page_title: 2009–10 Croatian presidential election
section_title: First round result analysis
hierarchical_section_title: 2009–10 Croatian presidential election / Summary of the results / First round result analysis
caption_attribution_description: English: Results of the 2009-2010 Croatian presidential election.
context_page_description: 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. 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, turmoil in the largest political party 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, led to a record number of candidates contesting the elections.
context_section_description: The first round of the election saw the lowest turnout of any presidential election in Croatia's history with only 43.96% of all the citizens eligible to vote participating in the election compared to 50.57% five years ago and 62.98% ten years ago. Most political observers noted the public's increasing distrust in politicians and the political system as the main reason for the low turnout.
  Nationwide, Ivo Josipović obtained 32% and Milan Bandić 14%, meaning the two of them combined achieved less support than Stjepan Mesić did in 2005 in the first round only. The fact that there were only three actual left-leaning candidates meant the left was relatively united under Josipović, while the votes of the right were spread out on several prominent candidates, including Bandić, which was one of the reasons why no right wing candidate managed to qualify for a run-off. As such, this election became historic as a run-off would feature two candidates once in the same party, Josipović, who rejoined SDP a year before the election, and Bandić, who left SDP a month before the election so he could run as an independent.
  The candidate of the governing centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) Andrija Hebrang came in third with 12% of the vote, a result noticeably better than most polls had predicted, but still seen by many as a debacle for HDZ as he achieved the lowest ever result for the party on a national level and also became their first presidential candidate not to secure a second round since Mate Granić in 2000. Nadan Vidošević, who was seen by many as a front-runner for the presidency in the beginning of the year, came in fourth with 11% of the vote. Dragan Primorac was the third prominent right-wing candidate who invested huge sums in his campaign, but in the poll he achieved only 6%, lower than what many polls had predicted. Primorac was indeed surpassed even by the centre-left candidate Vesna Pusić who was fifth, obtaining 7.25%.
  No other candidate achieved more than 5% on a national level. Left-wing Damir Kajin made a decent showing in his home county, but was nevertheless surpassed by the right-wing Miroslav Tuđman in the overall tally. Slavko Vukšić's final number of votes was even smaller than the number of signatures that originally supported his nomination.
  Josipović carried all 21 counties except for two, the Lika–Senj County which was carried by Andrija Hebrang and the Istria County carried by Damir Kajin. He also won the all major cities including the capital of Croatia, Zagreb, a sort of embarrassment for Bandić who is the mayor of the city. Bandić had won the 2009 Zagreb local elections with almost 150,000 votes just seven months prior, but with a turnout of 41.69%/33.62% and under the SDP banner. This time he won only some 59,000 votes or 15.64% in Zagreb, with a local turnout of 52.40%.
caption: Results of the first round
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