Tena Prelec and Stuart Brown write that the results were a blow for Croatia’s Social Democrats, who had hoped to win the largest share of support but ended up in second place behind the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).
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Croatian citizens have started casting ballots in an early parliamentary election that is unlikely to produce a clear victor and could pave the way for more political uncertainty in the European Union’s newest member state.
The centre-left People’s Coalition came second with 54 seats followed by the centre-right MOST [Bridge], party, which won 13.
In a sign of voter disillusionment, turnout plunged, and Zivi Zid (“Human Shield”), a populist left alliance, surged from one to eight seats with promises to be tough on banks and demands for prosecutions of unnamed corrupt officials.
The nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won Croatia’s general elections on Sunday, taking away 61 seats in a 151-seat parliament.
Croatians may have lost enthusiasm for voting a second time in less than a year – turnout was 52 percent, almost 10 points down from the November polls.
“I’m certain that we are the party that will have the privilege of forming the next stable Croatian government”, HDZ’s leader and former MEP Andrej Plenković told supporters early Monday.
“HDZ has a bigger coalition potential”, said former parliamentary Speaker Zeljko Rajner, describing his party as “a relative victor of this election”.
Andrej Plenkovic, a European parliamentarian who has assumed HDZ leadership only months before the vote and shifted it toward the center, said Monday that talks with potential coalition partners will start in the coming days.
In last year’s parliamentary elections, SDP and HDZ secured 56 and 59 seats, respectively, while MOST, a relative newcomer to the scene, won 19.
As experts predicted, the HDZ is likely to again form a government with MOST, which HDZ’s vice president and outgoing culture minister Zlatko Hasanbegovic announced last night.
The previous HDZ-Most government collapsed after just five months amid rows over public administration reforms and government appointments.
The poll forecast the center-right Most (“Bridge”) party, which wants to end the 20-year dominance of the big parties, which it accuses of clientelism and corruption, would win 11 seats.
“We are happy”, Plenkovic said upon casting his ballot.
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.
“The following months and years are truly decisive for Croatia, and today we have to be serious”, Grabar Kitarovic said.
“We showed that we are more competent, have more courage” to lead a new government, he told reporters.
Neither party offered much detail during the campaign on how they would deliver promised higher standards of living in one of Europe’s weakest economies, where unemployment runs at 13 percent.
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“This is not a new trend, the right-wingers winning”, said Ljerka Kavoci, a Zagreb resident.
