Early Elections in Croatia produce no clear majority, expanding opposition

[croguy]

Via Reuters: [URL]http://www.reuters.com/article/us-croatia-election-idUSKCN11H04S[/URL]

[QUOTE]The conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) was on track to win the most seats in Sunday's parliamentary elections but the country looked set for lengthy coalition horsetrading after voters once again declined to return a clear governing majority.
With 60 percent of votes counted, the HDZ had 61 seats, pushing the Social Democrats into second place with 54, but were still short of a majority in the 151-seat parliament even with the support of Most ("Bridge"), the likely kingmaker party.
In a sign of voter disillusionment, turnout plunged, and Zivi Zid ("Human Shield"), a populist left alliance, surged from one to eight seats with promises to be tough on banks and demands for prosecutions of unnamed corrupt officials.
The HDZ seems best placed to form a government, but it could be difficult for any party to build a coalition with a clear mandate for carrying out the painful public administration reforms being urged on the country of 4.3 million.[/QUOTE]

Hooo boy, this will be a fun Summer. This election, despite producing an advantage for HDZ, is going to involve far more negotiating and a larger Frankenstein's Monster of a coalition than the results in November 2015, with no room for MPs switching sides or abandoning parties. We're talking, in the best scenario, a coalition of three or four parties. For a reminder, the two-party coalition from November, HDZ(then as PC)-Most, imploded in less than six months. And ZhZ is severely damaging Most's power.

Unless HDZ and SDP go fully batshit insane and create a grand coalition of 115 seats, which will destroy their voter bases so much that they probably won't even survive the next election. But that'd be too good for the general populace.

[GordonZombie]

I don't know much regarding Croatian politics, how will this effect people/their voting bases? What sort of policies are they trying to push?

[Croatsky]

And despite this being 6th consecutive defeat for SDP president Milanović, he still refuses to resign. Instead he'll merely not nominate himself for early party elections in 6 months.

What a egomaniac. It's due to him that SDP's coalition lost, even they should have have an easy victory after disastrous 5 months HDZ-MOST government.

[croguy]

[QUOTE=CroGamer002;51038462]And despite this being 6th consecutive defeat for SDP president Milanović, he still refuses to resign. Instead he'll merely not nominate himself for early party elections in 6 months.

What a egomaniac. It's due to him that SDP's coalition lost, even they should have have an easy victory after disastrous 5 months HDZ-MOST government.[/QUOTE]

It's like he thought that every election requires you to Karamarko[sp]or Trump[/sp] the fuck out of yourself in order to gain a victory.

...but he's clearly not bright enough to realize that that's not why people vote for SDP.

[editline]12th September 2016[/editline]

[QUOTE=GordonZombie;51038448]I don't know much regarding Croatian politics, how will this effect people/their voting bases? What sort of policies are they trying to push?[/QUOTE]

Currently, the effect on the people is entirely unknown. But I can answer the second question, albeit in a very, very long and cynical post:

HDZ is a Christian Conservative Crooks and Spooks Party. Under their recent leadership their platform has mostly become borderline communist policies despite religious and patriotic lacing, pandering to the impoverished war-torn regions(and foreign corporate interests), actual government theft that make corrupt American politicians and Tories look like saints, and a generally questionable program of things remaining perpetually shit because at least you get food on your plate. This is exemplified great with their campaign, which, I shit you not, was entirely about making sure that yes, they are a credible party, unlike those [I]communists[/I] in the SDP.

SDP is a Champagne Socialists Crooks and Spooks Party. They're practically HDZ, but with local-level theft(eg. Prefects using state funds to buy the cars they like, Croatian Forests ), a leadership as stagnant as their last Party President's corpse, and a generally questionable program of things remaining perpetually shit because at least you get food on your plate. But at least they're not those [I]fascists[/I] from the HDZ.

Most is an odd, flip-flopping coalition of various center and center right independent members with a superstar Party President and a seemingly terribly slimy attitude in regards to forming coalitions and winning public appeal. They get a free pass in the general populace's eyes due to a decent November program and the fact that they're half the reason behind HDZ losing control of the government a few months ago. They're considered establishment because they were in a coalition with HDZ despite being a very young party.

Human Shield is a super populist protest vote party, borderline anti-globalist party formed out of political activists which have been hell bent on fighting the establishment both with a fresh and functional program and an absolute array of attacks against the banking sector, the establishment parties, the administration, the corrupt cleptomaniacs, etc. Their end goal is to set up a state where they can, more or less, dislodge the HDZ-SDP-Most establishment. There's also something about a few of their high ranking members being conspiracy nutters.

CFPM/BM365/Bandich is a coalition formed under the Mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandić. It's so populist it makes Human Shield look like an establishment party. Their leader is so crazy he makes Milanović look normal. The coalition's end goal is to impose a prime minister from their party and effectively bargain themselves into the government and make it dependent upon them.

IDS and HDSSB are regional parties. And nobody cares about the others.