{"id":31117,"date":"2024-04-20T08:59:05","date_gmt":"2024-04-20T08:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/20\/a-far-right-party-emerges-as-a-possible-kingmaker-in-croatia\/"},"modified":"2024-04-20T08:59:05","modified_gmt":"2024-04-20T08:59:05","slug":"a-far-right-party-emerges-as-a-possible-kingmaker-in-croatia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/20\/a-far-right-party-emerges-as-a-possible-kingmaker-in-croatia\/","title":{"rendered":"A Far-Right Party Emerges as a Possible Kingmaker in Croatia"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/18\/multimedia\/18croatia-elections-mgjw\/18croatia-elections-mgjw-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A Far-Right Party Emerges as a Possible Kingmaker in Croatia\" title=\"A Far-Right Party Emerges as a Possible Kingmaker in Croatia\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A far-right party emerged on Thursday as a potential kingmaker in Croatia after the governing conservatives finished first in a bitterly contested parliamentary election but fell short of winning enough seats to form a new government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The outcome of Wednesday\u2019s vote signaled a new era of messy political uncertainty in the Balkan nation, which has been dominated by one party, the Croatian Democratic Union, or HDZ, since 1991 when it declared independence from Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The HDZ, led by the incumbent Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, won 61 seats in the 151-member legislature, according to the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.izbori.hr\/sabor2024\/rezultati\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">near-final official tally<\/a>. That was more than all its rivals, including Rivers of Justice, a left-leaning coalition formed by President Zoran Milanovic, which won 42 seats to finish second. The far-right Homeland Movement finished third with 13 seats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Speaking early Thursday in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, Mr. Plenkovic said his party had \u201cconvincingly won\u201d but acknowledged that he would need help from rival groups to form a government and secure a third term as prime minister.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He later said in a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/HDZ1989\/posts\/pfbid0rQFWktHNBm7DScfTrRxTonHoRZ29U8tXcMpAkJeZi7pGkVS4kTQtpYDW59UDg7gDl?__cft__%5B0%5D=AZVcbMQ24w4UgZZaJLKIZIiE0gVMKuY_0loXia2A8s-psw_Y96mHgVuQ7KHtcOL1L3sGfWuAoZ2sLZXk2qo9KGZ5gQ4OBM9cPYQwI-xFG1kSylrLZIwwEThauLrWRVqK-D03-L3BfOxUJD7K15MFDr6htrV-mPp58hs1-xGyo9Jx0Rhp2eHkwyUuHhLg1WPMdZg&amp;__tn__=,O,P-R\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">post on Facebook<\/a> that talks had already started with potential allies that he did not name. \u201cEverything is going well,\u201d he said, and predicted that a government would be formed \u201csoon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\"><a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fpzg.unizg.hr\/staff\/tihomir.cipek\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Tihomir Cipek<\/a>, a political science professor at the University of Zagreb, said the result reflected a general trend in Europe, particularly among new members of the European Union, which Croatia joined in 2013. \u201cThe political center starts losing voters to parties on the far right and far left that are a reaction to Europeanization,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Pressure from Brussels to adopt E.U. policies on gender and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, he said, \u201ccreates a type of protest which leads to support for far right politicians,\u201d such as members of the nationalist Homeland Movement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Anger over inflation, the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/eurostat\/web\/products-euro-indicators\/w\/2-17042024-ap#:~:text=in%20the%20EU-,Overview,down%20from%202.8%25%20in%20February.\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">second highest in the European Union,<\/a> corrupt deals between officials and business, and an exodus of young people to higher paying countries in the bloc, have added to anti-establishment sentiment in Croatia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">To stitch together a majority in Parliament, HDZ, badly tainted by a long series of corruption scandals, will most likely need support from the Homeland Movement and others. The Homeland Movement favors staying in the European Union unlike similar groups elsewhere, and its support is unlikely to change Croatia\u2019s stance on issues such as its support for Ukraine, analysts said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhat I can say for sure, with full right and certainty, is that Homeland Movement is the third strongest party in Croatia,\u201d the party\u2019s leader, Ivan Penava, said in a postelection speech. He repeated promises made during the campaign to reject any coalition that included ideological opponents on the left or ethnic Serb legislators, saying that \u201cIn no way and under no conditions can they be our partners.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But that left open the possibility of joining forces with HDZ, which began as a far-right nationalist party during the Yugoslav wars but has since evolved into a more mainstream conservative force. Homeland Movement opposes some of the governing party\u2019s policies on Europe, particularly its decision to adopt the euro, the European Union\u2019s common currency, but is closer to HDZ than to the left-tinged Rivers of Justice coalition, whose main component is President Milanovic\u2019s Social Democratic Party.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The election campaign was dominated by a bitter personal rivalry between the prime minister, Mr. Plenkovic, and the president, Mr. Milanovic. The two men traded insults throughout the campaign: Mr. Milanovic denounced the prime minister as the \u201cgodfather of crime in Croatia\u201d and Mr. Plenkovic accused his rival of being a Russian stooge and coward because of his opposition to helping Ukraine and his claim that NATO is responsible for Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When voters turned out on Wednesday, however, they rewarded neither man, gravitating in unusually large numbers to parties on the political flanks and giving the populist Homeland Movement a potential kingmaker role in forming a new government. The turnout of 62 percent was the highest in Croatia since 2000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">This election had been expected to be a sedate repeat of earlier races until President Milanovic announced an early vote and said that he would head the opposition campaign as its candidate for prime minister. Croatia\u2019s top court declared his candidacy unconstitutional, ruling that he could not run to head the government while still serving as president. He ignored the ruling.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The president had not yet commented on the election results but Peda Grbin, the nominal leader of the Social Democrats, indicated the party would try to form its own coalition government to keep Mr. Plenkovic from staying in power.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt is not over,\u201d Mr. Grbin said. \u201cDays, weeks and perhaps months of talks are ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/18\/world\/europe\/croatia-election-far-right.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A far-right party emerged on Thursday as a potential kingmaker in Croatia after the governing conservatives finished first in a bitterly contested parliamentary election but fell short of winning enough seats to form a new government. The outcome of Wednesday\u2019s vote signaled a new era of messy political uncertainty in the Balkan nation, which has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/18\/multimedia\/18croatia-elections-mgjw\/18croatia-elections-mgjw-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[35080,15890,724,35079,1697],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31119,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31117\/revisions\/31119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}