Cablegate: Zagreb Daily Report - December 3, 2009

VZCZCXRO6460
PP RUEHIK
DE RUEHVB #0707 3371333
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 031333Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY ZAGREB
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9697
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS ZAGREB 000707

SIPDIS
SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL HR
SUBJECT: Zagreb Daily Report - December 3, 2009

1.(U) Bid to force referendum on Slovenia-Croatia border Arbitration
Agreement fails: The NGO Sea is Land, which opposed the deal to send
the 18-year long border dispute with Slovenia to binding
arbitration, failed in its attempt to force a public referendum on
the deal. The group collected more than 200,000 signatures within
the 15 day legal deadline, but was well short of the approximately
450,000 needed to place a referendum before the public. The group
sought to use a referendum to overturn the Sabor's decision on
November 20 to approve international arbitration to determine the
land and maritime border between Croatia and Slovenia.

2.(U) Latest presidential polling results - Croatia's leading
polling agencies Puls and Promocija Plus produced similar results in
their most recent presidential polls. The late November results
showed three main contenders for getting into the second-round
run-off: (Puls/PP): Ivo Josipovic - SDP: 25.6/26.2%; Milan Bandic -
Independent, ex-SDP: 16.6/16.2%; Nadan Vidosevic - Ind. ex-HDZ:
16/15.3%; Andrija Hebrang - HDZ: 7.9/7.8%; Vesna Pusic - HNS:
5.8/7%; Dragan Primorac - Ind. ex-HDZ: 5.1/8.6%. Ten percent of
voters polled were still undecided. The first round will be on
December 27, with the presumed run-off on January 10.

FOLEY

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