Davor Filipovic will be the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) candidate in the race for the position of mayor of Zagreb at the coming local election, unofficial sources from HDZ's Zagreb branch said on Tuesday according to state agency Hina.

Confirmation of Filipovic’s candidature is expected at an online session of the party’s Zagreb branch on Wednesday.

Davor Filipovic (36) was born in Sarajevo. He obtained his PhD at the Zagreb Faculty of Economics and is a lecturer at the faculty’s Organisation and Management Department. He also studied at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.

He is an HDZ councillor in the Zagreb City Assembly and the chairman of the finance and budget committee. He is also chairman of the Supervisory Board of the state-owned Hrvatske Sume forest management company.

Filipovic is also the secretary of HDZ’s Zagreb branch. He unexpectedly emerged as HDZ’s candidate for mayor of Zagreb in the upcoming local elections in May after negotiations with the state-appointed acting head of the Zagreb Reconstruction Fund, Damir Vandjelic, fell through.

Prime Minister and HDZ leader Andrej Plenkovic said on Monday that the party’s presidency and national council had agreed on who the party’s candidate for Zagreb mayor would be. He did not reveal who that was but claimed that the candidate was a “better option than Vandjelic.”