Croatian EP election 2013

[Diouf]

On the 14. April Croatia will choose 12 members of the European Parliament, who will each get around a year in the parliament before the Europe-wide elections in May next year. The electoral threshold is 5 %, and i have presumed that the D'Hondt method will be used like in national elections. Unlike the national elections, open lists will be used for this election.

Opinion poll Ipsos:
Governing centre-left coalition with Social Democrats, Social Liberals, and Pensioners 26.3 %, 6 seats
Main opposition coalition with Christian Democrats, National Conservatives, and other Pensioners 18.4 %, 4 seats
Labour Party 10 %, 2 seats
Left-wing alliance with Socialists and Feminists 4,7 %
Pensioners 3.8 %
Regional Conservative Alliance, mainly regional party from Slavonia and Baranja 3.2 %
National conservatives 3 %

A whole lot of other lists and parties below 3 %. The Pirate Party is at 0.8 % so more pirates in the EP looks unlikely, but i guess you never know with these low-turnout elections.

See opinion poll here: http://lokalniizbori.com/istrazivanja/istrazivanje-nove-tv-kukuriku-koalicija-uvjerljivo-je-vodeca-za-ulazak-u-europski-parlament/

See parties running and their candidate lists here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2013_(Croatia)

[Leftbehind]

What's the deal with HSS/HSLS?

[Diouf]

What's the deal with HSS/HSLS?

It seems like the HSS is a left-wing party inspired by Ante Starčević, the father of Croatian nationalism, like the National Conservative Party of Rights in the main opposition coalition. Although they obviously seem to interpret his thoughts quite differently. The HSS were in a coalition with the parties from the Socialist-Feminist Alliance in the 2007 general election. At the 2011 election they were in an alliance with some pensioners and regionalists. Neither of those were successful as no seats were won.

The HSLS is a social-liberal party, that used to be rather influential. It won 10-18 % of the votes in the 90s, and although it lost some of its popularity in the 00s, it participated in governments from 00-02 (centre-left) and 08-10 (centre-right). It stepped out of the centre-right government in 2010, which caused its two MPs to leave the party. It ran on its own in the 2011 election but did not win a single seat.

Now they have apparently decided to run together.

[joevsimp]

has Croatia finally 'finished' the process of joining then?


strange, the rightwing panic attacks about immigration have all been about Romania and Bulgaria, not a word about Croatia

[MaxQue]

has Croatia finally 'finished' the process of joining then?


strange, the rightwing panic attacks about immigration have all been about Romania and Bulgaria, not a word about Croatia

Croatia is joining on July 1st. I suppose immigration is through Schengen and than Romania and Bulgaria enter Schengen this year, as they entered EU in 2007.

[Diouf]

has Croatia finally 'finished' the process of joining then?


strange, the rightwing panic attacks about immigration have all been about Romania and Bulgaria, not a word about Croatia

Croatia is joining on July 1st. I suppose immigration is through Schengen and than Romania and Bulgaria enter Schengen this year, as they entered EU in 2007.

Romania and Bulgaria have so far been blocked from Schengen, but Schengen-membership is not what some people, especially in the UK it seems, are worrying about. At least not at the moment. When new countries join the EU, the existing countries can make temporary curbs to the freedom of  movement for citizens from those countries. The UK's temporary curbs run out in December 2013, which means that Romanians and Bulgarians will then enjoy the same rights as other EU citizens in the UK.

[Diouf]

The European affiliations of the parties seem pretty straigthforward.

The Social Democrats will sit in the S&D group
The Social Liberals will join the ALDE group
The Christian Democrats will sit in the EPP group
The Labour Party will join the S&D group

It looks like those four parties are the ones who will end up being represented. If the governing coalition gets 6 seats, they will probably be split 5-1 or 4-2 in favour of the Social Democrats. The Christian Democrats will probably take all four seats of their coalition, but it can't be ruled out that the National Conservative Croatian Party of Rights dr. Ante Starčević will take one seat. Their affiliation seems more unclear, but perhaps ECR or EFD or even non-inscrits.
The Socialist-Feminist alliance consist of four smaller parties, and should one of them get a seat, I think they will join the Green or GUE-NGL group. The pensioners party from the two big coalitions will probably just follow the main party of the coalition, i.e. join S&D or EPP, but it seems unlikely that either of those parties will get a seat.

[Diouf]

New opinion poll by Promocija Plus

Governing centre-left coalition 29.5 % 6 seats
Main opposition coalition 22.2 % 5 seats
Labour Party 7.5 % 1 seats

All other lists receive less than 3 percent.

The opinion poll predicts a voter turnout of 47 %, which would be slightly higher than the average of 43 % throughout Europe in the 2009 EP elections.

[Tender Branson]

4pm turnout:

15%

...

LOL

[Diouf]

First results will come around 21.45, tportal.hr says

[Andrea]

First results show opposition 1% (32.something to 31.something%) ahead of the centre-left ruling coalition. 6 seats to 5. The final seat goes to the Labour Party (5.95%)

[Diouf]

The final turnout was 20.76 %.

Right now, it looks like Social Democrats will take all five seats in the governing coalition, while the Christian Democrats in the opposition will take five and the National Conservative Croatian Party of Rights dr. Ante Starčević will get one. It will be interesting to see where the latter party will end up. They recommended a no in the EU referendum. Not because they were Eurosceptic, they said, but because there had not been sufficient public debate. But no matter the explanation, I doubt that the EPP will accept a party who proposed voting no to membership. So probably ECR, EFD or non-inscrits.

[Diouf]

To round this off, Ruža Tomašić decided to join the European Conservatives and Reformists. So 6 Croatians joined the S&D group, 5 joined the EPP group, and 1 joined the ECR. I wonder if not HSP-AS will run for themselves next year as they could probably obtain another seat; Tomašić' seat should be safe anyway as she gained the highest number of votes(26.58%) of all on the common right-wing list at this election.

[Diouf]

From what I got from Google Translate's version of this: http://www.tportal.hr/vijesti/svijet/247224/Znate-li-sto-su-otvorene-izborne-liste.html

The candidates had to get 10 % percent of a list's vote if they were to break the list. So not much of an open list system after all.

[Diouf]

I thought this one was completely wrapped up, but suprisingly Nikola Vuljanić from Laburisti has left the S&D Group, where he sat as an appointed observer before the election, and has joined GUE/NGL instead.