Croatia’s ruling party, the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), agreed this Wednesday to form a coalition government with a far-right party to remain in power after the parliamentary elections held in mid-April. This has been confirmed by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic – in office since 2016 – whose party won the elections by obtaining 61 of the 151 seats in Parliament. The Social Democrats managed to be the second force with 42 seats. Third place was achieved by the far-right Patriotic Movement (DP) with 14 deputies, with whom Plenkovic has now agreed.
The DP had said it would not join any government that included the Serbian minority SDSS party, a former ally of the HDZ, or the left-wing green party Mozemo (Vamos), a condition the conservatives have accepted. Just a year ago, in an interview with Morning Express, Plenkovic welcomed the incorporation of Serbian Anja Simpraga into his Cabinet as deputy prime minister.
The agreement proposal has already been debated in the party bodies. “We will then inform the public about all the details,” a HDZ spokesperson said at a press conference. The leader of the PD, Ivan Penava, has confirmed the coalition agreement and has announced that his party would head the Ministry of Agriculture, a new Ministry of Demography and part of the Ministry of Economy. It is the first time that this formation enters the Croatian Government.
The new coalition needs 76 votes to obtain parliamentary approval. The sum between HDZ and DP is one seat short of the parliamentary majority, but Plenkovic is confident that it will maintain the support of the minority parties that represent national minorities (not counting the Serbs) and that were allies of the HDZ in previous mandates to win a third term as prime minister.
Patriotic Movement is a party with a nationalist and Eurosceptic ideology, in addition to being against immigration. During the election campaign he echoed the defense of traditional family values and claimed to be against allowing the Serbian minority party to join any future coalition.
The Croatian Democratic Union has governed the country for 26 of the last 33 years since the fall of Yugoslavia, between 1991 and 1992. Among Plenkovic’s main achievements is the incorporation of Croatia into the euro and the Schengen zone.
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