But the HDZ is hoping to stay in power with a new and more moderate leader, Andrej Plenkovic, who has pledged to move the party away from populism and extremism. Former members of the MOST-HDZ cabinet expressed vitriolic contempt against ethnic Serbs and nostalgia for Croatia’s WWII fascist regime.
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“Although more moderate in discourse and favoring a strong pro-EU approach, the exit poll result shows Plenković has succeeded to bring together both HDZ’s hard-right and centrist voters without the help of hard-right coalition partners” said Luka Orešković, associate partner at investment and advisory firm Spitzberg.
Bridge made it clear that it won’t be an easy partner, with its leader, 36-year-old psychiatrist Bozo Petrov, giving the big parties a five-day deadline to meet its demands or lose the chance of winning its support in a coalition.
Meanwhile, his SDP rival, former prime minister Zoran Milanovic, 49, said Monday he would not run as a candidate for the party’s leader in elections due in the coming months.
After 60% of votes were counted, the HDZ had about 61 seats while the Social Democrats (SDP) had around 54, Reuters reported. The turnout was only 52.38 per cent, according to the State Electoral Commission, which means that of 3.8 million registered voters, only 1.9 million cast ballots.
With a conservative agenda, the party is seen as closer to the HDZ than the SDP.
One difference compared to Croatia’s previous parliament is the likely absence this time of conservative so-called Rights parties.
Croatia had tilted to the right under the HDZ-led government that took over following the inconclusive vote last November.
Croatia held on Sunday its second election in ten months, with initial figures not substantially differing from the ones of the November 08 vote.
According to the BBC, a weak governmental coalition is not likely to be successful in implementing reforms required by the European Union, especially with regards to the country’s economy, which is overly dependent on tourism along the Adriatic coast. The party which has won 13 seats so far said that any party it forms a coalition with, will have to vow to implement its reformist plans. MOST has already set out a list of requirements for its participation in government and negotiations are once again likely to be a fraught affair.
Addressing his disappointed voters, SDP president Zoran Milanovic said it “wasn’t a happy day for Croatia”, but added that the country now needs a stable government, unlike “the last eight months, when we had a destructive one”. By doing so, he has also implicitly conceded victory to the HDZ, though he refuses to extend his congratulations to Plenković before the latter apologises for remarks which were made during the campaign.
HDZ’s triumph may unblock a political stalemate in which neither it nor the Social Democrats – the two have swapped off ruling the European Union’s youngest member since its violent break with the former Yugoslavia in 1991 – were able to muster a stable parliamentary majority.
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Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics. He recently published a book on the European Commission, The European Commission and Europe’s Democratic Process (Palgrave, 2016).
