ZAGREB, Jan 3 (AFP) - Croatia's incumbent President Stipe Mesic overwhelmingly won the first round of elections taking 49 percent of the vote, official results showed Monday, but faces a runoff to win a second five-year term to lead the country as it seeks to join the EU.
Mesic will face conservative Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, who received 20.18 percent of Sunday's vote, in the January 16 runoff, the electoral commission said citing results of 99 percent of polling stations.
A jubilant Mesic urged voters to turn out in big numbers for the runoff, following a low turnout of 51 percent on Sunday, pledging a better future.
"Croatia must be a modern, European and democratic country with satisfied citizens. It will be possible only if we change many things. We will decide where Croatia is heading, to the 21st century or back in time. I offer the 21st century," he said after results were announced.
Mesic was surrounded by dozens of supporters chanting "Stipe, Stipe!"
Kosor said Croatia was ready for a woman president. "I am very happy that for the first time we have two candidates of which one is a woman," she said.
"This shows the maturity of voters since the most frequent question during the campaign was whether Croatia was mature enough to have a woman for a president," she said, adding that she "can lead a state in the 21st century."
The 70-year-old Mesic was heavily favored to win the vote to lead the former war-torn Yugoslav republic, with exit polls released immediately after voting stations closed showing he might win the 50 percent needed to avoid the runoff.
Wealthy Croatian-US businessman Boris Miksic finished third with 17.8 percent of the vote, the electoral commission said.
Exit polls had put Miksic ahead of Kosor, in what would have been a major humiliation for her ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).
The strong showing of Miksic, an outsider on Croatia's political scene whose support was not expected to break out of the single digits, was described as a protest vote.
"This is a protest of Croatian voters against the politics being led here," said Vesna Pusic, a lawmaker with a leftist opposition party.
During a lackluster campaign, Mesic and Kosor both pledged a better future for Croatians along the same lines -- EU membership, the strengthening of the rule of law and fighting corruption.
Mesic, 70, had said Sunday he was confident he would win in the first round.
"I think it is logical that this could work in the first round. Nothing will change in the balance of powers if we would have a run-off," he told journalists after casting his ballot.
Mesic owes much of his popularity to the major role he played in ending the Balkan nation's international isolation and completing its democratic reforms after succeeding authoritarian leader Franjo Tudjman.
He significantly reduced presidential powers as the country turned into a parliamentary democracy following constitutional changes in 2000. However, the president remains the supreme commander of the military and a co-creator of foreign policy.
Croatia has been put on a fast track to European integration with Brussels deciding last month to kick off membership talks in March.
It hopes to fulfill the membership criteria by 2007 but its bid depends on full cooperation with the UN war crimes court following the Balkans wars of the 1990s which will be closely monitored by Brussels.
Mesic's candidacy is supported by the three main center-left opposition parties who were defeated by the HDZ in legislative polls in November 2003.
Kosor was seen as a loyal ally of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and stood beside him in his efforts to turn the HDZ from its nationalist past to a modern pro-European party.
More than 4.4 million Croatians living in the country and abroad were eligible to vote.

01/03/2005 00:00 GMT - AFP