Croatian parliamentary election 2011

[Tender Branson]

The 2011 Croatian parliamentary election will be held on Sunday, December 4, 2011 to elect 151 members to the Croatian Parliament. This will be the 7th parliamentary election in Croatia since independence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_parliamentary_election,_2011

[Tender Branson]

Centre-left on course to government in Croatia

The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor is heading for disaster in an early parliamentary election on Sunday (4 December).

The conservative HDZ is expected to be voted out of power for only the second time since HDZ founder Franjo Tudjman led Croatia to independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. A coalition of four centre-left parties, led by the Social Democrats (SDP) under Zoran Milanovic´, is expected to take power, just days before Croatia is scheduled to sign its accession treaty with the EU on the sidelines of a summit of EU leaders in Brussels on 9 December.
Judicial reforms

The HDZ shed some of its Tudjman-style nationalism under Ivo Sanader, who as prime minister in 2003-09 opened membership talks with the EU and began reforming the government. But it was Kosor, Sanader's successor, who seriously began tackling corruption and concluded Croatia's accession talks this summer. Sanader is now on trial in Zagreb on corruption charges.

Milanovic´, who spent the years 1996-99 at Croatia's mission to NATO and the EU in Brussels, is generally seen as uninterested in the EU. But Vesna Pusic´, an influential parliamentarian from the small Liberal Democrats, is expected to be Croatia's next foreign minister, and would balance Milanovic´'s lack of interest. A vice-president of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform party, Pusic´ has chaired the Croatian parliament's committee on the EU.

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/centre-left-on-course-to-government-in-croatia/72791.aspx

[Tender Branson]

Opposition wins Croatia election: exit polls

(Reuters) - Voters ousted Croatia's ruling conservatives on Sunday, according to exit polls, handing the centre-left opposition a strong mandate to overhaul the flagging economy before the ex-Yugoslav republic joins the European Union in 2013.

The opposition bloc, known as Kukuriku ('cock-a-doodle-doo'), won 83 seats in the Adriatic country's 151-seat parliament, based on the results of two exit polls. The ruling HDZ was second with 40.

The HDZ has ruled for 16 of Croatia's 20 years as an independent state, but was roundly punished by voters for a string of corruption scandals and rising unemployment.

The Kukuriku bloc, led by 45-year-old former diplomat Zoran Milanovic of the Social Democrats (SDS), will have to act fast to trim state spending and avert a potential credit rating downgrade.

Milanovic has told Croats they will have to work "more, harder, longer" to turn the economy around before the country of 4.3 million people becomes the second ex-Yugoslav republic to join the EU in July 2013.

"I have a decent pension but I look around me and I see poverty everywhere," 74-year-old pensioner Milan Grgurek said after voting in the capital, Zagreb. "Whoever comes to power ... will have to carry out reforms."

Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia in a 1991-95 war, and has seen its economy boom over the past decade on the back of foreign borrowing and waves of tourism to its stunning Adriatic coastline.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/04/us-croatia-election-idUSTRE7B20SX20111204

[Tender Branson]

Results here:

http://www.izbori.hr/2011Sabor/rezultati/rezultati.html

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Looks good.

[GMantis]

So basically the strongest area of the HDZ are the former war zones and voters voting abroad? Neither is surprising, of course.