RACAN INVITES CITIZENS TO VOTE FO BUDISA AT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS EXTENDED

ZAGREB, Dec 13 (Hina) - President of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) Ivica Racan on Thursday invited citizens to vote for Drazen Budisa at the presidential elections on January 24, 2000. Budisa is the candidate of the SDP/Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS) coalition, which won at the parliamentary election on January 3. "We believe that persons who voted for our coalition will be aware of the fact that only a completed job is successful", Racan told a press conference. He invited citizens to support Budisa as strongly as they supported the SDP/HSLS coalition. Racan, the future Prime Minister, said that his deputy would be Goran Granic, acting HSLS president. Goran Granic assessed that citizens' Croatia started happening at the parliamentary elections. "I believe that January 3 will be remembered as the beginning of the building of a Croatia in which nothing would ever be the same", he said. Granic denied that the basic criteria for the division of functions in public institutions would be political suitability. He said it was significant whether a future director of the Croatian Radio Television would be able to create a public medium. Granic said that leading people in the Government will need to have political broadness, and not just narrow professional knowledge. He added that Prime Minister Matesa expressed complete readiness to cooperate in the transitional period. (hina) it