A BRIEF LOOK AT CROATIAN PRESS ON WEDNESDAY

ZAGREB, Jan 3 (Hina) - Today's VJESNIK devotes the first two pages to the election of Zagreb Mayor and City Council chairman at the constituent session of the City Council yesterday, with bold headlines and a large photograph of Zagreb city fathers on the front page. The paper also carries a report from yesterday's HDZ press conference on the subject, headlined "The Opposition Has Rejected All Our Proposals." A comment piece by Maja Freundlich, headlined "Yearning for True Riches", exhorts the reader to "trust the instinct that has unerringly led us in the past five years" - for Croats will not fail to find "where the greatest profit is." A comment piece by Mario Marusic deals with the process of injecting life into the Bosnian Federation and misunderstandings between Croats and Moslems. Franjo Kiseljak discusses the 1996 budget and the need to lighten the fiscal burden imposed on the business sector. The paper runs an analysis on privatisation as a "great trial for Croatia" by Vladimir Veselica. The middle page is devoted to the new Labour Act, which came into force on January 1. VECERNJI LIST also devotes much space to the election of the Mayor and the City Council chairman. A comment piece by Zeljko Hodonj, headlined "Vukovar - An European Symbol", discusses the prospects for the successful mandate of the US nominee for temporary administrator of eastern Slavonia, Gen. Jacques Klein. Visnja Staresina analyses the efforts Serbia has deployed in the past year to usurp the position of sole successor to former Yugoslavia. (hina) as 031215 MET jan 96