🇭🇷 Croatian General Election, April 17th 2024: HDZ-DP coalition to be formed

[Battista Minola 1616]

You only mentioned it in passing but the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS in Croatian and DDI in Italian) is fairly strong and definitely deserves a shout when it comes to electoral geography. It has often run in a coalition with the SDP but not always: when it hasn't the HDZ has usually come in third in the electoral district that covers Istria, which gives a sense of just how left-leaning the region is.

Oh and then there's the diaspora vote. The Croatian diaspora is... peculiar. From what I've heard the reputation is that they're all Ustaše and looking at electoral results there is at least some truth in that, although mostly they just give gigantic scores to the HDZ.

With that said, your round-up was very informative without getting too convoluted, so thank you for a top-notch OP.

[Battista Minola 1616]

To be clear, I stressed "some" as I was primarily alluding to the fact that the second most voted option after the HDZ is usually a much more right-wing nationalist one. Various actual Ustaše organizations were active abroad after 1945 but my understanding is that all have been dissolved for decades. Symbology is another matter of course.

On this note, I'm interested if you could talk more in detail about detuđmanizacija and the internal changes in the HDZ. Do parties like the Homeland Movement have any number of figures who came from it and opposed the new course or do they take from a different milieu?

[Battista Minola 1616]

I don't think I have ever heard before of an incumbent non-executive head of state running to become head of government like this, quite odd.

I know Milanović is mostly controversial for the fights he's picked over the subject of Ukraine (a little Smer indeed). While attractive to "left-conservative" voters, could it conversely help Možemo scrape more "left-progressive" voters from the SDP? I notice that that party was left out of your post.

[Battista Minola 1616]

The massive surge in turnout is interesting. It is a fairly unusual thing to happen and usually in developed democracies it corresponds to increased tension and polarization; I can see various reasons for that in Croatia but I don't know enough to be sure.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Since the redefinition of constituencies makes comparisons at that level tricky, I decided to take a look at results in the largest cities (https://izbori.hr/sabor2024/rezultati/) and compare them with 2020 (https://www.izbori.hr/arhiva-izbora/#/app/parlament-2020).

ZAGREB (The capital)
HDZ coal. 26.0 (-2.7)
SDP coal. 23.5 (+2.0)
Možemo 19.8 (+1.2)
DP 9.8 (-0.6)
Most 9.4 (+0.2)
Fokus 3.8 (-2.0)

SPLIT (Split-Dalmatia County, Dalmatia)
SDP coal. 30.4 (+7.6)
HDZ coal. 30.2 (-3.2)
Most 11.5 (-0.3)
DP 10.9 (+1.1)
Možemo 5.7 (+0.3)
Fokus 0.5 (-7.6)
Note that the Split-based Centar, previously Pametno, ran with Fokus in 2020 and with the SDP in 2024.

RIJEKA (Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, east of Istria)
SDP coal. 34.0 (N/A)
HDZ coal. 25.3 (-0.9)
Možemo 13.4 (+3.0)
Most 6.7 (-0.9)
IDS-PGS 6.4 (N/A)
DP 4.4 (-0.7)
Fokus 1.2 (-3.8)
The Alliance of Primorje-Gorski Kotar (PGS) is another regionalist party that tends to run with the IDS. The cumulative result of Rijeke Pravde and IDS-PGS is (+3.6) compared to Restart in 2020.

OSIJEK (Osijek-Baranja County, Slavonia)
HDZ coal. 42.4 (+2.7)
SDP coal. 23.5 (+0.4)
DP 11.3 (-4.4)
Možemo 7.7 (+4.2)
Most 6.4 (+0.2)
Fokus 1.3 (-1.7)
Note that the Croatian People's Party (HNS), whose support at least in 2020 almost entirely came from the far north of the country and northern Slavonia, ran alone in 2020 but with the HDZ in 2024.

ZADAR (Zadar County, Dalmatia)
HDZ coal. 32.2 (-8.9)
SDP coal. 25.7 (+1.9)
DP 9.9 (+0.2)
Most 9.8 (+0.7)
Možemo 6.8 (+2.1)
Fokus 0.8 (-4.6)

VELIKA GORICA (Zagreb County, suburb of Zagreb)
HDZ coal. 35.1 (-2.7)
SDP coal. 22.4 (+1.5)
DP 11.0 (-0.9)
Možemo 10.7 (+2.8)
Most 9.9 (-0.7)
Fokus 2.3 (-1.5)

PULA / POLA (Istria County)
SDP coal. 37.2 (N/A)
IDS-PGS 17.2 (N/A)
HDZ coal. 15.1 (-0.8)
Možemo 11.2 (-1.4)
Most 4.1 (0.0)
DP 3.6 (-0.4)
Fokus 3.2 (-0.2)
The cumulative result of Rijeke Pravde and IDS-PGS is (+3.8) compared to Restart in 2020.

SLAVONSKI BROD (Brod-Posavina County, Slavonia)
HDZ coal. 38.5 (-6.7)
SDP coal. 25.5 (+1.3)
DP 12.6 (-2.3)
Most 9.1 (+2.6)
Možemo 5.1 (+3.0)
Fokus 1.2 (-1.5)

KARLOVAC (Karlovac County, central Croatia)
HDZ coal. 36.3 (-7.2)
SDP coal. 25.5 (+0.9)
Možemo 12.7 (+5.5)
DP 9.8 (+0.1)
Most 6.7 (+2.3)
Fokus 1.0 (-3.3)

VARAŽDIN (Varaždin County, far northern Croatia)
SDP coal. 46.1 (+10.5)
HDZ coal. 22.1 (-1.1)
Možemo 10.4 (+4.5)
Most 5.6 (+2.0)
DP 4.6 (-2.1)
NPS 4.4 (N/A)
Fokus 1.2 (-5.3)
Independent Platform North (NPS) is a regionalist party that was part of the Our Croatia alliance, like the more established IDS-PGS; as far as I can tell it is a new party. Note that the Varaždin-based Reformisti ran alone in 2020 but with the SDP in 2024.

Stopping here both because ten is a nice round number and because these cover a representative geographic spectrum. Make of these data what you will, I am particularly intrigued by the surprisingly strong Možemo results in Slavonia.

[Battista Minola 1616]

As a bonus mostly for myself, this is how Grožnjan / Grisignana (the most Italian municipality in Croatia and I think the only one where Italian is the first language of a majority) voted. Consider that it is a very small village.

IDS-PGS 42.1 (N/A)
SDP coal. 28.3 (N/A)
Možemo 9.3 (+0.4)
HDZ coal. 6.6 (+1.5)
DP 4.5 (-0.2)
Most 2.4 (+0.5)
Fokus 0.3 (-0.6) which means exactly one vote.
The cumulative result of Rijeke Pravde and IDS-PGS is (+5.4) compared to Restart in 2020.