Croatian President Stjepan Mesic won a second mandate in an election runoff on Sunday with a landslide victory over the ruling Conservatives' top woman, official preliminary results showed.  

The state electoral commission said Mesic had 66 percent of votes. Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor trailed him on 34 percent with 99 percent of the votes counted.

Second round of presidential elections starts

The second round of Croatia's presidential elections started on Sunday as there was no outright winner in the first round.

The country's 6,564 polling stations opened at 0600 GMT, and were to close at 1800 GMT, with the first partial official results expected to be released after midnight.

In the first round of elections on January 2, incumbent President Stipe Mesic won 49.03 percent of votes, just short of the 50 percent necessary to avoid a runoff.

His rival Jadranka Kosor followed with 20.18 percent.

Out of some 4.4 million Croatians entitled to vote, 400,000 live abroad, including Croats in neighboring Bosnia with dual citizenship.

(Xinhua News Agency January 17, 2005)