The opposition Patriotic Coalition consolidated around the right-conservative party Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won in the first parliamentary elections that have taken place after Croatia joined the EU. In particular, this political force, founded by Franjo Tudman and based on his tradition of the independence war won 59 mandates in the 151-seat parliament of Croatia. At the same time, its main opponent, the coalition Croatia is Growing headed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) will have 55 seats.
In spite of the statement made by the leader of the right-conservative opposition Tomislav Karamarko about the victory in the elections, this party lacks a lot to win absolute majority. And here the newly-created party Bridge (Most), which has unexpectedly won 19 seats, will play the crucial role. After the elections the representatives of this party repeated their election promise not to enter any coalitions. Except for the abovementioned political forces, the diaspora will be represented by three MPs, and the national minorities – by eight MPs.
The key issues during the elections were the problem of refugees and high level of unemployment, which has reached 15.4 percent and is on the third place in the EU after Greece and Spain. As for the crisis of the refugees, Croatia spends 284,000 dollars on a daily basis to remove them to other EU countries. This year 320,000 refugees crossed Croatian border. So, the leader of HDZ offered to use the army and build a fence, in order to cut down the number of the refugees.
The Day asked advisor of the Embassy of Ukraine in Croatia Yurii LYSENKO to comment on the results of the elections and tell what effect they may have on this country’s stand concerning Ukraine and its European prospects.
“The specific feature is that none of the leading political parties of Croatia can form a majority independently. Thus everything will be decided by a third political force, the Bridge of Independent Lists, uniting people who profess not ideology, but practical approach. Now the whole intrigue is that the Bridge can make the collation either with SDP, or CDU. The only demand of the Bridge to its potential coalition partner: they should move to real reforms. Over the past 20 years the main criticism the government has been facing is that they have been delaying the reforms.”
It is considered that the main issues in these elections were the problem of refugees and unemployment. Have these factors influenced the election results?
“The migration crisis indeed has been shaking Croatia since September. However, according to experts, it didn’t have any effect on the results of the elections. The government with Social Democrats at the head has been coping with this crisis for the past two months and hasn’t lost its popularity. The thing is that the government has managed to stabilize the situation with the flow of refugees and organize their stable transportation from the Croatian-Serbian border to Croatian-Slovak border.
“As for unemployment, over the past six years the country was unable to ride out the economic recession. And that was the only complaint to the government headed by Social Democrats. But during the past year economic recovery began. Actually, the Social Democrats in their election campaign emphasized that they finally managed to lead the country out of recession, that it cannot be done overnight, give us one more mandate, and we will continue our reform policy and lead the country out of the recession. Clearly, these six years of recession have negatively influenced the drop of the rating of Social Democrats past year. However, in the second half of the year, the Social Democrats seized the initiative and started a counterattack – they argued that they finally achieved some results, so their policy was the right one, and asked to continue to support them.”
Mass media report that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban publicly supported the leader of CDU Karamarko as a person who is able to protect Croatia from the “mass wave of migrants who threaten the country.” How was it perceived in Croatia? Did it help the HDZ party somehow?
“I doubt that this statement somehow influenced the results of the elections. The HDZ has a stable electorate, like the SDP. Orban’s phrase didn’t have any effect. Moreover, I didn’t see that it became widely known in Croatia.”
What conclusions should we make based on the results of the elections? Will Croatian policy change concerning Ukraine, depending on what coalition is created?
“Any government will support Ukraine’s European integration and its fight against Russia. In the embassy we maintain contacts with both camps. Both leading political forces traditionally support the European integration of Ukraine and its future EU membership. As for the situation with Russia, 20 years ago Croatia went through the same things: the aggression unfolded following practically the same scenario. Because of that for Croatians, not only politicians, but average citizens too, the analogues are too clear. Because of this Croatians absolutely support us.”
