Presidential elections were held in Croatia on 27 December 2009 and 10 January 2010. Twelve candidates participated in the first round, prior to a run-off between first-round winner Ivo Josipović and runner-up Milan Bandić. In the run-off, Josipović won a landslide victory, receiving 60.3% of the vote becoming the first elected president nominated by the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP). The incumbent president Stjepan Mesić, who was first elected in 2000 as the candidate of the Croatian People's Party and re-elected in 2005 as an independent, was ineligible to seek re-election to a third term due to term limits.
As the incumbent was ineligible for re-election, several candidates took the opportunity to run for the presidency. Most mainstream Croatian political parties participated in the elections either by nominating a candidate or endorsing one. The relatively low nomination threshold (ten thousand signatures in a country of four million voters), turmoil in the largest political party (Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ) due to the departure of long-time leader Ivo Sanader and the ongoing economic crisis, as well as a significant one-man revolt in the second-largest party (Social Democratic Party of Croatia, SDP), led to a record number of candidates contesting the elections.
In the first round, the left of centre vote was split between 3–4 candidates, while the right of centre vote was split between 5–6 candidates. Owing to the increased fragmentation of the right, two candidates who were both long-time members of SDP progressed to the run-off. The election polls accurately predicted the winner, while the runner-up projections were usually within a statistical margin of error, lifting many candidates' hopes and enabling a sense of drama stirred by the Croatian media.
The second round was marked by more intense polarization. The Bandić campaign shifted their political message significantly to the right, with the Josipović campaign put on the defensive. However, a sudden reappearance of Sanader interrupted the election campaign and cemented Josipović's advantage; in the end, he won by a large margin, and was inaugurated as the third President of the Republic of Croatia on 18 February.
Background and rules
After serving two consecutive five-year terms, the incumbent president Stjepan Mesić was not eligible to run in the 2009 election.
The elections officially began on 4 November, with the start of the period for the collecting of signatures needed to become an official candidate. Each candidate had 12 days to collect 10,000 written signatures from citizens who are eligible to vote. After the 12 days expired, the signatures were verified and on November 18 the State Electoral Commission announced the 12 candidates that managed to collect the necessary number of signatures. The next day the official 37-day campaign began and went until 24 hours before Election Day, which happened to be Christmas Day, midnight.
The first round was held on 27 December and no candidate managed to obtain 50% + one vote, so a second round was held on 10 January 2010 between the two candidates that achieved the most votes, Ivo Josipović and Milan Bandić. Each candidate could have withdrawn from the election at any time.
Campaign before the official start
Although officially the campaign started on 19 November, in reality it began as early as summer of 2009. The main political parties had not yet announced their nominees for president in the summer, but certain high-ranking politicians had expressed their interest in running very early.
The governing HDZ saw considerable drama in selecting their candidate for president. Ever since late 2008, there was much speculation that prime minister Ivo Sanader would run for the presidency, although he frequently denied such speculation. After the local elections, the speculation grew as no other candidates publicly hinted they would run. However, Ivo Sanader unexpectedly decided not only to not run for the presidency, but to resign as prime minister and retire from active politics altogether, announcing his decision on 1 July 2009.
Sanader nominated Andrija Hebrang as the party's candidate for president, a decision that was backed by the remainder of the party's presidency after a while, but not before widespread rumours started about the HDZ member Nadan Vidošević, a prominent businessman, being the presidency's favorite candidate. Vidošević however rejected these claims. Hebrang also hesitated before accepting the party nomination, explaining it with health reasons. Vidošević formally announced his bid as an independent candidate on September 2, and was expelled from his party soon after that. Also, Ivo Sanader was not the only member of the cabinet to resign as Minister of Education Dragan Primorac also announced his retirement on the very same day as the prime minister. There was much speculation that Primorac resigned as he was not his party's candidate for president and that he resigned so he could run as an independent. The speculation proved to be true and Primorac announced his candidacy on 9 November 2009. He was then also ejected from HDZ membership.
The Social Democratic Party of Croatia also saw some controversy in the process of nominating a candidate. Immediately after the 2009 local elections and Milan Bandić's landslide victory in Zagreb as a candidate of the Social Democrats, there was much talk of his potential candidacy for president. Before the election, many influential members of SDP urged Zoran Milanović, the president of the party, to intervene and nominate someone other than Bandić, referring to numerous corruption and malversation allegations made against him during his tenure as the mayor of Zagreb. However, Milanović denied the widespread rumours about internal turmoil and publicly supported Milan Bandić in the mayoral campaign, making him the target of an open letter signed by many prominent left-wing intellectuals, in which they attacked Bandić and endorsed Josip Kregar. Although Milanović dismissed these charges, SDP conspicuously put Bandić at the bottom of the electoral list for the city council, which prompted further accusations of hypocrisy from their opponents.
On 20 June the SDP presidency chose two of their members of parliament as candidates for the SDP nomination: Ivo Josipović, a law professor and known jurist, and Ljubo Jurčić, an economics professor and former Minister of the Economy, Labour and Entrepreneurship. Other candidates were allowed to be submitted, however, Milan Bandić refused.
On 12 July a primary election was held between the two social democrats and Ivo Josipović won with 64.78% of the vote from around ten thousand party members.
However, the 'Bandić problem' escalated in the coming months as the media continued to speculate about his potential candidacy. Bandić started to travel throughout Croatia without a stated common agenda, and the press followed his every step and constantly asked him if he would run for the presidency. He consistently refused to comment, drawing more and more media attention with his indecisiveness. Finally, the drama was concluded when he officially announced his candidacy for president in a speech on 5 November at 7 am on Sljeme criticizing Zoran Milanović and his former party for turning against him saying that he was one of the founders of SDP emphasizing that he stood with the party through the good and the bad times. Bandić was automatically expelled from SDP, losing his position as a member of party's presidency and leader of the Zagreb branch of SDP. Despite that, he declared on Croatian national television HRT that he still finds himself as true Social Democrat and that he'll proudly keep his SDP membership card nr. 2. SDP later made a statement that Bandić's membership card number was 38159.
By the time the nominations period started, most major political parties nominated their candidates for president:
- The governing Croatian Democratic Union nominated Andrija Hebrang, a former vice-president of the Croatian government and former Minister of Health and Social Services.
- The main opposition party SDP nominated Ivo Josipović, a professor of law at the University of Zagreb, a lecturer at the Zagreb Musical Academy and an SDP MP.
- The Croatian People's Party – Liberal Democrats nominated Vesna Pusić, the head of the parliamentary committee in charge of overseeing the negotiation process of Croatia and the European Union.
- The Istrian Democratic Assembly nominated Damir Kajin, their longtime representative in the Croatian Parliament.
The major independent candidates originating in the two largest parties are:
- Nadan Vidošević, the president of the Croatian Economic Chamber, formerly in HDZ
- Milan Bandić, mayor of Zagreb, formerly in SDP
- Dragan Primorac, former Minister of Education, formerly in HDZ
Several other candidates also had a history of association with major parties:
- Vesna Škare Ožbolt, former Minister of Justice, switched from HDZ to DC in 2000
- Miroslav Tuđman, former head of Central Intelligence Service, formerly in HDZ in 1990s
Political party candidates were selected within party elections, or were elected by party bodies, and they are the party's sole official candidates. All parliamentary parties have a policy to support only one candidate, and if their member announces an independent nomination, he or she automatically loses their party membership. Parliamentary parties that do not candidate their member for the president, usually publicly support someone. These parties can be listed on the electoral list for the president, but sometimes their support is just a public endorsement. Regional-right wing HDSSB supported independent candidate Milan Bandić, and regional-centrist PGS supported independent Nadan Vidošević.
After the election, the Constitution does not allow the President to be a member of any political party so he or she must resign from membership, if there is one.
First round candidates
Out of 19 persons who submitted signatures to the State Electoral Commission, 13 of them were regular, but one of them withdrew. The following 12 candidates ran for Sunday, December 27, 2009, presidential elections.
Valid candidates that withdrew
- Veljko Džakula, the leader of a non-governmental organization Serbian Democratic Forum, entered the race and became a candidate of three Croatian Serb parties: Serb People's Party, Democratic Party of Serbs and New Serb Party (Nova srpska stranka). He submitted 10,557 signatures to the electoral commission on November 16. However, he then withdrew on November 17.
Failed candidacies
- Dean Golubić announced an independent candidacy on a far right platform. He announced his withdrawal on 16 November.
- Sead Hasanović, better known as Braco Cigan, from Željko Malnar's TV-show Nightmare Stage, ran as an independent candidate. He submitted around 6,000 signatures and was rejected.
- Stjepan Kravarščan submitted only one signature to the electoral commission on November 13 and was rejected.
- Zahir Kurbašić was nominated by the Women's Democratic Party but failed to ensure an official candidature.
- Denis Latin, a popular Croatian TV journalist, announced his independent candidacy on a liberal platform, but after several months he changed his mind.
- Slobodan Midžić submitted no signatures to the electoral commission saying that he "seeks to represent a president of the SFR Yugoslavia for the election of the president of the European Union". Madžić had also failed to nominate himself for 2007 parliamentary elections since his electoral list held the name of League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the party that does not exist.
- Marija Štrajh, Croatian television host
- Jurica Tucak was the second person who came before electoral commission without signatures.
- Alka Vuica, a popular singer and songwriter, supported by Green List of Croatia – received around 8,000 signatures reporting that 1485 of her signatures were stolen and that she was offered to buy the rest of the missing votes. She subsequently withdrew her nomination.
- Božidar Vukasović announced an independent candidacy running on an anti-corruption platform. He announced his withdrawal on 16 November.
Campaign
First round
The official campaign began on 19 November as the country's electoral commission announced the 12 candidates eligible to run. Andrija Hebrang collected more signatures than any other candidate with over 140,000, Ivo Josipović was second with just under 120,000, Milan Bandić collected around 60,000, Vesna Pusić just under 50,000, while Dragan Primorac and Nadan Vidošević each collected over 30,000 signatures. At the beginning of the campaign, most polls showed Josipović with a healthy lead over his opponents. Although Hebrang held the second spot in most opinion polls during the summer, he fell to as low as fifth place by November. He claimed opinion polls have never been kind to his party as most conservative voters refuse to participate in them and expressed conviction that come Election Day he will be the victor. Despite Bandić's indecisiveness, he held second or third place in most polls during autumn. After he officially announced his campaign, most political observers expected him to get a bump in the polls, however that never materialized. After announcing his candidacy he continuously dropped in the polls, but still managed to claim second or third place. Nadan Vidošević led most polls during 2008 and early 2009, but never managed to take the lead after officially becoming a candidate.