There are less than two days left for potential candidates for the office of Croatian president to collect the required 10,000 valid signatures and submit them to the State Electoral Commission (DIP). The deadline is midnight on Tuesday, 10 December.

So far, three candidates have submitted their signatures.

The first was incumbent President Zoran Milanovic, who is seeking a second five-year term and is supported by the SDP party and its partners.

He was followed by Dragan Primorac, who is supported by the ruling HDZ party and its partners, and Miro Bulj from the Most party.

Selak-Raspudic and Tokic-Kartelo will submit signatures on Monday, the rest of the candidates on Tuesday

Seven other candidates have announced that they will submit their signatures on Monday and Tuesday.

One of them is the independent candidate Marija Selak-Raspudic, who will arrive at DIP on Monday afternoon. Niko Tokic-Kartelo, also an independent, will hand in his signatures two hours earlier.

As things stand, presidential candidate Branka Lozo, representative of the Homeland and National Rally (DOMiNO) part will be the first to arrive at the State Electoral Commission on Tuesday. She will be followed by Ivana Kekin, the candidate of the Mozemo party, and the independent, lesser-known Pavle Perovic.

Independent candidate Tomislav Jonjic and another independent candidate, Drazen Pilic, are expected to arrive on Tuesday afternoon.

It is not yet known if and when Drazen Keleminec, leader of the extra-parliamentary Autochthonous Croatian Party of Rights, Mislav Kolakusic, leader of the parliamentary Law and Justice party, Karolina Vidovic-Kristo, founder of the non-parliamentary Determination and Justice party (OiP), and the independent Aurora Weiss, who have all also announced their candidacy for the presidency, will submit their signatures.

FIlic has withdrawn his candidature on the grounds that media coverage is unequal

However, it is known that one potential presidential candidate, Anton Filic, has withdrawn from the race, reducing the number of candidates to 13.

Filic, a former journalist for the daily Vecernji list and former president of the Croatian Journalists’ Association, said on Sunday that he was forced to withdraw from the race for the presidential candidacy.

He justified this with the uneven media coverage and the complete boycott by leading media, especially Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT), which made it difficult for him to collect the necessary signatures.

48 hours for DIP to verify signatures

After receiving the nominations, the DIP has 48 hours to verify the signatures and publish the official list of presidential candidates. Once the list is published, the official election campaign begins, which lasts until midnight on 27 December, followed by a day of election silence.

During the election silence on Saturday 28 December and Sunday 29 December, any form of advertising, publication or estimation of results is prohibited until the polling stations close.

The Croatian president will be elected according to the first-past-the-post system, i.e. the winner must receive more than 50% of all votes cast.

If no candidate achieves this in the first round on 29 December, the two best candidates will move on to a run-off election scheduled for 12 January 2025.