There has never been a more boring election, people say about the ongoing presidential campaign in Croatia. Of course, after the spectacle in Romania, where a politician whom all sociologists and political pundits saw as a clear underdog unexpectedly championed the race, no surprises can be ruled out. But so far, nothing suggests that Croatia may see a Romanian scenario unfold.
Elections amid winter holidays
According to public opinion surveys, Zoran Milanović, the incumbent head of state, may again become President of Croatia. His five-year mandate terminates on February 18, 2025, and, being eligible to be re-elected, he is now running for another term.
Milanović is expected to defeat his rival from the ruling party, HDZ (Hrvatska demokratska zajednica / Croatian Democratic Union), former Minister of Science and Education Dragan Primorac in the election runoff.
According to the HRating poll, conducted on November 14-19, Zoran Milanović should hold the lead with 36.8% of the votes.
Dragan Primorac is expected to gain 22%.
In the potential runoff, Zoran Milanović could be able to seal 52% against Primorac’s 33%.
Another poll, run by Crobarometar, 35% of citizens intend to vote for Milanović while 24.5% might support Primorac. In the second round, Milanović could get 53.5%, and Primorac – a little over 30%.
The Crobarometar survey was conducted by Ipsos on November 1-20.
It should be recalled that the first round of the presidential election in Croatia will be held on December 29, right between Christmas and the New Year’s eve. This will be the eighth presidential election since the country gained independence.
To seal a win, a presidential candidate shall receive a majority of all votes cast. If this does not happen in the first round, the two candidates who received the most votes will advance to the second round, which will be held on January 12, 2025. According to sociologists, the face-off in early 2025 will be between Milanović and Primorac.
The Romania case
Of course, in the wake of the Romania case with the resounding failure of all sociological calculations, the outlook of election results based on public opinion polls is perceived as an extremely unreliable and outdated method. However, there are reasons to believe that in Croatia, polls better reflect the real electoral moods than they did in Romania.
With all due respect to Croatian sociologists, the reason is not so much in the higher quality of their research. First of all, Zoran Milanović, who is considered the country’s top populist, the “Croatian Trump”, whom opponents accuse of his pro-Russian views, and who is somewhat similar in political views to Călin Georgescu of Romania, is not a newcomer to big politics, like Georgescu, but the incumbent president. Accordingly, Milanović’s initial opportunities are totally different. Among other things, Milanovic, as head of state, required no “guerrilla” self-promotion campaigns on social media as Gheorghescu did. In his position, Milanović took full advantage of the opportunity to promote his views in the wide open.
If there are projects running somewhere on TikTok aimed at supporting the policies of the current head of state, they will, of course, contribute to his campaign, but they are unlikely to have a decisive influence on the outcome of the presidential race.
Problem No. 1: corruption
Political scholars explain the current ratings of presidential candidates in Croatia in different ways, including the lag of the HDZ candidate behind the current president, who is backed by opposition. However, there is a common denominator in various assessments of socio-political life in the country, and this is public discontent over the performance of the ruling party.
The leading reason for HDZ’s low ratings is corruption scandals that have accompanied the political force throughout its rule. Dissatisfaction with the level of salaries, pensions, inflation and price hikes, problems with youth employment, difficulties in obtaining medical services, unaffordable housing, and other problems that Croats face in their daily lives and that Milanović highlights in his statements are already being superimposed on this chronic resentment against the “corrupt officials in power”.
Importantly, it would be unfair to claim that these sentiments are solely part of political propaganda by HDZ opponents.
A few days ago, Minister of Health and HDZ member Vili Beroš was detained by USKOK (Ured za suzbijanje korupcije i organizacijonog kriminalitama / Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organized Crime) on suspicion of influence peddling. At the same time, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) reported his possible involvement in receiving bribes in medical equipment procurement.
Beroš was immediately dismissed from his post. Although he wasn’t remanded in custody for too long, the charges remain in place.
In general, according to media estimates, in the nine years of the HDZ rule, Vili Beroš became the 31st official to be dismissed or to resign amid corruption charges, and the third minister to be detained while in office.
Another corruption scandal resulted in reputational losses for the ruling party, which obviously had significant negative implications for the rating of the HDZ presidential candidate, even if Dragan Primorac himself had nothing to do with any dubious schemes.
Against the background of the HDZ’s problems, Milanović’s criticism of the government is perceived positively by a significant part of the voters, which clearly contributes to the rise of the current president’s rating.
Milanović’s platform
Paradoxically, in some points, Milanović’s political platform gives the impression of the platform of an opposition politician who constantly criticizes the executive branch and portrays himself in the eyes of voters not so much as one of the leaders of state, but as an opposition figure and a “man of the people.”
Sometimes it seems that it is from this position of an opposition figure who defends the interests of the “average citizen,” who primarily prefers to calmly go about his business in his own backyard, that Milanović acts in areas that directly fall within the sphere of responsibility of the Croatian president – foreign policy and defense.
Milanović often behaves not as a head of state who is a full member of NATO and the EU, but as a representative of a country that lives on its own, which would like to primarily deal with its own affairs independently, staying away from any complex geopolitical issues. He said Croats need to address their domestic problems, at most – those arising in the region, without getting involved in complex conflicts of a continental or even global level.
This approach is most clearly reflected in Milanović’s position on the Russo-Ukrainian war.
It is known that the president actively opposes Croatia’s participation in any EU or NATO programs aimed at military assistance to Ukraine.
In December 2022, the Croatian president categorically spoke against the participation of Croatian military personnel in the European Union Military Assistance Mission in Support of Ukraine, EUMAM, which involved training Ukrainian recruits.
In 2024, Milanović refused to consent to the participation of Croatian military in the NATO Security Assistance and Training Initiative for Ukraine (NSATU). “My task as president, and this is also the task of all Croatian state institutions in my opinion, is to protect Croatia from war, to take all measures to keep Croatia from military conflicts,” he said at the time.
Neither EUMAM nor NSATU envisaged sending Croatian army units to the Russo-Ukrainian frontlines. But the discourse set by Milanović led public opinion precisely in that direction. As a result, in public debate, Croatian experts and politicians seriously discussed the question of whether Croats would be sent to the trenches in eastern Ukraine, which was never actually part of NATO or EU plans.
It should be noted that Russian propagandists aplified the fears among Croatians, inflated by Milanović, widely circulating them in the mass and social media, channeling the main narrative that “Croats are not ready to shed blood on the Russian front for the third time in a century”, referencing to the First and Second World Wars, when Croatian soldiers fought against the Russian Empire and USSR, respectively.
President’s “Russophilia”
It is obvious that Milanović’s position on the Russo-Ukrainian war, and specifically on continued assistance to Kyiv, is extremely unfriendly toward Ukraine and, at the same time, quite complimentary to Russia. Also, he has repeatedly voiced openly anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian statements, which Kremlin propaganda loves to circulate from time to time. Therefore, the question naturally arises whether the incumbent president is really motivated exclusively by the idea of protecting Croatian interests or is there any external (Moscow’s) influence on the head of state.
HDZ representatives, including government officials, have repeatedly accused Milanović of working to serve Moscow’s interest, and even that Russia financed his election campaign. However, no concrete evidence was presented of the president’s alleged cooperation with the Russians. As a result, the incumbent president and candidate for re-election keeps assuring the public that any claims of his “Russophilia” are part of the attacks from his political opponents.
According to polls, the “Croatian Trump” has every chance of winning the re-election bid to remain at the hel of the country which is a member of NATO and the EU, unless, of course, the ruling party, HDZ, finds some more convincing arguments in favor of its candidate or some “Croatian Georgescu” emerges on the scene in the finale.
