting their support is key. That is one of the reasons for Jurcic's recent tour of Varazdin, Cakovec, Slavonski Brod and a number of other towns, where he spoke of the current economic situation, and discreetly promoted his nomination for the presidency. In the opinion of some he enjoys significantly more support among the SDP rank and file than Josipovic does. But that is theory and the battle for the favour of the members of the central committee remains to be fought.

Jurcic is also counting on getting the support of much of the old guard that worked for years with Ivica Racan. It was Racan in fact that brought Jurcic into politics and in a way prepared him as his successor at the post of Prime Minister. The circumstances have significantly changed and Jurcic feels that he has the knowledge and capabilities the future Croatian President requires. He has so far rejected calls to put forward his nomination, feeling that an overly early entry would do him more harm than good. But it appears that the wait is over and that Ljubo Jurcic will put forward his nomination at the start of this spring.

The situation within the Social Democratic Party has changed over the past twenty days and the options of nominating Zlatko Komadina and Milan Bandic have de facto fallen to the wayside. In May Komadina wants to hold on to the post of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County Prefect, and Bandic the post of Zagreb Mayor, and if they were to enter the race for the presidency they would initiate new local elections and, in a way, betray their voters. That is why the predominant feeling in the SDP is that Komadina and Bandic will certainly not lobby for the presidential nomination within their party. A few weeks short of the New Year Neven Mimica also backed out of the race. He had been SDP president Zoran Milanovic's favoured DRAGAN PRIMORAC, the education minister, will put off his goal of running for president until he gets the green light from Sanaderchoice for some time. Only Ivo Josipovic has quite explicitly announced his possible nomination, and was as a result, in the media spotlight for several days. Josipovic can for the most part count on the support of the party brass, including that of Milanovic, to whom he is a close associate. And he has the reputation on the domestic political scene of being a peace-loving and serious professional, who avoids excesses and corruption scandals. What they think of him in the leading opposition party was expressed by one MP in a simple sentence. "It is not hard to imagine Josipovic as the future Croatian President." In any event, we can expect an interesting primary campaign to win over members of the central committee.

By all accounts Radimir Cacic also plans to kick off his presidential nomination in early April. In a recent opinion poll, commissioned by the Croatian People's Party (HNS), Cacic would win 19.3 percent, with Nadan Vidosevic taking 18 percent. As potential candidates the pollsters offered Milan Bandic (16 percent) and Andrija Hebrang (14.1 percent). It is, however, quite certain that none of these will actually run for the presidency. In this narrow field of candidates Cacic is doing a little better than Nadan Vidosevic, and that has led to some relative optimism in the HNS.

Nacional has these days received confirmation, from two relevant sources, that Cacic has definitely backed out of the race for the mayorship of Zagreb and completely focused his attention on the presidential elections. Decisive was the realisation that Bandic was the convincing leader for the local elections, and the HNS, along with the HDZ-HSLS-HSS trio, will try to win a majority in the city council and block the moves of an SDP mayor as much as they can. It is interesting that Cacic believes that he can be the future president, despite the poor standing of the HNS, and the limited support he enjoys personally. He feels that – if Sanader does not run – there will not be a single politician or public figure with charisma in the campaign. In other words, it could be a quite monotonous race in which existing results could tip the scales, and his are the Zagreb-Split highway and the subsidised housing project.

The problem is that Cacic can hardly overcome the negative perception of himself that exists among many voters. And the HDZ and SDP have yet to present their candidate, who will doubtless have much stronger party and media support during the campaign. And while it is not decisive, Stipe Mesic was very ironic recently in commenting the possibility of an HNS candidate to succeed him, saying that "the only question is whether they will win 2 or 6.5 percent of the vote." In spite of all these obstacles Cacic intends to run and feels he is sure to make the runoff vote. Even if that does not happen, he hopes to promote the HNS in a positive light and improve the party's rating by a few percentage points.

Talks picked up at the HDZ in early January as to the possible presidential candidate. The latest development is that Nadan Vidosevic has definitely lost Sanader's support, and it appears that even the closest members of his family are trying to convince him not to run. They argue that he would be overly exposed to the press if he were to run, and that they would question the origin of his assets, which could jeopardise his position at the Kras company and at the Croatian Chamber of Economy. A part of the HDZ, for the most part members of the liberal fraction, have not been unwarranted in floating the idea that Ivan Simonovic, the non-party affiliated justice minister, be the candidate. And while a negative reaction came the very next day from Andrija Hebrang, the idea that Simonovic run was not rejected and could resurface, especially if there are positive EU evaluations of anti-corruption measures over the coming months. It is also not irrelevant that the justice minister is favourably disposed towards the nomination, under the condition, of course, that the proposal comes from Sanader.

Education minister Dragan Primorac is of a similar frame of mind. Primorac is without a doubt one of the most ambitious ministers; he worked in Sanader's first Government, and did most of the campaigning in the electoral riding that covers Croatians living abroad, whose votes secured the HDZ victory. Various RADIMIR CACIC In early April he plans to present his presidential platform, in favour of which he has abandoned his nomination for the mayorship of Zagrebpolls have confirmed him as one of the best ministers, but the results produced an outcome opposite to what was expected. Sanader does not like the members of his cabinet to be prominent, and in the Prime Minister's opinion Primorac is given to blowing his own horn. There relationship cooled to the point that in the Government they say that Sanader threatened to end the political career of his education and science minister. It appears that Primorac is trying to cool the situation and recently told a small group of people that he would "never do anything that would threaten Ivo (Sanader)." He is convinced that the Prime Minister is getting negative information from some close associates who have been Primorac's long time opponents. What is interesting in it all is that, despite evident differences between himself and Sanader, Primorac wants to repair their relationship. If he succeeds in doing so it would open an opportunity for him to put forth his presidential nomination, which is the basic goal he entered politics for.
Obviously, that is only possible if Sanader himself does not run for Croatian President. There is a reserve variant – Sanader's endorsement of a HDZ candidate. Besides, no one in the HDZ is even considering running to succeed President Mesic without this endorsement. Jadranka Kosor was nominated that way five years ago and the HDZ will again employ the same principle. The HDZ will make its decision on a presidential nominee in June or July, and it is at about the same time that the SDP central committee will chose between Jurcic and Josipovic. That means that Croatia can look forward to six lengthy and arduous months of presidential campaigning.