Croatian presidential election, 2005

Croatian presidential election, 2005
Turnout	50.57% (first round) ; 51.04% (second round)
	Results of the second round in all of Croatia's counties: the candidate with the majority of votes in each administrative division.; Stjepan Mesić Jadranka Kosor
President before election; Stjepan Mesić ; Independent	Elected President; Stjepan Mesić ; Independent

Last updated March 22, 2019

Presidential elections were held in Croatia in January 2005, the fourth such elections since independence in 1991. They were the first presidential elections held after the constitutional changes of November 2000, which replaced a semi-presidential system with an incomplete parliamentary system, greatly reducing the powers of the President in favor of the Prime Minister and their cabinet. Incumbent president Stjepan Mesić, who had been elected in 2000 as the candidate of the Croatian People's Party, was eligible to seek reelection to a second term and ran as an independent as the constitution prohibits the President from holding party membership while in office.

Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, on the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro to the southeast, sharing a maritime border with Italy. Its capital, Zagreb, forms one of the country's primary subdivisions, along with twenty counties. Croatia has an area of 56,594 square kilometres and a population of 4.28 million, most of whom are Roman Catholics.

A semi-presidential system or dual executive system is a system of government in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter being responsible to the legislature of a state. It differs from a parliamentary republic in that it has a popularly elected head of state, who is more than a mostly ceremonial/non-executive, figurehead, and from the presidential system in that the cabinet, although named by the president, is responsible to the legislature, which may force the cabinet to resign through a motion of no confidence.

A parliamentary system is a system of democratic governance of a state where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the confidence of the legislature, typically a parliament, and is also held accountable to that parliament. In a parliamentary system, the head of state is usually a person distinct from the head of government. This is in contrast to a presidential system, where the head of state often is also the head of government and, most importantly, the executive does not derive its democratic legitimacy from the legislature.

The elections resulted in the landslide re-election of Mesić for a second five-year term. They were also the first in which a woman, HDZ candidate Jadranka Kosor, took part in the runoff. The percentage of the vote received by Mesić in the second round – 65.93% – is the highest of any president to date. Mesić had received an absolute majority of the votes cast within Croatia itself in the first round, but the votes of Croatian citizens living abroad forced a run-off by reducing Mesić's overall percentage to just under the necessary 50% + 1 vote threshold needed to win in the first round. Voter turnout was 50.57% in the first round and 51.04% in the second round.

The Croatian Democratic Union is a conservative political party and the main centre-right political party in Croatia. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Croatia, along with the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP). It is currently the largest party in the Sabor with 55 seats. The HDZ ruled Croatia from 1990 after the country gained independence from Yugoslavia until 2000 and, in coalition with junior partners, from 2003 to 2011, and since 2016. The party is a member of the European People's Party (EPP). HDZ's leader, Andrej Plenković, is the current Prime Minister of Croatia, having taken office following the 2016 Parliamentary Election.

Jadranka Kosor is a Croatian politician and former journalist who served as the Prime Minister of Croatia from 2009 to 2011, having taken office following the sudden resignation of her predecessor Ivo Sanader. Kosor was the first and so far only woman to become Prime Minister of Croatia since independence.

Mesić was sworn in for a second term on 18 February 2005 by the Chief justice of the Constitutional Court.

Background

The Croatian State Elections Committee published a list of potential candidates on 15 December 2004. President Stjepan Mesić stood for re-election, and the governing HDZ nominated cabinet minister Jadranka Kosor. A total of thirteen candidates were accepted, each after having submitted 10,000 citizen signatures, an endorsement required by law.

Stjepan "Stipe" Mesić is a Croatian politician who served as the President of Croatia from 2000 to 2010. Before serving two five-year terms as president, he was President of the Executive Council of SR Croatia (1990) after the first multi-party elections, the last President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia (1991) and consequently Secretary General of the Non-Aligned Movement (1991), as well as Speaker of the Croatian Parliament (1992–1994), a judge in Našice and mayor of his hometown of Orahovica.

Mesić won a landslide victory gaining nearly 49% of the vote in the first round, held on 2 January 2005. He only narrowly missed the 50% target for an outright win, with Kosor trailing with 20% and a surprising independent candidate Boris Mikšić with 18% of the vote. The elections went to a second round held on 16 January 2005 in which Mesić and Kosor were the only candidates. This time, Mesić won an overwhelming majority with about 66% of the vote against Kosor's 34%.

Results

e • d **Summary of the 2 and 16 January 2005 Croatian presidential election results**
Candidates and nominating parties	Votes	%	Votes	%
Stjepan Mesić - Croatian People's Party and others	1,089,398	48.92	1,454,451	65.93
Jadranka Kosor - Croatian Democratic Union	452,218	20.31	751,692	34.07
Boris Mikšić	396,093	17.78	-	-
Đurđa Adlešič - Croatian Social Liberal Party	59,795	2.68	-	-
Slaven Letica - Croatian Party of Rights	57,748	2.59	-	-
Ljubo Ćesić	41,216	1.85	-	-
Ivić Pašalić - Croatian Bloc - Movement for a Modern Croatia	40,637	1.82	-	-
Anto Kovačević - Croatian Christian Democratic Union	19,145	0.86	-	-
Miroslav Blažević	17,847	0.80	-	-
Miroslav Rajh - Croatian Youth Party	14,766	0.66	-	-
Doris Košta	8,721	0.37	-	-
Mladen Kešer	7,056	0.32	-	-
Tomislav Petrak - Croatian Popular Party	2,614	0.12	-	-
Invalid votes	20,269		35,617
Total (turnout 50.57 %)	2,227,073	100.0	2,241,760	100.0
Registered voters	4,403,933		4,392,220
Source: State Election Committee (Državno izborno povjerenstvo) Official results

Analysis

Most polls before the first round were predicting the incumbent president Stjepan Mesić would be reelected without a runoff, securing 50% + 1 vote.^[1] However, Jadranka Kosor benefited from the votes coming from the citizens living abroad, which narrowed the president's victory by only a couple of points, but enough to secure a second round. The greatest surprise of the election was the independent candidate Boris Mikšić, a Croatian businessman and entrepreneur living in the United States. His campaign was heavily based on the message of a 'Croatian dream', similar to the American dream he said he achieved during his career in the US. On the night of the election, the first exit polls indicated president Mesić might secure a second term without the need of a runoff, while Kosor and Mikšić were shown battling for second place.^[2] As the first results started coming in it was evident that Mesić was not going to secure 50% + 1 vote and that a runoff is inevitable. As votes from the citizens living abroad were tallied, Kosor overtook Mikšić, placing second and qualifying for the second round. The campaign began immediately the next day and during the two-week-long campaign, three presidential debates were held, one on each of Croatia's three major television networks. Despite most observers and post debate polls indicating Kosor won the debates, Mesić maintained his lead in the polls. As Election Day neared, the Kosor campaign exceeded all previous campaign spending records, trying to motivate the conservative base.^[3] On Election Day, as polls around the country closed at 7 pm, all television networks announced Mesić won a landslide victory based on the exit polls, which official results later confirmed. Kosor conceded and congratulated Mesić on his victory. After the elections, Boris Mikšić claimed the elections were fraud and that Mesić and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader made a deal of "bringing" Kosor in the second round. He claimed to have received 15,000 election ballots with serial numbers that were not evidented.^[4]

The President of Croatia, officially styled the President of the Republic, is the head of state, commander in-chief of the military and chief representative of the Republic of Croatia both within the country and abroad. The President is the holder of the highest office within the Croatia's order of precedence, however, the president is not the head of the executive branch as Croatia has a parliamentary system in which the holder of the post of Prime Minister is the most powerful person within the country's constitutional framework and within everyday's politics.

The two-round system is a voting method used to elect a single winner, where the voter casts a single vote for their chosen candidate. However, if no candidate receives the required number of votes, then those candidates having less than a certain proportion of the votes, or all but the two candidates receiving the most votes, are eliminated, and a second round of voting is held.

Boris Mikšić is a Croatian businessman and politician.

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References

↑ "Jutarnji list i Mediana: Bandić treći, a još se nije ni kandidirao". Jutarnji list (in Croatian). 19 September 2009. Retrieved 11 November 2009.
↑ "Prema zadnjim projekcijama izbornih rezultata Mesić uvjerljivo vodi". Index.hr (in Croatian). 2 January 2005. Retrieved 11 November 2009.
↑ "Kosor u prvom krugu potrošila najmanje 8,7 milijuna kuna". Index.hr (in Croatian). 8 January 2005. Retrieved 11 November 2009.
↑ http://www.vecernji.hr/predsjednicki-izbori/b-miksic-mesic-i-sanader-dogovorili-su-2005-da-u-2-krug-ide-j-kosor-68180

External links

Angus Reid Consultants - Election Tracker

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[1] "Jutarnji list i Mediana: Bandić treći, a još se nije ni kandidirao". Jutarnji list (in Croatian). 19 September 2009. Retrieved 11 November 2009.

[2] "Prema zadnjim projekcijama izbornih rezultata Mesić uvjerljivo vodi". Index.hr (in Croatian). 2 January 2005. Retrieved 11 November 2009.

[3] "Kosor u prvom krugu potrošila najmanje 8,7 milijuna kuna". Index.hr (in Croatian). 8 January 2005. Retrieved 11 November 2009.

[4] ttp://www.vecernji.hr/predsjednicki-izbori/b-miksic-mesic-i-sanader-dogovorili-su-2005-da-u-2-krug-ide-j-kosor-68180