Profile: Leaders of Croatian two main rival political parties

The Croatian Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), the two main contenders for parliamentary elections set for Nov. 8, are pulling out all the stops to increase their support in the last campaign week.

However, HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko refused to appear in television debates with Zoran Milanovic, the president of SDP.

Analysts here said the decision not to confront Milanovic, the incumbent prime minister, a week before the elections was understandable, considering the HDZ's slight advantage was losing ground to SDP and also Karamarko's eloquence was not a strong point compared to the somewhat younger Milanovic.

Sunday's elections are predicted to be tense and the winner will be determined by the strength of the post-coalition of each of the two strongest parties in Croatia, analysts said.

Karamarko was born in 1959 in Zadar, a city on the Adriatic coast. His family moved to Zagreb where he finished high school and graduated with a degree in philosophy. He started working in the National Archives in 1987 as an archivist historian.

He is not a new face on the Croatian political scene. He has been active since the introduction of the multi-party system in late 1989.

Karamarko started his political career by helping establish the Zagreb branch of HDZ in 1989, as well as preparing the first multi-party elections.

He became the head of the cabinet of then prime minister Josip Manolic, after the election victory of HDZ in 1991, then of that of prime minister Franjo Greguric. In the period from 1996 to 1998 he was the assistant minister of the interior.

He used to be a close collaborator of former Croatian President Stjepan Mesic. Before earning the top spot in the Zagreb police department, he was shortly retained as head of Mesic's cabinet, the president of parliament at the time. He ran Mesic's election headquarters and the presidential campaign in 2000 before becoming his national security adviser.

Karamarko became head of the Counterintelligence Agency in 2004 and served as interior minister in 2008 and 2011. Today, he is running the party, since its former leader and former prime minister Ivo Sanader is accused of corruption.

Karamarko's opponent, incumbent Prime Minister Milanovic, is somewhat younger than him. Born in 1966 in Zagreb, Milanovic is a law graduate from Zagreb University.

Self-described as having been "rebellious and prone to fights" in his youth, he exhibits similar character traits in the political arena, making him oft appear as an arrogant politician. During the campaign, Milanovic appeared less arrogant and more compassionate on advice from U.S. political marketing experts hired by SDP for its campaign, the media reported.

After graduation, Milanovic found his first job at the Zagreb Commercial Court and then moved to the ministry of foreign affairs in 1993. A year later, he joined the peacekeeping mission of the European Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Azerbaijan and later became an advisor to the Croatian Mission to the European Union and NATO in Brussels where he incidentally completed postgraduate studies in European and comparative law.

He returned to the ministry of foreign affairs in 1999 and joined the SDP the same year. After only four years, he became a member and spokesperson of the party's central committee. After former SDP leader Ivica Racan died in 2007, Milanovic saw his chance to take the vacant seat. Milanovic managed to defeat more famous and older members in inter-party elections.

As the second president in the history of the party, which is the successor to the Croatian Communist Party, he lost the 2007 parliamentary elections to the HDZ. However, he kept his post as the party's president as his colleagues chalked up the loss to his inexperience and youth. His party's coalition went on to win the parliamentary elections of 2011.

This year, he faces a very difficult task to win the elections. If he fails, he will have a tough time staying on in the party because he will no longer be able to claim a lack of experience as his reason for losing. Endit