Croatia’s HDZ wins third general election - report

HDZ and its partners have won 61 of 151 seats in the single-chamber parliament on Wednesday, as compared to 42 for the Rivers of Justice coalition led by main opposition party, centre-left Social Democrats, SDP, public television HRT reported, citing unofficial results of Wednesday's election based on close to 99% of votes in almost all polling stations counted.

At this point, the election commission, DIP, only provides preliminary results for separate constituencies. Final official results can be expected to be published after DIP reviews all potential complaints regarding the election process.

The Homeland Movement, an eurosceptic and right-wing populist political formation, will be the third strongest political formation in the new Parliament with 14 seats, followed by conservative populist political party Most (Bridge) with 11 seats, HRT said. The left-wing, green political party Mozemo (We Can) will have 10 seats.

Two regionalist formations - centre-right Istrian Democratic Assembly, IDS, and independent platform NP Sjever (North) and will have 2 seats each, while the coalition Fokus-Republika will get one seat.

Voter turnout was 62.30% on Wednesday, compared to some 46% in the previous election held in 2020. Each of the ten constituencies in the country elects 14 representatives. Voters living abroad form a separate constituency that sends three representatives to Parliament. National minorities in Croatia are entitled to eight representatives in Parliament, which are elected in a separate constituency.

In the previous general election held in July 2020, HDZ won 66 seats in the single-chamber assembly, followed by the SDP-led Restart coalition with 41 seats.

Plenkovic has been prime minister since October 2016. Under his collation government, the Adriatic country of 3.8 million people entered the eurozone and the visa-free Schengen area on January 1, 2023.

A total of 3.51 million voters in Croatia plus 222,197 Croatian citizens residing abroad were able to vote.