[ELECTION 2005] HDZ Concedes

HRT has called the elections for Stipe Mesić (Stipe Mesic) in its first special election report.

In HDZ headquarter Ivan Jarnjak, former Tudjman's minister of interiors, was the first one to publicly concede Jadranka Kosor's loss.

HDZ has good reasons not to push this election any further. The sooner this whole process disappears from public memory, the better for that party. Especially since the way they handled the campaign reminded many of rhetoric and practices more characteristic of the old hard-line nationalist Tudjman's HDZ and not the "kinder and gentler" version Sanader tries to sell to the public.

Kosor's attempts to present herself as modern "European" liberal candidate were fruitless partly due to her own inability to stray from Tudjman-style Mesić-bashing and partly because of her cause was being adopted by Croatian far right. One of the examples can be found in infamous "Templars" leaflets. Today they were distributed on the island of Čiovo (Ciovo) by a Catholic priest during morning service.

However, even more problematic for HDZ is Kosor's reliance on Herzegovina and, furthermore, apparent vote fraud that pushed Kosor into second round. The fraud allegations are going to tar the image of HDZ as "modern European" party. Those allegations will be taken even more seriously after Jutarnji list reporter managing to vote twice today – first at the polling station in Bosnia-Herzegovina then in Croatia proper.