September 26 (SeeNews) - The first session of Croatia's new parliament must be held within 20 days from Monday after the election commission released the final official results of the September 11 early vote.
The results have been sent to the Constitutional Court and will be published in the Croatian Official Gazette on Monday, meaning that the political parties have 20 days to form a government, the president of the election commission, Branko Hrvatin, explained, speaking on local broadcaster HRT.
The results are identical to the preliminary ones, which saw the winning Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, secure 61 of the 151 seats in parliament. Its main political rival, a coalition around the Social Democratic Party, SDP, won 54 seats after polls predicted a tighter race.
HDZ's current coalition partner, MOST, won 13 seats, thus again becoming the kingmaker, while SDP former coalition partner, the Istrian Democratic Assembly, secured three MPs.
Zagreb mayor Milan Bandic's party secured two seats, while the Living Wall performed better than expected, winning eight seats in parliament.
Croatian news agency Hina reported on Monday that HDZ leader Andrej Plenkovic has said that he expects progress in negotiations with the reformist MOST party. The two parties are due to hold the third round of the talks on forming Croatia's new government on Monday afternoon.
In last year's parliamentary elections, SDP and HDZ secured 56 and 59 seats, respectively, while MOST, a relative newcomer to the scene, won 19. Following consultations with Croatia's largest political forces, MOST formed a government with the HDZ-led Patriotic Coalition and appointed businessman Tihomir Oreskovic as prime minister.
However, the government crumbled in June when Oreskovic lost a no-confidence vote in parliament. The parliamentary parties were given 30 days to gather a new majority, but deteriorating relations between MOST and HDZ led to the dissolution of parliament in July, paving the way for early elections.