Croatian President Stipe Mesic greets his supporters as he celebrates his re-election at his headquarters in downtown Zagreb yesterday.

By Snjezana Vukic - The Associated Press

ZAGREB - A day after winning a second term as Croatia’s president, Stipe Mesic yesterday called for national unity as this former Yugoslav nation looks West toward joining in the European Union.

Opposition-backed Mesic, 70, won 66 percent in a runoff election Sunday to beat his conservative governing-party rival, Cabinet Minister Jadranka Kosor, who won 34 percent.

“Parties can be replaced, as well as cabinets and presidents, but our strategic goals must remain the same: adoption of European standards and entry into European institutions,” Mesic said. Staunchly pro-Western Mesic, who replaced autocratic and nationalist President Franjo Tudjman in 2000, is credited by many at home and abroad for pushing democratic reforms.

“Europe is being united, and we must find our place in it,” he told state-run Croatian radio.

Mesic insisted he would devote his new five-year rule to “seeing that Croatian institutions function like those in the democratic world, and that steps are taken to improve people’s living standards.”

Mesic now has a mandate until late 2009, when the nation of 4.5 million people hopes to join the European Union. He is to be sworn in next month. The runoff results were a blow to Prime Minister Ivo Sanader’s governing Croatian Democratic Union, which returned to power a year ago, and could indicate a trend ahead of local elections in the spring.

Sanader’s party only recently distanced itself from its nationalist past to build itself as a European-style center-right group.

The president holds a largely ceremonial role, but co-creates foreign policy with the prime minister and influences domestic affairs. Mesic, who was supported by eight opposition parties and several minority groups, insisted he would “breathe down the neck” of the Cabinet to ensure that it works for Croats’ well-being.

Croatia, which gained independence only 13 years ago through a bloody war with its rebel Serbs, is to open membership talks with the EU on March 17. It must first capture fugitive General Ante Gotovina, charged by the UN court with wartime atrocities against the Serbs. Croatia has insisted Gotovina has fled the country.