"VOTE for Tudjman, Vote for Croatia" the television advertisement proclaims, ahead of presidential elections tomorrow which the President, Mr Franjo Tudjman, is expected to win easily.
The 75-year-old leader is plugging his "Father of the Nation" status to the hilt in his campaign for re-election to a third term, despite the fact that he is suffering from cancer and is unlikely to survive a full term in office. The latest opinion polls published gave him from 54.5 to 60.2 per cent of the vote.
Another television ad runs like a "greatest hits" parade of the President's career. Beginning in 1990, when he was first elected, it runs through international recognition, Croatia at the Olympics, and the recapture in 1995 of the Serb stronghold of Knin. It ends with a victorious Mr Tudjman clenching his fists in the air at the mention of the symbolic town of Vukovar, to which he made a campaign visit at the weekend, describing it as "a symbol of Croatia's suffering".
Vukovar was captured by the Serbs after a bloody three-month siege in November 1991, but is due to return to Croatian control by next January at the latest.
Mr Tudjman was born on May 14th, 1922 in the hilly Zagorje region north of Zagreb. A charismatic politician with a penchant for wearing white military uniforms bedecked with medals when inspecting troops on national days, Mr Tudjman has emulated his mentor Josip Broz Tito, partisan and later communist Yugoslav leader. Mr Tudjman began his rise to power fighting with Tito's communist partisans against Croatia's fascist leader Ante Pavelic during the second World War.
In the 1980s, he founded the right-wing Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), leading it to victory in the first free elections in 1990. In 1991, Croatia proclaimed independence from the former Yugoslavia and war broke out, in which rebel Serbs, backed by Belgrade, captured almost one third of the country's territory.
The following year, in which Mr Tudjman was re-elected, the conflict in Bosnia erupted. Throughout, Zagreb backed its Croat kin in the neighbouring country. In 1995, the Croatian army recaptured almost all of the Serb-held areas of Croatia, with the exception of eastern Slavonia, which remained in Serb hands.
The UN Security Council is to decide soon when eastern Slavonia will return to Zagreb's control. When it does, it will mark the culmination of Mr Tudjman's dream of an independent Croatia.
His popularity seems unaffected by his stay in hospital in Washington last year. The presidency says he was suffering from an ulcer and swollen lymph glands and has since fully recovered. Nonetheless, if re-elected, he will be 80 before the next elections are due.
Standing against him are Mr Vlado Gotovac of the Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS) and Mr Zdravko Tomac of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), both of whom lag far behind in the polls.
Relations with Washington, regarded as the country's major ally, have been tense recently. US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, said last month that Zagreb must allow 180,000 Serbs who fled in 1995 to return to their homes. However, the State Department said this week that, following calls for reconciliation from Mr Tudjman, and legal action against a group who attacked returnees, it would not block a $13 million World Bank loan.