Croatia votes for the second time in a year

The European Union’s newest member state, Croatia, is holding a snap election this weekend that pits the dominant parties on the left and right against each other but is unlikely to produce a clear victor. A total of 140 members will be elected in 10 constituencies while eight seats are reserved for representatives of minorities and three seats for communities outside Croatia.

The left-wing Peoples’ Coalition won 57 seats in Croatia’s 151-seat parliament, according to the poll conducted by Croatia’s independent Ipsos Puls agency, carried by state TV.

At 0930 GMT, four-and-a-half hours after polling stations opened, turnout was almost 19 percent, the electoral commission said.

HDZ and the Social Democrats have been the two dominant parties in Croatia since the country split from former Yugoslavia in 1991.

The SDP is still led by its president and former prime minister, Zoran Milanovic, while the HDZ in July chose a new president, Andrej Plenkovic.

This second vote in less than a year was triggered when the previous government, an HDZ-Most coalition, collapsed after just five months amid rows over public administration reforms and government appointments.

But, voting in far smaller numbers than last time, voters declined to give lawmakers the certainty they wanted, and any government could end up even more unwieldy than the previous one, especially if it is dependent on a likely eight seats representing ethnic minority parties.

For Boris Miletic, a small-party mayor of the northern, liberal-minded coastal town of Pula, the big parties really only “deal with themselves” to avoid facing Croatia’s many problems.

Any government faces an enormous task in revitalising one of the European Union’s weakest economies, dominated by state enterprises and where red tape deters private investment.

But party officials were cautious, warning that the initial results, skewed towards rural districts that are the HDZ’s traditional strongholds, may yet change.

The EU wants its youngest member to tame high public debt, cut the budget deficit and improve the business climate to spur economic growth.

Almost four million people are eligible to vote in Croatia. All promise lower taxes to be financed by expected higher growth. However, despite an unemployment rate of more than 13 percent and six years of recession, Croatia’s central bank has forecast recovery and growth of 2.3 percent this year. Interest payments on public debt eat up 3.5 percent of economic output.