European Forum

SDP led coalition wins in Croatia!

On Sunday 4 December the ‘Kukuriku’ coalition led by the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP) won convincingly at the parliamentary elections. The Croatian central election commission (DIP) has announced that the coalition won 80 out of 151 seats in the Croatian parliament (Sabor). Besides the SDP, the coalition includes the Croatian People’s Party (HNS), the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS) and the Croatian Party of Pensioners (HSU). The coalition around the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) — of the outgoing Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor — gained 47 seats. The turnout was 62%.

Victory is just the beginning
As the results came in and it became clear Kukuriku coalition would win, Prime Minister to be and leader of the SDP Zoran Milanović addressed the audience at an election gathering in the museum of contemporary arts in Zagreb: “Four parties and one vision – the Croatians citizens gave us their trust, a chance […] we will not disappoint them. Our responsibility is tremendous. The results are good, we are satisfied and we feel we have a big task to accomplish. The campaign is over, but our work is just about to start …” Furthermore, Milanović stressed that the politics of the new government will be “politics of justice and fair payment for fair work.” Milanović reached out to the political opponents by saying that his wish is to work with them as well in the parliament for the benefit of Croatia.

Kosor still to congratulate the winners
At the HDZ election gathering, outgoing PM Kosor addressed the audience: “We will serve honestly in opposition […] from this moment on we will start to work for the election victory in the next election […] we are not totally satisfied, but in these circumstances, our election result is good.” Kosor said that HDZ entered the election race from an unfair position as media had declared the winner from the start. Furthermore, Kosor said that nobody can deny that HDZ started the fight against corruption and stated that “HDZ will be constructive in the opposition, strongly defending Croatian national interests.” However, quite unusually, she did not congratulate the election victors.

These are the preliminary results (99 % of the polling stations have counted the votes):

Source: Croatian Public Radio Television (HRT), Croatian Election Commission (DIP) and BIRN

Video of election night by Rinna Kullaa of the Finnish SDP