Croatia’s ruling HDZ wins general election - exit poll

HDZ and its partners are likely to have won 58 of 151 seats in the single-chamber parliament, as compared to 44 for the Rivers of Justice coalition led by main opposition party, centre-left Social Democrats (SDP), according to an exit poll conducted by market research agency IPSOS and quoted by Nova TV.

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.

According to the exit poll, The Homeland Movement, an eurosceptic and right-wing populist political formation, will be the third strongest political formation in the new parliament with 13 seats.

The left-wing, green political party Mozemo (We Can) will have 11 seats, while conservative populist political party Most (Bridge) and its partners will get nine seats.

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

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.

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

The first official preliminary results will be announced at 2100 local time on Wednesday.

Voter turnout was 50.60% by 1630 local time, up compared to 34.04% in the previous election held in 2020. Polling stations closed at 1900 local time.