Croatia chooses this Sunday between keeping the conservative Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic in the Presidency or entrusting the post to former Social Democratic Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic. Both arrive at the decisive day very even (a survey basically draws a technical draw) after a first round, last day 22, in which Milanovic won 29.55% of the votes and Grabar-Kitarovic, 26.55%. The polls will close at 19.00 local time (the same in mainland Spain).
The key to the result, analysts agree, lies in what 24.45% of voters will do that opted in the first round for Miroslav Skoro, an ultra-national folk singer who has advanced that this Sunday will cast a null vote. By ideology, the natural destiny would be the current president, but the polls suggest that at least one third will stay at home. The undecided are calculated between 13% and 20%. “Milanovic is seen as an ideological and existential threat to the extreme right, so it is likely that a good part of the votes to Skoro go to Grabar-Kitarovic. That is why Milanovic would benefit from a low turnout,” says Robin via email -Ivan Capar, analyst at think tank European Council on Foreign Relations. Grabar-Kitarovic has worked hard to appeal to the unit to prevent the return of “the old and the recession,” while Milanovic recalled that “every vote” counts in a “very tight” struggle.
The two candidates in liza have a similar age (51, she; 53, him) but remarkably different profiles. The president usually defined as a “woman of the people”: She is the daughter of a butcher (she remembered it in the face-to-face electoral), she grew up in the rural northwest of the country and has joked with being one of the few people in her party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), who knows how to milk a cow. A close image which took him out of international anonymity at the last World Cup, in Russia in 2018, in which Croatia was runner-up, and in which Grabar-Kitarovic stood out for paying a plane seat in economy class to move to a game, sit in the stands and celebrate the goals like any fan.
Grabar-Kitarovic was considered a centrist when she became president in 2015, but she has been courting more and more to the extreme right and showing warmth with the country’s fascist past. The last controversy, this Wednesday, was the video of support for the candidacy, broadcast by his party on Twitter, by Julienne Busic, an American convicted of participating in the hijacking of a plane in the US in 1976 to draw attention to the Croatian cause during the socialist Yugoslavia. Before the first round, he published – and then deleted – on his Instagram account an image in memory of Slobodan Praljak, the Bosnian Croatian who committed theatrical suicide within the international tribunal that condemned him for war crimes; he promised to bring cakes to the mayor of Zagreb – recently charged with a corruption case – if he ends up in prison; and announced salaries of 8,000 euros, ten times above the average salary, to stop migratory bleeding.
In this context, the European Social Democratic candidate, who is defined as the “only normal option” and says he has “the heart on the left and the head on the right,” has played the role of moderation. “A president with character “, has been his electoral motto to counteract his widespread image of urban snob that shone when he studied law at the university but managed poorly as prime minister (2011-2016) The impact of the euro crisis. “His temper, together with the fact that sometimes he can be quite condescending, has sometimes affected his electoral appeal,” says Capar. One of the keys is precisely if the great trick of the Social Democrat (the opportunity to bring together the vote of center and left fearful of a candidate increasingly right) will weigh more than his lack of charisma.
The decision taken by voters has an internal and a community derivative. In Croatia, because presidential elections serve as a test for the legislative elections that will be held at the end of the year and in which the HDZ aims to strengthen its majority, and the Social Democrats – who in the European ones of May they obtained a better result than expected– to return to power. The president’s party rules in coalition with a liberal formation and with the support of several small and independent parties.
The influence in the EU is that Croatia, the last country to enter the EU (in 2013, just before the current stoppage began de facto of community enlargement), occupies since last day 1 the rotating presidency. The head of state has protocol powers, but has the weight that the face of the country grants abroad.
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