"Very soon the HDZ will say how it will act and who its presidential candidate is," Sanader said on Sunday at an HDZ rally.
At reporters' insistence, HDZ vice president Jadranka Kosor commented on public opinion polls about the popularity of presidential candidates. She said what was being done with her so-called candidacy was unfair to say the least. "The HDZ does not have a presidential candidate yet and will define its position on the matter in the autumn."
She added that since the HDZ did not have a candidate yet, it was inappropriate to insinuate that not every HDZ constituent would vote for the party's presidential candidate. She also said that today's rally did not represent the beginning of the electoral campaign.
Reporters asked the PM to comment on media reactions in Austria to the decision of the Croatian government to buy a plot of land in the Bleiburg Field in Austria around the monument to the memory of Croat troops and civilians who were executed there at the end of World War Two.
Sanader said that according to what he had read, there had evidently been a misunderstanding. "The Austrian media didn't understand the government's decision well".
He recalled the government gave the Club of Croatian Returnees from Emigration money to purchase a plot of land in the Bleiburg Field for a new memorial site, while the memorial plaque would be placed where it was more visible.
Asked to comment on initiatives calling for changing legal regulations which ban any alcohol in the blood of drivers, Sanader said, "Statistics show that the number of casualties in car accidents in July and August was half the figures recorded before the (new law on traffic safety) was adopted or (figures recorded) in July and August last year".
He added the new law was not against drinking but against drunk drivers. "We'll continue to follow statistics and if the July and August trend becomes the norm, we may think about possibly changing the law."