With the victory, MOST negotiated with two biggest party HDZ and SDP for months and at last formed a coalition government with HDZ, but the government stepped down only five months later following a no-confidence vote in June.
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But any government will struggle to deliver reforms being urged by the European Union, which is monitoring Croatia’s debt-burdened economy and an investment environment it sees as business-unfriendly.
Additionally, the nationalist turn of the previous HDZ coalition – along with a spying scandal, a statue of a controversial Croatian figure, and a contentious exhibition in Brussels, to name a few cases – put a strain on its relationship with neighboring Serbia.
With nearly three-fourths of ballots counted, the conservatives of the Croatian Democratic Union (Hdz) of Plenkovic obtained 61 MPs out of the 151-seat one-chamber Parliament of Zagreb, remaining the country’s leading party.
The HDZ’s former junior government partner, the Most party (meaning “Bridge” in Croatian), is likely to play kingmaker once again as it looks set to come third with 12 seats.
But during campaigning Milanovic sharpened his populist rhetoric after disappointing voters with scant reforms when in power before the ill-fated HDZ coalition took control last November.
HDZ is banking on staying in power with a new and more moderate leader, Andrej Plenkovic, who has pledged to move it away from populism and extremism.
The more moderate leader, who took over from right-leaning Tomislav Karamarko earlier this summer, said Sunday he expects high turnout among Croatia’s almost 3.8 million voters. 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.
“I think we are moving toward a better future for Croatia”, Micic said.
The likeliest outcome is a similar scenario to that of the previous vote – prolonged talks on forming a government and potentially another election.
The main parties in Croatia are the left-wing Social Democrats and the right-wing Croatian Democratic Union, commonly known as HDZ.
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) Zoran Milanovic, leader of Croatia’s opposition Social Democrats and a former prime minister, said Monday he will step down after a poor result of his coalition in weekend’s snap national election.
“We know that this [their party] program is not at all interesting to either the HDZ or SDP, and we know it is of no concern to MOST… therefore, our path is clear”, Ivan Vilibor Sincic, president of Living Wall, said. “The rest is up to the people”.
Croatia remains one of the EU’s mostly poorly performing economies despite recent positive developments linked to its European Union membership. Growth of 2.5 percent expected this year is far short of the 4 percent growth that would be needed to make a dent on persistent low living standards, analysts say. However, unemployment hovers around 14 percent.
Kristijan Naher, a voter from Zagreb, said that he hopes Croatians “will be smarter now” and vote conclusively to “avoid the agony” that followed the last election.
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Morana, a 27-year-old teacher from Zagreb, said she was voting for SDP.
