Right wing DP party, a junior partner in the governing coalition, will support the Croatian Democratic Union's (HDZ) candidate, Dragan Primorac, in the upcoming presidential election, the DP Presidency decided unanimously at a closed-door meeting in the Adriatic city of Sibenik this weekend.

“We did what we had promised to do in early March,” DP leader Ivan Penava told a press conference, adding that they had taken enough time to consider the political situation.

He said they had opted for Primorac because he was the only candidate with a serious political campaign. “If you look at the candidates at the centre or on the right, Primorac is the only one who we can say has a serious campaign and who can achieve a serious political result.”

Penava said that the DP had emerged stronger from the recent internal election, with a clearer vision of who they were and where they were going, after about six per cent of the membership left the party.