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Organisation Profile

Key Political Parties in Croatia

September 27, 201017:25
Croatia's Prime Minister Ivo Sanader suddenly resigning last year paved the way for Jadranka Kosor to become the first female PM but also to become leader of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union at a time of economic crisis, corruption scandals and ongoing talks for EU membership. 

The Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ:

The Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica, HDZ, is the main centre-right political party in Croatia, currently governing the country along with its smaller coalition allies. The HDZ governed Croatia from 1990 to 2000 and, partly in coalition, from 2003 till now. The party is an associate member of the European People’s Party, EPP.

The HDZ was founded in June 1989 by nationalist dissidents led by Franjo Tudjman. The victory of the HDZ in the 1990 elections was seen as a reflection a popular desire to respond to the aggressive Serbian nationalism of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime in Belgrade.

Under the HDZ’s leadership, in 1991 the country became independent and internationally recognized. In “Operation Storm” (“Oluja”), in 1995, the Croatian army crushed a Serbian rebellion that had seized control of almost one-third of the country’s territory and proclaimed a separate state, the Serbian Republic of Krajina, (Republika Srpska Krajina).

In 1998, the last remaining portion of Serb-occupied territory in eastern Slavonia was peacefully reintegrated. The successful recapture of the republic’s territory won the HDZ new political points, as a result of which it retained power in the 1995 parliamentary elections.

The HDZ also led Croatia in the political and economic transition process from communism to capitalism. The consequences of the hasty and sometimes corrupt privatization of state enterprises can still be seen in constantly emerging cases of fraud concerning these businesses.

Tudjman, the party president, remained president of Croatia until his death in 1999. An indictment in 2001 of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, issued against three Croatian generals (Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak, Mladen Markac), described him as head of a joint criminal enterprise that purposefully expelled Serbs from Croatia in 1995. His name is also mentioned in other ICTY indictments.

After his death in December 1999, Croatia staged parliamentary and presidential elections, which the HDZ lost to a coalition led by the Social Democrats. In the subsequent presidential poll, the HDZ candidate, Mate Granic, finished third and failed to get through to the second round, which Stipe Mesic won.

In the period from 2000 and 2003, several businessmen who became tycoons under HDZ rule were convicted for financial abuses.

In the November 2003 elections, the HDZ won 33.9 per cent of the vote in the elections, taking 66 out of 151 seats. Although it had failed to win an outright majority in parliament, the HDZ was able to form a government with the Independent Democratic Serbian Party and the Party of Pensioners. Once firmly on the right wing of politics, the party now describes itself as centre-right and Christian Democrat. In late 2007 the HDZ again won the parliamentary elections.

The biggest surprise in the party’s recent history occurred on July 1, 2009, when the party leader and Prime Minister, Ivo Sanader, abruptly resigned from both posts. Jadranka Kosor, the government’s vice-president, was designated his successor. Sanader’s sudden departure without explanation prompted speculation that he had been involved in corruption.

The HDZ suffered additional blows when two ministers, Berislav Roncevic, and, later, Damir Polancec, left their posts as a result of corruption allegations. In the last presidential elections, in 2009-2010, the HDZ candidate, Andrija Hebrang, finished in third place, failing to reach second the round.

The HDZ’s popular base is the countryside. In the 2009 local elections, for example, the HDZ won most rural areas while the SDP and other parties took most of the cities.

The Social Democrats, SDP:

The left-wing Social Democrat Party of Croat (Socijaldemokratska Partija Hrvatske) is currently the biggest opposition party in the country.

Founded in 1990, it evolved from the League of Communists of Croatia (Savez Komunista Hrvatske). On January 20, 1990 its delegation left the 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, together with their Slovene comrades, after they jointly decided that cooperation with the Serbian Communists led by Slobodan Milosevic was no longer possible.

The party claims descent from the first Social Democratic Party of Croatia, formed in 1894, which merged in 1919 into the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

In Croatia’s first multi-party elections, in 1990, the Social Democrats joined the moderate Coalition of National Accord, [Koalicija Narodnog Sporazuma] winning only a handful of seats. In the 1992 elections, they won 5.52 per cent of the vote and 11 seats in parliament and in 1995 they won 8.93 per cent of the votes and 10 seats.

Before the January 2000 parliamentary elections, the party formed a pre-election coalition with the Croatian Social Liberal Party, which then won the election and formed a government.

Ivica Racan, leader of the party, became prime minister at the head of a coalition that included ministers from the Social Liberals, plus another coalition comprising the Croatian Peasants Party, HSS, the Liberal Party, the Croatian People’s Party and the Istrian Democratic Assembly. The large number of coalition partners is remembered as major factor behind the government’s perceived inefficiency.

The coalition government remained in power until the next elections in November 2003, when the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, won the most votes again. The SDP won 34 of the 151 seats.

In the 2007 elections, the SDP lost again to the HDZ. Following Racan’s death on April 29 2007, the leadership went to Zoran Milanovic who unexpectedly left the position of the party’s candidate for prime minister to Ljubo Jurcic, an established economist. The party today holds 55 of the 153 seats in parliament.

In preparation for the presidential election of 2009-2010, the SDP held an internal election for the first time, in which party members chose between Jurcic and Ivo Josipovic. The latter won overwhelmingly, afterwards going on to win Croatia’s presidential elections.

The SDP tends to win most votes in urban areas. While it positions itself as the primary alternative to the long-ruling HDZ, many in society still view it mainly as the heir to the former League of Communists.

The Croatian People’s Party – Liberal Democrats, HNS:

The Hrvatska Narodna Stranka – Liberalni Demokrati is a centre-left party. The party is a member of the Liberal International and of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party.

The People’s Party was originally formed in the 19th century during the period of Croatian romantic nationalism. It is a party with a rich history, as one of the successors to the Illyrian People’s Party, which grew out of the Illyrian movement of the 1840s.

The modern Croatian People’s Party was formed in late 1990 by members of the Coalition of National Accord (“Koalicija Narodnog Sporazuma”), which competed in Croatia’s first multi-party election in 1990 under Savka Dabcevic-Kucar, Miko Tripalo and others.

The HNS remained a small opposition party. In the 1992 elections it won 6.7 per cent of the vote and six seats in parliament. In 1994, a construction entrepreneur, Radimir Cacic, became party chief. In the 1995 elections they won only two seats as part of an election alliance.

In the January 2000 election, they joined a four-party coalition with the Croatian Peasants Party, HSS, the Liberals, LS, and the Istrian Democratic Assembly, IDS, which together won 25 seats in parliament, two of which were HNS representatives.

As a result, the party participated in the 2000–2003 Social Democrat-led government of Ivica Racan, with Cacic taking the post of minister of public works and construction. A few weeks later, the coalition’s candidate, Stipe Mesic, an HNS member, was elected President of Croatia.

In 2000, the HNS elected a new party chair, the sociologist, Vesna Pusic. In the November 2003 elections, in alliance with the Alliance of Primorje-Gorski Kotar and the Slavonia-Baranja Croatian Party. The Croatian Party of Slavonia and Baranja won 8 per cent of the vote and 11 out of 151 seats, 10 of them being HNS representatives. As a centrist party and an old SDP ally, the party moved into opposition when the HDZ returned to power.

In the November 2007 elections the party ran alone and obtained around 7 per cent of the vote and seven seats, again remaining in opposition. The HNS currently has five seats in parliament  and is the fourth biggest political party in Croatia.

The Croatian Peasants Party, HSS:

The Hrvatska Seljacka Stranka, HSS, is a centrist socially conservative political party and an associate member of the European People’s Party, EPP.

After the HNS, the Peasants Party is considered the party with the longest tradition in Croatia. The Croatian People’s Peasants Party (Hrvatska Pucka Seljacka Stranka) was founded on December 22, 1904, by the brothers Antun and Stjepan Radic. In the 1906 elections it did not win any seats in the parliament of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, then part of Austria-Hungary.

In the next elections, in1908, the party won two seats. In 1910 and 1911, it won up to nine seats. The HSS sought greater autonomy for Croatia, peasants’ rights and land reform within the empire.

After World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the HSS garnered much more significant electoral support by advocating an independent peasants’ republic and opposing the formation of a centralised Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

The HSS later modified its stand, accepting the monarchy and the Yugoslav state, now demanding a federation in which Croatia would be equal to Serbia.

On June 20, 1928, Punisa Racic, a Serbian nationalist, shot Radic and several other HSS deputies in the Belgrade parliament. He soon died. King Alexander proclaimed a royal dictatorship on January 6, 1929. Soon after the country was formally renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and political parties were banned.

Some political freedoms were restored in 1931 and the HSS, now led by Vladko Macek, once again was in opposition. In August 1939, the so-called Cvetkovic-Macek agreement led to the creation of an autonomous Croatian “Banovina” under HSS rule.

Significantly larger than the present Croatian republic, it included parts of modern Bosnia, Vojvodina and Montenegro.
In 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia, a fascist Ustasa government was installed in Croatia and the Banovina abolished. Macek remained in Croatia, going into exile at the end of the war, where he stayed until his death in 1964. After the communist takeover in Yugoslavia, the party was unable to function.

In 1990, the now reactivated HSS won three seats, mostly due to the clash of fractions inside the party itself  in parliament. It remained in opposition until the 2000 elections, when it received three ministerial portfolios.

Today, the HSS considers itself a left-of-centre European party, advocating pro-agrarian policies and greater economic interventionism on the part of the state. On social matters, the HSS is conservative, supporting a Christian-based morality.

In the November 2003 elections, the party won 7.2 per cent of the popular vote and 10 out of 151 seats.

Before the 2007 elections, the HSS announced a coalition with the opposition Alliance of Primorje-Gorski Kotar and the Croatian Social Liberal Party. The coalition received 6.5 per cent of the votes and eight out of 153 seats, the HSS itself taking six. After the elections, the coalition joined the HDZ government, receiving two ministerial portfolios, agriculture and tourism.

Other parties:

Independent Democratic Serbian Party, SDSS,
Istrian Democratic Assembly, IDS,
Croatian Democratic Assembly of Slavonia and Baranja, HDSSB,
Croatian Social Liberal Party, HSLS,
Party of Democratic Action, SDA,
Croatian Party of Pensioners, HSU,
Croatian Party of Rights, HSP,
Croatian Labourists – Labour Party