Zagreb Daily Report - December 3, 2009

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