Croatian polls seen as test for conservative government

Croatians voted Sunday in local and regional polls seen as a tough test for the conservative government, which has lost support over its failure to improve the economy and start European Union entry talks.

Some four million voters are eligible to cast their ballots for 21 county assemblies and 546 municipalities. The first results are expected later Sunday.

By 4:00 pm (1400 GMT), three hours before closing of polling stations, turnout was 28.51 percent, which was lower than in 2001 when it was 35 percent, the state electoral commission said.

Prime Minister Ivo Sanader urged people to get out and vote. "I expect citizens will fulfill their duty to vote," he said after voting in the capital Zagreb.

Sanader's ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) is running neck-and-neck with the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP), according to surveys.

But support for the HDZ has fallen to 21 percent from 35 percent in 2003 when it returned to power in general elections, a poll by Metron agency showed.

The SDP was the strongest party with 23 percent while the nationalist Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) was third.

The HDZ and an alliance led by the SDP are tipped to win relative majorities in an equal number of counties, but will have to govern in coalition, a poll by the Mediana Fides institute showed. The SDP was tipped to retain Zagreb.

The elections come at a bad time for Sanader, who is wrestling with unemployment of 19 percent and foreign debt exceeding 80 percent of gross domestic product.

The country's EU aspirations have been put on hold as Brussels has delayed planned membership talks due to Zagreb's failure to hand over key war crimes fugitive Ante Gotovina to the UN court at The Hague.

Gotovina is wanted for the murder of at least 150 ethnic Serbs toward the end of Croatia's 1991-1995 conflict, but is seen as a national hero by many Croats. Zagreb insists that it has no knowledge of his whereabouts.

SDP head Ivica Racan announced last month that the opposition would push for early parliamentary polls if Zagreb did not start membership talks with the EU this year.

But analysts agree that the SDP and center-left parties which fell from power in 2003 have largely failed to offer a strong alternative in opposition.

"Voters were not too impressed with the economic policy of the previous coalition government either and that's why rightist parties seem to be the only ones able to capitalize on the dissatisfaction with the HDZ government's inefficiency in tackling social and economic issues, and problems with the EU," analyst Nenad Zakosek said.

He said the HDZ, which holds eight counties, could rely on strong grassroots support to help it through Sunday's vote.

The HDZ was at the vanguard of Croatia's nationalist revival during the war years but has reinvented itself under Sanader with a pro-European agenda.

Several ethnic Serbs, tens of thousands of whom fled Croatia under the previous HDZ government in the 1990s, have been included on its electoral lists.