Both candidates said the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina was in its integrityand that Croatia needs to support every deal Bosnian Croats make concerning themodel of Bosnia's territorial organisation.

Independent candidate Bandic, however, believes that Croats need to seektheir future in a third entity.

"Unfortunately, the Croat people will have no other option but to lookfor their full political expression in a third territorial unit. I do not wishfor this to happen, but I believe everything is heading that way," Bandicsaid.

Although he is confident that Zagreb needs to back every deal Bosnian Croatsmake, Josipovic believes that in case a third entity is created, it would bedifficult to include all Bosnian Croats in it.

Josipovic said that Zagreb's policy towards Bosnian Croats so far had notbeen good, adding that the result of that policy was a decreasing number ofCroats in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Neither Bandic not Josipovic stated precisely whether they believe that theBosnian Serb entity was founded on war crimes, although both candidatesstressed that many war crimes had been committed on the territory of RepublikaSrpska and that non-Serb population had been expelled from the area.

Although both candidates agreed that there was no ethnic cleansing duringthe 1995 Croatian Operation Storm, Josipovic stressed Croatia still needed toinvest more efforts in the return of the Serb population, while Bandic isconfident Croatia, unlike Republika Srpska, had done all that it could to helpthe return of refugees.

Bandic also said he was saddened by the fact that the outgoing PresidentStjepan Mesic sided with Josipovic, underlining that this was contrary to theConstitution. Bandic described his battle in the runoff as the battle betweenDavid and Goliath, as he is facing three counter candidates - Josipovic, Mesicand Social Democratic Party president Zoran Milanovic.

Josipovic said not only those three were against Bandic, but also most ofthe other candidates from the first round, most of parliamentary parties andmost of Croatian citizens, which Croatia's capital demonstrated in the firstround. Bandic is the mayor of Zagreb and he captured only 15.64 percent ofvotes of Zagreb residents.

Asked about calling early election, given the current economic crisis,Josipovic said this decision was not within the president's jurisdiction, whileBandic said early elections would not bring anything good to Croatia. Bandicsaid he advocated cooperation with the incumbent government.

Asked if they would allow their daughters to marry a person of their ownsex, Bandic said that this was freedom of choice, but as a father he wouldraise his child so this could never happen. Josipovic said his daughter was anadult and in charge of her own destiny, stressing that her happiness was hishappiness.

Both candidates supported the arrests of people suspected of crime andcorruption in state and public companies.