Zoran Milanovic, a NATO critic, comfortably wins re-election, securing 74 percent of the vote.
Croatia’s opposition-backed President Zoran Milanovic, a critic of the European Union and NATO, has overwhelmingly won re-election for another five-year term, according to official results.
Milanovic won more than 74 percent of Sunday’s run-off vote, while his opponent Dragan Primorac from the governing conservative party secured 25 percent, according to the State Electoral Commission.
“Croatia, thank you,” Milanovic told his supporters in the capital, Zagreb.
“This is a big day for me personally, and I view this victory as recognition for my work, a kind of act of people’s trust in me.”
Milanovic, who is backed by the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP), won 49.1 percent of the vote during the contest’s first round two weeks ago – narrowly missing an outright victory.
The 58-year-old leader entered the contest with surging momentum as he faced off against Primorac, who managed to garner 19.35 percent of the votes. Primorac, 59, is backed by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, which has governed the former Yugoslav republic since it declared independence in 1991.
The election comes as the EU and NATO member country of 3.8 million people struggles with biting inflation, corruption scandals and a labour shortage.
Earlier in the day, after casting his ballot in Zagreb, Milanovic told reporters: “In the past five years, I did my job in the best faith and I hope that people have seen that.”
A person walks into a polling station during the second round of the presidential election in Zagreb, Croatia [Borut Zivulovic/Reuters]
Milanovic, a former left-wing prime minister, took over the presidency in 2020 with the backing of the SDP. He has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but has also criticised the West’s military support for Kyiv.
His main rival has dubbed him “a pro-Russian puppet”.
He is popular and sometimes compared with United States President-elect Donald Trump for his combative style of communication with political opponents.
The leader has been a fierce critic of current Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, and the pair have long sparred with each other.
The incumbent president regularly accuses Plenkovic and his conservative HDZ party of systemic corruption, calling the prime minister a “serious threat to Croatia’s democracy”.
Croatia’s presidential powers are limited, but a win by Milanovic would be a setback for the HDZ and Plenkovic.
An elected president in Croatia holds political authority and acts as the supreme military commander. He cannot veto laws but has a say in foreign policy, defence and security matters.
Milanovic denies he is pro-Russian but last year, he blocked the dispatch of five Croatian officers to NATO’s mission in Germany, called Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine.
He also pledged he would never approve sending Croatian soldiers as part of any NATO mission to Ukraine. Plenkovic and his government say there is no such proposal.
Milanovic has also accused his main rival, Primorac, of associating with “mass murderers”, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s associates and the war in Gaza.
Primorac entered politics in the early 2000s when he was the science and education minister in the HDZ-led government. He unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in 2009, and after that, mainly focused on his academic career, including lecturing at universities in the US, China and Croatia.
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Publish date : 2025-01-12 16:32:00
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