Voting ended yesterday in Croatia's elections for a new president, with eventual victory expected for one of the candidates of a new centre-left parliamentary majority marking the end of the Franjo Tudjman era.
Opinion polls gave the lead to Mr Stipe Mesic, of a four-party coalition, while Mr Drazen Budisa, the candidate of the powerful Social Liberals (HSLS) and Social Democrats (SDP) coalition, was second.
Mr Mesic (65) and Mr Budisa (51) are expected to face a run-off on February 7th. Figures from the two candidates' party headquarters indicated that Mr Mesic had won 41.64 per cent of the votes according to partial results from a third of polling stations, while Mr Budisa won 29.79 per cent.
Mr Mate Granic (52), the candidate of the Tudjman's former ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), won 17.81 per cent of the votes.
More than 7,000 polling stations, in the country and abroad, closed at 7 p.m. (6 p.m. Irish time), 12 hours after opening, Croatian radio reported.
The first official partial results are due early today.
In the third presidential elections since Croatia gained its independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991, about 4.18 million eligible voters had a choice of a record number of nine candidates, although the only real competition was seen to be between Mr Mesic, Mr Budisa and Mr Granic.
Although at the beginning of the presidential race Mr Mesic was seen as an outsider, his relaxed manner and down-to-earth image saw him end with a 10point lead over Mr Budisa and a 20-point lead over Mr Granic in the final opinion polls.
Mr Mesic heads the coalition of the Croatian People's Party (HNS), the Liberal Party (LS), the Croatian Peasants' Party (HSS) and the Istria Democratic Party (IDS), allied with Mr Budisa's HSLS-SDP coalition.
In their campaigns, all three candidates put forward similar programmes, pledging to put an end to the country's international isolation, solve economic and social crises and take the path of real democracy.
They also pledged to reduce presidential powers appropriated by Tudjman and strengthen the role of parliament.