National elections in Croatia will take place on Wednesday in a particularly tense political climate. Apart from the shocking prospect, the last member state elections before the European elections are also expected to be.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic is seeking to secure his third term in office since 2016. The conservative HDZ ruling party is dominant in the country’s political scene, having ruled for 26 years since 1991. However, unlike the 2020 election, HDZ this time risks losing its parliamentary majority. A series of recent government corruption scandals have led to a continuous drop in polls.
Transparency International has ranked Croatia as the fifth most corrupt country in the EU, behind only Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. It is typical that during Plenkovic’s prime ministership, 30 ministers have resigned or been dismissed following accusations of corruption. The glass, however, broke with the government’s recent decision to appoint Ivan Turudic, a person closely connected to the HDZ, as Prosecutor General. The move fueled fears among a significant section of society that the ruling party was trying to protect itself from prosecution, with the opposition accusing Plenkovic of “urbanization”/”state capture”.
Despite this, the HDZ leads the polls as the opposition remains largely fragmented. Based on the latest polls, it is expected to take 60 of the 151 parliamentary seats, with the center-left SDP trailing with 44 seats. The far-right anti-immigrant Homeland Movement and the ecological Mozemo follow with increased percentages. Plenkovic has been credited with the country’s recent entry into the eurozone as well as steady economic growth in recent years, largely underpinned by its booming tourism industry and an influx of European funds since 2013. In January, wages rose 8.6% over with the corresponding month of 2023, while the country’s GDP grew by 2.8% last year, surpassing the European average.
The situation, however, has been further complicated by the country’s President, Zoran Milanovic, who last month surprised everyone by announcing his candidacy for prime minister on behalf of the SDP. Two days later, his country’s Constitutional Court barred him from campaigning until the end of his presidential term in 2025. Since then, Milanovis has hardened his opposition tone, while insisting that he would only step down if of the SDP’s victory on Wednesday, so that he would not be replaced – according to the Constitution – by the current Speaker of the Parliament and a member of the HDZ.
Despite a flurry of scandals and opposition accusations of authoritarian practices and control of independent authorities, Plenkovic’s government maintains cordial relations with Brussels and Washington. It has aligned itself with the EU and the US on all critical foreign policy issues, including military support for Ukraine. In contrast, President Milanovich has been accused by his opponents of a pro-Russian stance, having consistently criticized the West and his own government over military aid to Ukraine and sanctions policy against Russia. Politically exploiting the corruption scandals under HDZ, the Croatian President seems to have succeeded in rallying a heterogeneous audience that includes left-wing voters as well as disenchanted with HDZ’s nationalist base. Having himself served as the country’s prime minister from 2011 to 2016, he remains one of the country’s most popular figures, even enjoying a slight lead in popularity ratings over Plenkovic.
In other words, a possible third 4-year term of the HDZ ensures a predictable course/continuity at the level of foreign policy with a more pro-Western attitude, but at the possible price of intensifying phenomena of abuse of power at home. A Milanovic-led government could have consequences for material support to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, thereby strengthening the positions of Viktor Orban and his Slovak counterpart Robert Fičo in the European Council.
In the less likely, but not impossible, scenario where the SDP succeeds in forming a coalition government with other smaller opposition parties, Milanovic is expected to step down from the presidency to become prime minister, raising the risk of a constitutional crisis. In the most likely scenario where neither major party manages to gather a majority of seats, the far-right Homeland Movement can determine developments either as a government partner or by supporting a minority government.
This is of course a trend that has recently been observed in other member states such as Sweden and more recently in Portugal, where centre-right minority governments were formed based on the parliamentary support of far-right parties. Inevitably, there is the risk of further normalizing them and strengthening their ability to co-shape the agenda, something that cannot be ruled out to be observed in the new European Parliament that will emerge from the June elections.
*Yiannis Alexandris works as a political risk and European affairs consultant based in Brussels. He is also a Researcher in the SE Europe program of ELIAMEP
#Elections #Croatia #great #favorite #thorn #Justice
