MESIC HOLDS RALLY IN ZAGREB

ZAGREB, Jan 21 (Hina) - After the elections and the constitution of new authorities we want to create Croatia as a law-based state and a member-country of the European Union and NATO, a country of rich people where the old will have the stability and the youth future, said Stipe Mesic at his central pre-election in Zagreb on Friday ahead of the presidential election on January 24. At the parliamentary election (January 3) Croatian voters said what they thought about the authorities that failed to satisfy its people, the authorities that had given promises but failed to fulfil them. The former authorities were thinking of themselves and treated Europe and parts of their own people as an enemy, Mesic added. Europe wants us and it is going to unite itself, in order to advance technology and improve standard of living of millions of people, along with the United States and Japan, he told the gathered. If elected he would cut state expenditure, reduce the conscription to four months' duration and create better condition for education of the youth and more jobs. We seek and must create relations with Bosnia-Herzegovina as a sovereign state, and continue helping Bosnian Croats, but we do not pay remains structures of the former Herzeg-Bosnia, Mesic concluded. After Mesic's speech, a Croatian popular rock group "Prljavo Kazaliste" and other singers held a concert at the Cvjetni Square in the downtown Zagreb. (hina) ms