{"id":415436,"date":"2024-12-30T17:08:53","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T16:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/12\/30\/croazia-presidenziali-milanovic-primorac\/"},"modified":"2024-12-30T17:35:35","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T16:35:35","slug":"croatia-presidential-elections-outgoing-milanovic-in-the-lead-but-goes-to-the-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/12\/30\/croatia-presidential-elections-outgoing-milanovic-in-the-lead-but-goes-to-the-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"Croatia presidential elections, outgoing Milanovi\u0107 in the lead but goes to the ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – The first round of the\u00a0presidential elections in Croatia<\/strong>, held yesterday (Dec. 29), confirmed to the outgoing head of state, Zoran Milanovi\u0107<\/strong>, the clear lead attributed to him by eve polls, but did not hand him victory<\/strong>. The populist centre-left leader will have to challenge the ruling centre-right candidate, Dragan Primorac<\/strong>, in the runoff set for Jan. 12.<\/p>\n


\nData from the National Election Commission<\/a> shows that outgoing President of the Republic <\/span>Zoran Milanovi\u0107<\/strong><\/span> received <\/span>49.09 per cent of the vote in Sunday’s first round<\/strong><\/span>, more than twice as much as his opponent <\/span>Dragan Primorac<\/strong><\/span>, who received <\/span>19.35 per cent<\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Pre-election polls had predicted such a result.<\/p>\n

The incumbent head of state was\u00a0<\/span>first elected in 2020<\/strong>\u00a0after serving as\u00a0<\/span>prime minister from 2011 to 2016<\/strong>, leading the\u00a0<\/span>Croatian Social Democratic Party (SDP)<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0Because of his\u00a0critical positions on the European Union and NATO<\/strong>\u00a0(and military aid to Ukraine), as well as his\u00a0populist style of political action<\/strong>\u00a0and communication, he has earned the nickname “Croatian<\/strong>\u00a0Trump<\/strong>.” Celebrating the results, the 58-year-old said he wants to promote “a Croatia that takes care of its own interests.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Having failed to achieve an absolute majority in the first round, Milanovi\u0107\u2014who remains the most popular politician in the Balkan country<\/strong>\u2014will have to contend in the second round against Primorac, the candidate of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)<\/strong>, the centre-right party led by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovi\u0107<\/strong> who has ruled since 2016 and who, since\u00a0this spring,\u00a0is supported\u00a0by the ultranationalists<\/a> of the Movement for the Homeland (DP)<\/strong>. The ballot is scheduled for January 12<\/strong>. Croatians have already voted twice this year: in April for early legislative and in June for the European elections.<\/p>\n

The results of yesterday’s consultation thus confirm the split at the top of Croatia<\/strong>: the presidency could remain firmly in the hands of Milanovi\u0107. Even if it is a ceremonial role<\/strong>, it could create quite a few problems for Plenkovi\u0107, in his third term at the head of the executive<\/strong> and considered the chief rival of the head of state, whom he has already branded\u00a0as pro-Russian<\/strong> and defined<\/a> “the cancer of Croatian politics.”<\/p>\n

Commenting on the outcome of the first round, the premier\u00a0<\/span>declared<\/a>:\u00a0“<\/span>We don’t want to be dragged towards Russia<\/strong>” after focusing the election campaign on Zagreb’s\u00a0<\/span>European positioning<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0On the other hand,\u00a0the HDZ has been embroiled\u00a0<\/strong>in recent years in a series of\u00a0corruption scandals<\/strong>, leading to the resignation or dismissal of\u00a0over thirty ministers<\/strong>, most recently the health care\u00a0minister\u00a0Vili Bero\u0161<\/strong>, who was jailed last November.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Incumbent head of state Zoran Milanovi\u0107 took more than twice as many votes as centre-right challenger Dragan Primorac and is seeking a second term. The two will face off in the second round in January in a challenge for Zagreb’s international standing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":415432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[30107,26944,30108,27047,29435,30110,27128],"class_list":["post-415436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-hdz-en","tag-croatia-en","tag-dragan-primorac-en","tag-eu-en","tag-election-presidential-en","tag-sdpand","tag-zoran-milanovic-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415436"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415441,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415436\/revisions\/415441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}