"Croatian Trump" fights for presidential re-election

• The last elections in Europe, closing the “super-choice” year 2024, will be the first circular of voting in the presidential election in Croatia, scheduled for December 29. The overtime, which will most likely be followed by a final settlement, will take place immediately after the fresh Year, January 12. In the Croatian political strategy based on the regulation of the parliamentary majority, the head of state performs mainly ceremonial functions.
• The favourite of the presidential race is president Zoran Milanović, who has served for 5 years, sometimes called by the press “Croatian Trump”, primarily due to his harsh and populist language in public debate. In the past, Milanović served as the leader of the Social Democratic organization (2007-2016) and the Prime Minister (2011-2016), who introduced Croatia as – to date – the last country to the European Union. Over the years spent in the Milanović Presidential Palace, he has increasingly moved to nationalist and populist positions, frequently with a clear anti-Western accent.
• Milanović's main rival is Dragan Primorac, formally acting as an independent candidate, but moving with clear support of the main organization ruling Croatia, the centre-right Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ). Primorac is simply a prof. of medicine who served as Minister of Education from 2003 to 2009 and has already participated in the 2009 presidential election once, besides as an independent candidate, yet taking 6th place rather distant. In the ongoing campaign, Primorac announces the fight to reconstruct greater culture and moderation in Croatian political discourse.
• Milanovic's first presidential word was powerfully influenced by political and individual conflict with Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovici, who, to any extent, even paralyzed the functioning of abroad service or the army in the absence of agreement on filling vacancies. Outside the country, president Milanović was celebrated for blocking support for Kiev and many anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian statements that undermine NATO's military aid and Russian war crimes. The head of Croatian diplomacy Gordan Grlić Radman even suggested that Milanović's presidential run could be financed by the Kremlin.

Croatia a slave to hard cohabitation

Since the erstwhile 2019/2020 presidential election, in which – then inactive acting as a social politician – Zoran Milanović defeated President-in-Office Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, a national-conservative populist associated with HDZ, Croatian executive power functions in a expression of hard cohabitation. On the 1 hand, Zoran Milanović, the erstwhile prime minister from the centre-left Social Democratic organization (SDP), on the another hand, the head of government liable for the actual conduct of state policy, is Andrej Plenković, who has served as the centre-right Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) since 2016.

Since the change of tenant in the presidential palace in early 2020, relations between president Milanovic and Prime Minister Plenkovici were – at least – hard and had a negative impact on the functioning of the state and the image of Croatia abroad. The gentlemen spared no reproach in public statements, calling each another “burners”, “traitors” or “snots”. Due to tensions between the “small and large palace” many vacancyes in diplomacy or the military could not be filled in due to the constitutional request of the president's cooperation with the Prime Minister at the cast of any posts. 1 of the final findings of this conflict was opposition president Milanović, as head of the armed forces, faced with the participation of Croatian soldiers in the NSATU training mission for Ukrainian soldiers. Prime Minister Plenković explained to the public that the president is doing this “for purely political reasons”.

To surprise many Milanović headed a wide centre-left camp “The River of Justice” appearing in the run as the main opposition force towards the ruling HDZ. crucial constitutional doubts arose very rapidly around Milanović's participation in the parliamentary campaign. Croatian Constitutional Court ruledThat Milanović can't run for head of government without giving up the presidency. In response, the president called judges of the constitutional court – in a typical kind – “unwritten gangsters” and did not quit the patronage of the centre-left camp in these elections. As expected, the parliamentary elections of 17 April 2024 ended with another HDZ victory, ruling the country over a vast majority of the period since the declaration of independency in 1991. Due to the failure of 5 seats in Sabora over the erstwhile word of office, Prime Minister and HDZ leader Andrej Plenković established a coalition with the Eurosceptic and Right-Populist Patriotic Movement, which downloaded for his fresh government criticism due to the “extremely right-wing, nationalistic” profile of the younger coalitionist. Indeed, the Patriotic Movement consists of erstwhile members of HDZ, for whom the Plenkovic organization was besides moderate, especially in social and global politics. little than 2 months later, on 9 June, the European elections were held, which resulted in a second HDZ victory, which won half of all Croatian tickets (up to 2 more than in 2019). The centre-left “The Rivers of Justice”, which president Milanović is associated with, maintained their state of ownership: 4 out of 12 mandates for Croatia.

It seems so. confirmed besides the global ranking Transparency International, according to which Croatia is the 5th most corrupt country in the European Union. At the threshold of the current presidential campaign, the government of Plenkovic was shaken by another corruption scandal, this time with the participation of Minister of wellness Vili Beroš, who, in the course of his office, became stopped in connection with the EU investigation of bribery and money laundering in the Croatian wellness service.

Does Milanović have anyone to lose to?

The main candidates from which the Croatians will be able to choose are:

• Zoran Milanović – President-in-Office since 2020, in the past besides Prime Minister (2011-2016) and president of the post-communist Social Democratic organization of Croatia (2007-2016). By education, a lawyer, a diplomat and a civilian servant. In 2007, he first assumed the mandate of a MP in Croatian Sabora. Croatia joined the European Union in 2013. In the final presidential election, he defeated his predecessor Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović (52.7% to 47.3%). Unlike National-Populist president Milanović, he then introduced himself as a candidate for “modern, progressive and open Croatia”. During his presidency, however, he was already recognized as a politician eagerly reaching for populist and prokremlian rhetoric, calling pandemic lockdowns in Austria “ Nazi methods” or determining Ukrainian Euromaidan called “state attack” on the eve of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine (Common polls for I round: 35-38%).
• Dragan Primorac – an independent candidate, moving with the support of the ruling HDZ. Related to this organization for years, in the past he was Minister of Education (2003-2009) in the 2 centre-right governments of Ivo Sanader. During the management period the Ministry of Education was considered To the best minister of the then government. As early as 2009, he tried to discount his popularity by moving unsuccessfully for the office of president (also as an independent candidate, he yet finished 6th with 5.93% of the vote). By profession, a doctor-geneticist and a pediatrist who has a crucial technological background. In the current Primorac run Refuses to the legacy of Franjo Tuđman, the first authoritarian president of Post-Jugoslavian Croatia (21-26%).
• Marija Selak Raspudić – an independent MP to Croatian Sabor, to which she got into in 2020 from the right-wing populist MOST party. By profession of bioethicist and fizolofic. Selak Raspudić is critical of contemporary feminism and the Istanbul Convention on the Prevention of force against Women (8-12%).
• Ivana Kekin – president of the Nova Ljevica group, which was incorporated into the wider left-wing green block of Možemo!. Since 2021, he has been a associate of the Croatian Sabor, while besides sitting in the Zagreb City Council as Vice-President. A psychiatrist who works at the University infirmary in Zagreb. It gained popularity as an activist for women's reproductive rights and increased public wellness in Croatia (7-9%).
• Miro Bulj – Mayor of the Dalmatian town of Sinj (23,000 inhabitants), moving in the presidential election as a candidate for the Eurosceptic, right-wing populist MOST party. erstwhile military and veteran of the Croatian War of independency from 1991-95 (3-4%).
• Mislav Kolakušić – erstwhile Euro MP and president of the National-Conservatory, populist organization Law and Justice (Pravo and Pravda), which – apart from the name – besides visually effort to match the Polish Law and Justice. By education, a lawyer, a judge. During the mandate, the Euro MP was identified as an opponent of COVID-19 vaccination and pandemic exacerbations (2-3%).

The another candidates whose support oscillates within the limits of statistical mistake are: Branka Lozo (Professor of the University of Zagreb, from the Eurosceptic micro-party DOMiNO), Tomislav Jonjić (independent lawyer and erstwhile diplomat, supported by the neo-fascist and ultra-nationalist micro-party of HSP) and Niko Tokić Kartelo (independent entrepreneur).

Not a likely surprise.

The polling simulations for the second circular of elections rather unambiguously indicate the President-in-Office triumph against all registered candidates. The poll predicts that Milanović will be elected to his second and final presidential term, winning about 54% of the vote.

Due to the limited prerogatives of the head of state, the dispute will take place primarily in the media sphere, and will sometimes besides burden any Croatian institutions and national image internationally.

Despite pro-Russian statements, Milanović maintains popularity in Croatian society, fundamentally pro-Western and pro-Ukrainian. Its message goes to the circles reluctant to “engage Croatia into global conflicts”. The president besides enjoys support primarily among voters who argue long-standing HDZ governments, identified with corruption and clientelism, and among those who like the President's language, harsh and rejecting political correctness.

In global matters, it is expected that president Milanović will proceed to prosecute his own abroad policy, most frequently with limited effects due to the clear prerogative of the government in this respect and, above all, to ad hoc home use. In the communication layer, Milanović will most likely proceed to feed a group of European heads of state and government that perpetuate the prokremlian communicative of the war in Ukraine and the situation in the region. A further effort to return Milanović to national government and parliamentary policies is not excluded in the longer term.

[1] More on president Zoran Milanović's participation in the parliamentary run in the analysis of the fresh Europe Institute of 14 April 2024 (Parliamentary elections in Croatia: president Milanović tries to flip the table).