Polls show that Croatian leftist President Zoran Milanović, who is an outspoken critic of the West’s military support for Ukraine, will win.
ADVERTISEMENTOn Sunday, President Zoran Milanović will fight against Dragan Primorac, who is supported by the Prime Minister and his government.
In the first round, held on December 29, Milanović won 49.7% of the vote against seven other candidates, a little less than half of the ballots needed for an outright victory.
He was a long-time leader of the Social Democrats and spent most of his career in the opposition. Milanović was then the prime minister of the country from the end of 2011 to the beginning of 2016.
Populist in style, he was a fierce critic of the current Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, who leads the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). Continuous conflicts and arguments between the two have become a feature of the Croatian political scene.
After ousting HDZ president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović five years ago, Milanović has been constantly moving to the right side of the political spectrum in recent years.
Nevertheless, he is considered the only counterweight to HDZ and its rule.
In April of this year, he tried to run in the parliamentary elections as the prime ministerial candidate of the Social Democrats, an unprecedented move in which the current head of state tried to be elected to parliament.
Although he promised to leave his seat if successful, the constitutional court banned him from actively campaigning during the election.
The Social Democrats then failed to form a majority in the parliament, so Milanović remained head of state.
From pediatrics to politics
Before entering politics, Primorac was a pediatrician and university professor.
Primorac has not been present in the political life of Croatia since 2009, when he tried to launch an independent presidential campaign as the Minister of Science in the HDZ government.
During this year’s campaign, Primorac tried to present himself as a non-conflictual personality and a unifier, but also a pro-Western oriented personality, unlike Milanović.
Although the presidency in Croatia is mostly ceremonial, the elected president has political power and acts as the commander-in-chief of the army. He also has a say in foreign policy.
Milanović has repeatedly said that Croatia should stay away from global disputes, even though it is a member of both NATO and the EU.
He blocked Croatia’s participation in a NATO-led training mission in Wiesbaden, Germany, and spent months trying to convince voters that he was preventing Croatian troops from being sent to the battlefield in Ukraine – even though it was never proposed.
ADVERTISEMENTMilanović also tried to persuade opposition MPs to block Croatia’s ratification of NATO expansion, a formal requirement for Sweden and Finland to join the alliance.
Milanović’s main rival, Primorac, has repeatedly stated that Croatia’s place is in the West, but his candidacy for president was marred by a high-level corruption case that landed Croatia’s health minister in prison in November, and which featured prominently in pre-election debates.
In the first round in December, Primorac won 19.6% of the vote – more than the other candidates and enough to enter the second round, but he is still considered poor by the candidate supported by the ruling party, which also boasts the largest number of members in to the country.
Croatia has about 3.5 million voters with the right to vote. Turnout in the first round was 46%, the lowest level of any presidential election in the last 15 years.
ADVERTISEMENT