Mesic, the candidate of eight political parties, received votes from about 1.5 million voters, or 66 per cent of the electorate, while his opponent, Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), won about 750,000 votes, or 34 per cent, DIP chairman Ivica Crnic said at a press conference after the expiry of the 48-hour campaigning ban at midnight.
Slightly over 51 per cent of the electorate turned out for the vote, or 2.3 million out of 4.4 million eligible voters.
Five years ago, when Mesic won his first term in office, turnout was about 61 per cent, with Mesic capturing approximately the same number of votes as yesterday -- 1.4 million ,or 56 per cent. His rival, Drazen Budisa of the Social Liberal Party gained 44 per cent.
Crnic said that the DIP had not received a single written complaint about the voting process, and that the police had registered 14, mainly minor incidents.
Of 167 polling stations intended for Croatian nationals living abroad, including 14 polling stations in Croatia for refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatian emigrants who happened to be in Croatia on election day, returns from 153 of them were processed by midnight.
About 97,000 voters, or 26.2 per cent, cast their ballots at those polling stations, with Kosor winning 82.5 per cent of the vote and Mesic 17.4 per cent.
Ballots from all 42 polling stations in Bosnia-Herzegovina were counted, showing that about 63,000 voters, or 22.5 per cent, turned out for the ballot.
Branko Hrvatin, a member of the DIP in charge of voting abroad, said that police had to intervene at a polling station in Kiseljak, about 30 kilometres west of Sarajevo, over a verbal attack on an election monitor "which bordered on physical assault".
Hrvatin said that the DIP would declare its position on Tuesday on the case of Antonija Knezevic from Karlovac who voted twice. The woman voted in Karlovac shortly after the opening of polling stations at 7 a.m., but later in the day she also cast her ballot in Mostar, using her Croatian passport and Bosnian ID card.