HDZ NOMINATES TUDJMAN AS PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

ZAGREB, Feb 23 (Hina) - The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party on Sunday nominated its president, Franjo Tudjman, to head all HDZ electoral lists in local and parliamentary elections scheduled for April 13 and to be its candidate for a presidential election later this year. Tudjman was nominated to head all HDZ lists by HDZ vice president Jadranka Kosor on behalf of the party's head committee. He was nominated as an HDZ presidential candidate by Vlatko Pavletic on behalf of the HDZ presidency. Addressing a session of the HDZ head committee, Tudjman said that his nomination was a recognition of "everything we have done to date, to which I have also made some contribution." "We have done it together with the HDZ as the strongest, most versatile and most powerful Croatian party in history," Tudjman said, stressing that it all had been done with the support of a vast majority of the Croatian people. "I am confident that we will again win over a vast majority of the Croatian people so that we can continue what we have achieved over the last seven years to the amazement of the world, the achievement which cannot be seen only by those politically totally blind," he said. Tudjman stressed that his party would go ahead with a clear programme and resolute people to build "a prosperous, happy, blessed and rich Croatia, a country of justice, social justice, wellbeing and happiness for all its people." "We are going forward because we want Croatia to be a country of return and not of emigration. We are going forward under the leadership of the HDZ which in the most recent Croatian history has assumed a role which many other parties have played for decades in the life of other nations," he said, urging his party colleagues to be consistent in implementing HDZ policies. The session, held in Zagreb's Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, marked the seventh anniversary of the HDZ's first convention. It was attended by 2,000 members of all HDZ bodies and guests from the Croatian Christian Democratic Party, the Christian Democrats of Medjimurje, the Croatian Conservative Party, the Croatian Party, the Croatian National Democratic League and the Istrian Popular Party. (hina) vm jn 232158 MET feb 97