Incumbent Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic declares election victory for the centre-right party HDZ. Photo: Darko Vojinovic / AP / NTB
Of NTB | 18.04.2024 04:13:03
Policy: The incumbent party has secured 60 out of 151 representatives in the National Assembly, the result shows after 97.78 percent of the votes have been counted at 4 o’clock on Thursday night.
A centre-left coalition led by the Social Democrats (SDP) looks set to win 42 seats, while the right-wing Domovinski Pokret (DP) is set to win 14 seats.
The electoral turnout was 61.83 per cent, the country’s electoral commission states.
– Thank you to our fellow citizens for their trust, he said on X.
The election was held after the National Assembly was dissolved in March at the request of the Western-oriented Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. Critical voices claim he hastened the election because he fears that support for his party HDZ was in the process of falling.
In the last election, HDZ got 66 representatives.
HDZ has dominated Croatian politics and the country’s national assembly since the country broke away from Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
– Regardless of the final distribution of representatives, it is likely that the National Assembly will become more fragmented and that coalition negotiations will be dragged out. A minority government, led either by the HDZ or the SDP, could become even more unstable and unlikely to be able to sit out the entire period, says analyst Mario Bikarski at the risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic declared HDZ the winner of the election for the new national assembly on Thursday night.
Plenkovic has received strong criticism for his justice policy and for his handling of the media. He has also been accused of corruption. If he becomes prime minister again, it will be his third term.
(© NTB)