Independent presidential candidate Milan Bandic said on Monday that in the January 10 run-off with Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential candidate Ivo Josipovic, "the game will be played from the beginning" and that this time he would pay more attention to his election results in Zagreb in order to win back voters' trust.
"The game is played from the beginning and it will be won by the bettercandidate," Bandic said in an informal conversation with reporters in acafe in Zagreb's central Trg Bana Jelacica square.
He said that he would publish on the Internet the names of his donors andthe amounts donated for his election campaign by the end of the campaign, andnot 15 days after, recalling that outgoing President Stjepan Mesic had not donethis to date.
President Mesic today said that the campaign financing of one of thepresidential candidates was not transparent, confirming that he was referringto Bandic.
Speaking of President Mesic's two terms in office, Bandic said: "Oneshould think all the best of one's predecessors, especially the outgoing ones.Everyone can do better. I, too, could have done better."
He added that both Franjo Tudjman and Stjepan Mesic had given theircontribution to Croatia, one to its creation and the other to itsdemocratisation.
"My task is to unite all because Croatia today is in a crisis ofmorality and in an economic crisis. One must restore the shaken mutual trustand the trust in state institutions. Until that is done, we can't moveforward," Bandic said.
When asked to say why he found it bad if Ivo Josipovic indeed was the longarm of SDP leader Zoran Milanovic, Bandic said that he stated his opinion onthe matter last night. Responding to a reporter's comment that last night hestarted a negative election campaign, he said, "I'm not being negative,I'm just telling the truth".
He went on to say that in the next two weeks he would do his best to winback the trust of voters in Zagreb, who in the first election round voted forthe SDP's presidential candidate.
Bandic dismissed the possibility of founding a new political party as wellas claims that some SDP members had been expelled or left the party because ofhim. He said that he had sent the party a letter explaining why he had left it.
When asked how he would abolish the crisis tax if he was elected President,Bandic said that he would not file a complaint with the Constitutional Courtasking it to assess if the crisis tax was in line with the Constitution, butwould opt for "cohabitation with the government". He said that hewould introduce a zero tax rate on the basic foodstuffs in a similar way.
Asked what his weak point was, he replied, "I like to kill myself withhard work".
