MILAN BANDIC with President Mesic and Ivica RacanThe Social Democratic Party of Croatia commissioned a major opinion poll, which has shown that Milan Bandic is Ivo Josipovic's only serious opponent. The poll, which included a sample population of 1,300 persons, was carried out by the Promocija plus agency, and shows that Josipovic would take 46 percent of the vote in the runoff round, Bandic would win 31 percent, with the remaining 23 percent surveyed undecided.

The SDP leadership did not conceal its satisfaction with the data confirming that their candidate for the presidency has a very solid advantage. Ivo Josipovic also has a convincing lead in the first round, where he wins 25 percent of the vote, ahead of Andrija Hebrang with 12 percent, Milan Bandic and Nadan Vidosevic who would win 10.5 percent and Vesna Pusic who is supported by 9.5 percent of voters. In the second round the SDP's presidential candidate is convincing against Hebrang (57:24), a little less so against Vidosevic (46:28), while the only person relatively close is Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic. That means that Ivo Josipovic continues to hold a very solid advantage against the other candidates, although it should be taken into consideration that he has already established himself as a presidential candidate, while Bandic has yet to announce whether he would run. Another point of interest is that most of those surveyed cited Josipovic and Bandic as positive and very positive candidates.

The results of this poll, which the Social Democratic Party leadership received half way through last week, is unusually important for a number of reasons. First of all the fact that the SDP decided to put Bandic's name in the survey confirms the months of speculation concerning the definite rift between the Zagreb Mayor and the leadership of the leading opposition party. Bandic was unwilling to run in the SDP's presidential primaries, where Ivo Josipovic beat Ljubo Jurcic, on 12 July becoming a legitimate candidate to succeed Stipe Mesic. As far back as since the May victory at the elections for Zagreb mayor Bandic has almost entirely ignored his own party, touring Croatia and meeting with local leaders and businesspeople, handing out new fire-fighting trucks and renovating churches, but making a complete detour of the Social Democratic party headquarters. Formally there has not yet been a parting of ways, but both sides are at their positions and waiting for the moment. And that moment will come if Milan Bandic announces his presidential nomination - in that case he will be chucked out of the SDP and will probably set up his own party, whose activities would not be limited only to Zagreb. And besides, the SDP leadership has already commented Bandic's possible entry into the campaign, calling it a ragbag of the "HDZ, shady financial circles and the criminal underground."

The Social Democratic leadership is behaving as if Bandic were no longer a member of the party and of its presidency. That is why they have decided to see what would happen if Milan Bandic were to enter the presidential race, and judging by the reaction from the SDP leadership, they are satisfied with the outcome which shows Ivo Josipovic leading 46 to 31 percent. But Milan Bandic also has no reason to be dismayed, quite the contrary, the survey carried out by the Promocija plus agency, commissioned by his political opponents, is without a doubt favourable to his presidential ambitions. All the more so because Bandic has not to date explicitly gone on the record as to whether he would like to succeed Stipe Mesic, but would answer rather that he would like to be the Mayor of Croatia, and has hinted these past days that he would run if he saw that he enjoyed sufficient popular support. It appears that he does in fact have this support, at least enough not to enter the campaign at the rear, but rather as a real opponent to Hebrang, Vidosevic, and very likely to Ivo Josipovic. We have not mentioned the other candidates, as their roles in the coming presidential race will, for the most part, be marginal ones. In the political sense Milan Bandic is by no means an unknown, and is numbered among the figures the public either loves or hates. Judging by his consecutive victories in Zagreb since 2000, a large portion of the voting population supports his way of doing things. And that includes the numerous scandals and accusations of corruption that have dogged him for years, but which have not caused him any serious damage. In this issue Nacional has compiled a list of some of Bandic's scandals which, when they were happening looked to be the beginning of his political end. He has always come out the victor so far, even though both Ivica Racan and Zoran Milanovic have tried to rid themselves of him and was forced in 2001 to relinquish the post of mayor. The fact that he has retained his political power after all the scandals he has been embroiled in - and that even about a third of the delegates to SDP conventions back him - shows that a large number of Croatian voters are more impressed with the way he has been running Zagreb these nine years that they are concerned about the accusations that have been levelled against him. And Bandic is a sufficiently experienced politician and knows whom he is addressing. On the social aspect the voters that support him come from more financially challenged backgrounds, which was demonstrated at the recent local elections where he was a convincing winner in outlying parts of Zagreb, while his poorest showing was in downtown Zagreb, where educated and materially independent people live for the most part. His political career to date shows that accusations of corruption and inappropriate public statements are not of any great importance to most of the population. Objectively regarded, this is one of the more significant characteristics of the voting population in Croatia, to which the fact that Zeljko Kerum has been elected Mayor of Split, that Stipe Gabric Jambo has for years been the most popular politician in southern Dalmatia and that the political associates of Branimir Glavas, who fled to Herzegovina when convicted of war crimes, win in Osijek and parts of Slavonia bears witness to.

ESTABLISHED CANDIDATE The SDP's survey shows that the public perceives Ivo Josipovic as a serious and positive candidateMilan Bandic has never been involved in fisticuffs, much less in xenophobic outbursts, but it doubtless suits a politician of his cut that there is a quite high level of tolerance in the Croatian public for politicians given to sundry scandals. And besides, unlike politicians who are suspected of having amassed fortunes, such as Ivo Sanader and Luka Bebic, Milan Bandic has never made a show of his assets, and has instead nurtured the image of an official sensitive to the needs of the less well off. He has led Zagreb with a high level of social sensitivity even though, realistically, this was no feat in the country's most affluent city. But over the past years everyone in Croatia has had the opportunity to hear countless times that "Bandic helps everyone." One need not disregard another important detail that could play an important role in the presidential elections, and that is the role of the Catholic Church. No politician in Croatia besides Franjo Tudjman has achieved the kind of public-religious metamorphosis Milan Bandic has, who in the late 1980s was a local Communist Party leader, and after 2000 became one of the leading donators to the Catholic Church in Croatia and in Bosnia & Herzegovina. And while bishops and priests do not miss a chance to point out that the SDP is the successor to the former Communist Party, they meet with Bandic for lunches, masses, processions and receive donations from him for the reconstruction of sacral buildings, and he never forgets to mention that he is a sincere Catholic. For now the Church has not publicly endorsed the Zagreb Mayor, but in private conversation the members of the clerical order have only the best to say of him.
In the event that he does run, his Herzegovinian roots could also play an important role. At the last presidential elections in 2005, and those for Parliament in 2007, some 100,000 people turned out to vote in the Diaspora, most for the HDZ. With the departure of Ivo Sanader the ruling party is divided, and everything indicates that Andrija Hebrang has little chance of winning. In these circumstances there is a good chance that Bandic could pick up a massive majority of the votes cast by Croatians in Bosnia & Herzegovina, who are impressed by the possibility that "their" man could become the President of Croatia. Given the experience to date with elections in Herzegovina, which is Bandic's native region, and where almost all voters vote for the same candidate, their one hundred thousand votes could be a telling argument in favour of Milan Bandic.

There is, of course, another side to the story, and a presidential nomination would for Bandic be a very risky move. Not least because all his scandals would once again come into the spotlight, and the fact that his political opponents will try to compromise him and depict him as a politician with shady tendencies. His defeat would suit both the SDP and the HDZ because the two leading parties in no way relish the though of new competition that could weaken their position. That means that in the event that he fails to win the presidential elections, Milan Bandic would be hard pressed to hold on to the post of Mayor of Zagreb, the foundation of his political power and influence. If he, however, did back down from a possible nomination, he could probably strike a compromise with Milanovic and continue to lead the nation's capital.

It is an important fact that Bandic is very disliked by the parties of the left-of-centre that have their own candidate, these being the HNS and the IDS. If he does run in the elections, there is a big chance that Vesna Pusic and Damir Kajin would back out of the race and endorse the SDP nominee Ivo Josipovic in the first round, and that means a further ten percent of the vote. Josipovic was quite fearful of a Bandic nomination, but is counting on beating him without much trouble if he wins a sizeable advantage in the first round. Another problem for Bandic is the ever-greater distance President Stipe Mesic is putting between himself and the Zagreb Mayor.

Over the past years the two have been on quite good terms, and Mesic on several occasions hinted that he would have nothing against being succeeded by the Zagreb Mayor. That has now changed and Mesic is currently very reserved towards Bandic, and the president's aids have told Nacional that "It can in no way be said that Mesic supports Bandic." If Stipe Mesic keeps his promise to publicly endorse one of the candidates in the second round, his backing of Josipovic or Vidosevic would certainly not be beneficial to Bandic. Insofar, embarking on the presidential campaign trail would be for Bandic his greatest political risk yet, and a massive challenge. It is quite certain that his nomination would open room for all opponents, but the fact that he is already the chief and only serious opponent to Ivo Josipovic may speed up his nomination.