Croatian Election Rivals Eye Four Big Cities

Some 3.7 million Croatian voters will be heading to the polls on Sunday for the local elections, choosing representatives for neighbourhood, city, municipality and county assemblies, as well as directly electing mayors, municipal heads, and county prefects.

The elections come amidst a political crisis, after the coalition between the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, and its junior partmer, the Bridge of Independent Lists, MOST, collapsed in late April.

The strongest opposition parties - Social Democratic Party, SDP, and the Croatian People's Party, HNS - as well as the anti-establishment Living Wall, are spying their chances.

With talk of early elections in September, the big parties hope to prove their ratings, especially in the country's four biggest cities, Zagreb, Split, Rijeka and Osijek.

The focus is in the capital, where Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic, once a senior member of the SDP, faces potential defeat after 17 years in power.

According to a survey from Promocija plus polling agency published for private RTL TV on Thursday, in the first round of the election Bandic stands to get 25.3 per cent of the votes, closely followed by Anka Mrak-Taritas, candidate of the HNS, the SDP and some other opposition parties, with 24.1 per cent.

Bandic's former deputy, Sandra Svaljek, has a chance of entering the second round. Supported by the HDZ's partner, the Croatian Social Liberal Party, HSLS, she is on 16.7 per cent.

She is followed by an independent right-winger, Bruna Esih - still supporting the HDZ-led government in the parliament - while the HDZ's candidate, Drago Prgomet, is in fifth place with only 7.7 per cent support.

According to this survey, the result between two main candidates would also be close...