Croatian opposition conservatives win general election

With 70 percent of votes counted in the early hours, HDZ leader and ex-spy chief Tomislav Karamarko toasted success and declared victory to his supporters.

THE Social Democratic Party (SDP) of outgoing Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic came in second with 52 seats in Sunday’s parliamentary election, the state election commission said.

The two parties each won 56 seats, meaning with no outright majority they would need to form coalition governments with other smaller parties.

Preliminary results showed Most (Croat for “bridge”), which was founded three years ago, emerging as the third strongest group in parliament.

Most leader Bozo Petrov said his party would support a future government only if it went ahead with reforms of the judiciary and public administration, and sought to improve the business environment. “Croatia has decided for a change”, Milanovic stated.

ZAGREBCroatia’s ruling Social Democrats and their main opposition, the conservative Patriotic Coalition, appeared to tie in an election on Sunday, one exit poll showed, suggesting lengthy coalition talks with smaller parties in the newest European Union member.

“We won the parliamentary elections…”

The vote represented a revival for Karamarko’s conservative Croatian Democratic Union party, which led Croatia during its war for independence from the Serb-led Yugoslavia in the 1990s and then dominated its political scene for years. “The victory brought us responsibility to lead our country, which is in a hard situation”, he told cheering fans.

Thousands of migrants and refugees have been arriving in Croatia each day in the run-up to the vote, with almost 350,000 passing through Croatia on their way to northern Europe since mid-September, when Hungary closed its border with Serbia.

“If Most sticks to its word, that spells either a minority government or a new election”, Zarko Puhovski, a political science professor at the University of Zagreb, said by phone on Sunday. “Most will decide who will form the next government”.

The remaining nine seats would be shared by four minor parties, while eight seats are reserved for minorities. The government of Milanovic has faced wide spread criticism for freely allowing the migrants, by the conservatives who have indirectly made clear their agenda to deploy the army to the border to stop the migrant flow.