Sanader said that all surveys showed that the HDZ was by far the strongest party at the start of the fourth year of its term. Asked whom he considered a more dangerous rival, Social Democrat leader Ivica Racan or People's Party (HNS) president Radimir Cacic, Sanader said that neither was a dangerous rival.
Asked how he planned to win 35 percent of the vote considering the fact that reforms had to be implemented quickly, the PM said that all people who wanted a functioning state and a competitive economy knew that reforms were necessary, and that this would not affect the voters.
Estimating how many votes the SDP could win, Sanader said that the party would win enough votes to be second, but too few to be first.
As for the Party of Rights (HSP), Sanader said that the party could win eight to nine percent of votes if it continued developing to become a serious party.
As for the far-right parties wishing to enter the parliament, Sanader said that they were "a group of political losers" that would win 1-2 percent of the vote and that they were completely irrelevant for the upcoming elections.
As for the possibility of forming a coalition with the HNS, Sanader said that "theoretically" he would not "rule it out".
Asked if his recent speech in Split in which he supported erecting a monument to the late Croatian President Franjo Tudjman in Split and the unification of the two HDZ parties in Bosnia was primarily directed at rightist voters, Sanader answered by asking if any leftist party was against a monument to Tudjman and if anyone was against the two strongest Bosnian Croat parties uniting so that they could promote Bosnian Croats' interests.
Commenting on the interviewer's statement that his attitude towards ethnic minorities and his pro-European policy had been also acknowledged by the centre-left parties, Sanader said that he did not believe that a tolerant attitude to the minorities, or the attitude to anti-fascism and Ustasha ideology as formulated by his government, or the attitude to the Hague war crimes tribunal, was of interest only to centre-left voters.
"We believe that those are all-Croatian issues, and if ideological undertones are left aside, there are no major differences of opinion on those matters."
The PM went on to say that the current parliamentary majority would continue to be the HDZ's first-choice coalition partners, but that the party remained open to other parties as well.
Asked to comment on the fact that his policy of integration with the EU was supported by less than 50 percent of Croatians, Sanader said that this was due to lack of information and that the government had launched a major campaign to explain to citizens what the EU was about.
Asked if he and President Mesic had reached agreement on who should be the next director of Croatian Radio and Television, Sanader said that the director of the national broadcasting company was elected by the Programmes Council, and that neither Mesic nor he could influence its decisions.
He confirmed that he and Mesic had discussed their perceptions of the work of the public television network, but that they had not talked with any member of the Programmes Council.