Croatia Elections & Politics Megathread

[Estrella]

President Milanović (left) and Prime Minister Plenković (right).

In just under a month, on Sunday, July 5, 2020, Croatia will be electing the 151 seats in its national parliament, the Sabor. It's the second election this year, after the presidential elections in December and January (for which there's a thread, too), when the opposition candidate Zoran Milanović (SDP) defeated the incumbent president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović (HDZ) with 52.7% to 47.3%.

Croatia is a unitary parliamentary republic led by Prime Minster Andrej Plenković (HDZ), with a population of 4.1 million, a member of EU (since 2013) and NATO, but not of Eurozone. It gained independence from Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia throughout the turbulent and bloody 1990s, slowly recovered in the following years - especially thanks to tourism - and has become a developed country. Last year, the economic growth was 2.9% and the unemployment stood at 8% before the pandemic.

I've tried to use the corona-lengthened school holidays to learn more about Croatian politics, and I'll try to make a short summary of the parties and political history like in my Slovakia and Hungary threads, but I'll be happy if some more knowledgeable people (bigic, maybe you?) will add to this.

[Estrella]

The Government

HDZ | Hrvatska demokratska zajednica | Croatian Democratic Union
Leader: Andrej Plenković | 2016 result: 33.4%, 59 seats as Patriotic Coalition

The party of the current Prime Minister and the closest Croatia has to a 'natural governing party'. HDZ was started in 1989, back when Croatia was a part of SFR Yugoslavia, as a 'nationalist first, right wing second' party. Then-party leader, President Franjo Tuđman, an authoritarian strongman, led the country through the war of independence against Serbian-backed separatist Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) and through the Croat-Bosniak war. This can still be seen in maps of party support - HDZ is strongest in South and East, areas that were occupied by RSK at the height of its power and later ethnically cleansed of Serbs. HDZ also gets very strong support (63% last time round) in electoral district XI for Croatians abroad, who live mostly in Bosnia and Herzegovina and have strong connections to the party (there's a HDZ branch in Bosnia, too - two in fact: HDZ BiH and HDZ 1990).

2020 presidential second round vs front lines in summer 1995.

After Tuđman's sudden death in 1999, the leaderless and directionless party briefly lost power, but roared back under Ivo Sanader. Sanader was a modernizing leader, carrying out reforms that led to an impressive economic recovery from the war and leading Croatia into EU and NATO. The combination of 2009 financial crisis and corruption scandals led to him being replaced with Jadranka Kosor. She was a moderate conservative with good intentions and some major successes in fighting against corruption (including putting Sanader in jail), but ultimately the economic crisis sank her and led to HDZ's defeat in 2011. The pieces were picked up by Tomislav Karamarko, an incompetent leader from the party's nationalist hard right, who failed to become Prime Minister after HDZ's underwhelming 2015 victory due to being unacceptable to his coalition partners. Not-Karamarko's cabinet soon fell apart and the party was led into the 2016 snap elections by a new face, the moderate Andrej Plenković. HDZ's result that year wasn't much better, but they did manage to form a relatively stable coalition that lasted the for the (almost) whole term until today.

Interesting note: perhaps because of their legacy as 'the party that built the state', HDZ has around 210 thousand members, which is a yuuge number for a country of just 4 million.

The government also has the support of:
— 11 independent MPs
— left-wing populist and nationalist Bandić Milan 365 - Labour and Solidarity Party (BM365, 5 seats)
— left-liberal Croatian People's Party - Liberal Democrats (HNS-LD, 4 seats)
— left-wing minority interest Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS, 3 seats)
— conservative Croatian Demochristian Party (HDS, 2 seats)
— conservative-liberal Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS, 1 seat)
— conservative regionalist and populist Croatian Democratic Alliance of Slavonia and Baranja (HDSSB, 1 seat)

[Estrella]

The Opposition

SDP | Socijaldemokratska partija Hrvatske | Social Democratic Party of Croatia
Leader: Davor Bernardić | 2016 result: 33.8%, 38 seats as People's Coalition

Party of the President and Leader of the Opposition and the only party besides HDZ to ever hold the position of Prime Minister. SDP was founded in 1990 by moderates from the ruling League of Communists of Croatia and after achieving a strong second place in that year's election, it quickly fell from grace and spent its first decade in the wilderness, languishing in single digits. Their position dramatically improved in 2000 when they jumped from 9% to 38% and formed a rather ramshackle everyone-against-HDZ coalition under old Communist apparatchik Ivica Račan. He steered Croatia away from being a tinpot war-torn authoritarian country and made significant reforms that enabled the fast economic growth of Sanader years, but his government ultimately fell apart and the snap elections of 2003 were followed by two terms of HDZ rule. During this time, though, SDP managed to remain a strong and credible opposition party. This enabled them to take power again in 2011 with Zoran Milanović. Milanović's government did last for the whole term, but it was beset by an economic crisis that led them to a defeat in 2015. They were expected to win in 2016 after HDZ's clown car interlude, but the voters pulled a Miliband on Milanović and SDP remained in opposition.

When it comes to policies, it's not that SDP isn't a left-wing party, but since the Tuđman era they defined themselves as a liberal and progressive option against HDZ's conservatism and nationalism, which led them to become something like the American Democrats - socially liberal, but economically very moderate when actually in government.

DPMŠ | Domovinski pokret Miroslava Škore | Miroslav Škoro Homeland Movement
Leader: (drum roll) Miroslav Škoro | 2019 presidential first round result: 24.5% (#3)

The new kids on the block, a party founded by folk/folk rock/whatever singer and presidential candidate Miroslav Škoro. His campaign was a huge success and after only narrowly failing to get into the second round, he founded his own personality cult party. Ideologically, they're he is vaguely conservative, nationalist and Euroskeptic. I couldn't be bothered to all of his platform, but it mostly looks like meaningless fluff. Prediction: he'll score an okay result vote-wise but get screwed over by the electoral system, get into coalition with whoever is more convenient/offering more pork, quickly get bored with politics and quit.

Besides SDP and Škoro, other opposition parties represented in the Sabor are:
— 5 independent MPs
— conservative-liberal and Euroskeptic Bridge of Independent Lists (Most, 10 MPs)
— left-liberal Croatian Peasant Party (HSS, 5 MPs)
— left-liberal (...) Civic Liberal Alliance (GLAS, 4 MPs)
— left-liberal (yes, again) and regionalist Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS, 3 MPs)
— populist Croatian Party of Pensioners (HSU, 2 MPs)
— Five Star Movement-esque Human Blockade (ŽZ, 2 MPs)
— 9 (!!) other parties with a single MP each that I can't be bothered with

[Estrella]

You might have noticed that in the previous posts, I mentioned some coalitions. This year, too, some parties will not be contesting elections by themselves, but on common lists. These coalitions are:
— Restart koalicija, i.e. SDP+HSS+HSU+GLAS+IDS+four irrelevant minor parties
— DPMŠ+six irrelevant minor parties+an independent list
— ŽZ+PH (Let's Change Croatia)
— Democrats (socdems)+Labourists (socialists)
— NH (nationalists)+HSP (far right)+some unknown outfit

Some other groups that will be contesting the election but aren't represented in parliament (some of these have MPs who are technically independents, so it's kind of fuzzy) are:
— Pametno, Europhile liberals
— People's Party-Reformists (NS-R), ctrl+c > ctrl+v
— Start, ctrl+c > ctrl+v
— Mislav Kolakušić, an indy MEP
— Ivan Pernar's Party (SIP), a weird pro-Russian conspirationist outfit
— and tons of others who probably won't stand a chance, but f*** knows, weird things can happen

Anyway, the reason for why these coalitions are created is Croatia's electoral system. Basically, there are 151 members of the Sabor, who are elected in 12 electoral districts:
— Districts I to X with 14 seats each, grouping together counties, with no threshold
— District XI for Croatians abroad with 3 seats (2 HDZ, 1 indy)
— District XII for national minorities with 8 seats (3 SDSS, 3 small ethnic parties, 2 indies)

There's no national threshold, but the division into districts means that 1. small parties with no pronounced strongholds benefit from allying with one of the bigger fishes and 2. regionally focused or personalist groups can win a seat easily, which explains the huge number of parties.

[Estrella]

♫ Polls, polls, polls, I'm looking for a poll time ♫
♫ Polls, polls, polls, get ready for my result ♫

From Politico Europe:

_{whoops, the mouse shouldn't be there :/}

Counting all affiliated parties, Restart has an edge over HDZ, but in 2016 SDP got really screwed over by their distribution of votes within districts and malapportionment, so we'll see. I could imagine a HDZ+DPMŠ+Most+some minions coalition coming out of a result this, but the whole situation is IMO still pretty unpredictable.

[Mike88]

Amazing summary Estrella, congrats!

I'm quite curious also about Croatian politics. About the 2019-20 presidential election, why did Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović became so unpopular at the end? One would though that after Zoran Milanović left office as PM, he was a bit unpopular.

Also, isn't former HDZ leader and PM Ivo Sanader in jail right now?

[Astatine]

Amazing summary Estrella, congrats!

I'm quite curious also about Croatian politics. About the 2019-20 presidential election, why did Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović became so unpopular at the end? One would though that after Zoran Milanović left office as PM, he was a bit unpopular.

Also, isn't former HDZ leader and PM Ivo Sanader in jail right now?

Kolinda was a non-uncontroversial President, but until the election campaign, she was fairly popular. She was kinda forced to be in between the moderate and right wing of HDZ, and to appeal to latter, she made very... questionable comments, such as insulting Bosnia and Hercegovina or mourning the suicide of war criminal Slobodan Praljak on Facebook (the mostly right-nationalist diaspora actually voted heavily for her in 2015, by a margin of 30'500 and her winning margin ended up 32'500). Her appearances in the 2018 World Cup were folksy but neither uncritized, her behavior was not really presidential. Still, she fared well in polling for years.

The incumbent (more centrist than right-wing) HDZ government has been quite unpopular, contributing to Kolinda's numbers dropping, with the far-right Miroslava Skoro on the rise. With moving to the right, she tried to appeal to his voters, although they were rather non-establishment than ideologically right.

Until December, she led in all but two polls, with her around 30 %, Milanovic at 25 % and Skoro at 18 % (in average). She was seen separately from the unpopular government and her personal ratings were still quite high (she was not most approved politician anymore, but still got low disapproval numbers).

Then, she held a very gaffe-driven speech for campaigning in Osijek, and that basically ruined her remaining credibility. I am currently learning some Serbo-Croatian and although I did not fully understand everything, it made me cringe so hard. No professional politician can speak like that without a heavy drug overdose in advance.
She said that when reelected, she already prepared contracts with Internet companies for jobs with a wage of 8000 € (the average wage in Croatia is 900 €). They way she spoke was generally completely cringeworthy and weird, for instance she said "I am not my program, that is you, the Croatian people in both Croatia and homeland" (Ja nisam moj program to ste vi, Hrvatski ljudi i u Hrvastkoj i u domovini).
There is even a quite catchy remix on her speech with its highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKyd1TZqRxQ

Meanwhile, Zoran Milanovic portrayed himself as "normal" and especially after that cringe speech, that really gained traction. Kolinda never recovered from her numerous gaffes (in a debate with Milanovic she said that people should vote for #1 on the ballot, her, although she was #2) and lost - although imho it is quite remarkable she still got 47 %. In the transition period, her approvals dropped completely (in one poll she was described as most approved politician by 2 %, she had numbers like 20-30 % before).

It was even joked that when Kolinda announced she'd self-isolate during Covid-19 crisis, that she should've done that before the elections, because then she would have won.

[Astatine]

Another remarkable thing about this election: Vesna Pusic, the former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, is not running again.

Pusic has been Member of Parliament since 2000 (with an interruption 2011-2016) and was Leader of the liberal Croatian People's Party HNS from 2000 until 2008 and again from 2013 until 2016. She is known for being a vocal supporter of LGBT rights in Croatia (she war caricatured often for that). In 2011, she became Minister for Foreign Affairs under Zoran Milanovic and was even nominated to become the UN Secretary General in 2015. She withdrew from the race in advance to the 2016 snap elections.

In 2016, she split with her party as the HNS decided to support Plenkovic's HDZ government. Other dissidents including her founded the GLAS (Civic Liberal Alliance Party/Voice) party, led by Anka Mrak-Taritas (candidate for Mayor of Zagreb in 2018). GLAS is ideologically not far away from HNS, but is closer to SDP and is a vocal critic of HDZ. Hence they also run with SDP under the banner of Restart Coalition. Pusic's departure from politics closes a chapter of 20 years of being one of the best known advocats for liberalism in Croatia.

[Astatine]

Amazing summary Estrella, congrats!

I'm quite curious also about Croatian politics. About the 2019-20 presidential election, why did Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović became so unpopular at the end? One would though that after Zoran Milanović left office as PM, he was a bit unpopular.

Also, isn't former HDZ leader and PM Ivo Sanader in jail right now?

Kolinda was a non-uncontroversial President, but until the election campaign, she was fairly popular. She was kinda forced to be in between the moderate and right wing of HDZ, and to appeal to latter, she made very... questionable comments, such as insulting Bosnia and Hercegovina or mourning the suicide of war criminal Slobodan Praljak on Facebook (the mostly right-nationalist diaspora actually voted heavily for her in 2015, by a margin of 30'500 and her winning margin ended up 32'500). Her appearances in the 2018 World Cup were folksy but neither uncritized, her behavior was not really presidential. Still, she fared well in polling for years.

The incumbent (more centrist than right-wing) HDZ government has been quite unpopular, contributing to Kolinda's numbers dropping, with the far-right Miroslava Skoro on the rise. With moving to the right, she tried to appeal to his voters, although they were rather non-establishment than ideologically right.

Until December, she led in all but two polls, with her around 30 %, Milanovic at 25 % and Skoro at 18 % (in average). She was seen separately from the unpopular government and her personal ratings were still quite high (she was not most approved politician anymore, but still got low disapproval numbers).

Then, she held a very gaffe-driven speech for campaigning in Osijek, and that basically ruined her remaining credibility. I am currently learning some Serbo-Croatian and although I did not fully understand everything, it made me cringe so hard. No professional politician can speak like that without a heavy drug overdose in advance.
She said that when reelected, she already prepared contracts with Internet companies for jobs with a wage of 8000 € (the average wage in Croatia is 900 €). They way she spoke was generally completely cringeworthy and weird, for instance she said "I am not my program, that is you, the Croatian people in both Croatia and homeland" (Ja nisam moj program to ste vi, Hrvatski ljudi i u Hrvastkoj i u domovini).
There is even a quite catchy remix on her speech with its highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKyd1TZqRxQ

Meanwhile, Zoran Milanovic portrayed himself as "normal" and especially after that cringe speech, that really gained traction. Kolinda never recovered from her numerous gaffes (in a debate with Milanovic she said that people should vote for #1 on the ballot, her, although she was #2) and lost - although imho it is quite remarkable she still got 47 %. In the transition period, her approvals dropped completely (in one poll she was described as most approved politician by 2 %, she had numbers like 20-30 % before).

It was even joked that when Kolinda announced she'd self-isolate during Covid-19 crisis, that she should've done that before the elections, because then she would have won.

For anyone who wants to cringe and see new perspectives of the former Croatian President: 
Some compilations of Kolinda's most prominent gaffes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8np4klj4_Q&t=96s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZLrelyKnn4
(additionally to the things mentioned above, she also said soccer player Luka Modric is like a son to her, her speech was some weird gibberish besides the 8000 € part, her portrait was printed on some Serbian chocolate, and yeah... her singing is not really material for "Croatia Got Talent")

The latter video is from a Bosnian TV channel, where a political analyst even suggested that she might take some substances.
Her nickname Alkoholinda doesn't come from nowhere.

I guess against the backdrop of all of this it can be understood why Kolinda's political career ended abruptly.
I also doubt we will hear anything from her in the future, as all of this basically locked any chances from her being seen anything but a caricature.

Nevertheless, I would like to point out that in spite of her cringeworthiness, her Croatian gibberish is still a more proper use of language than the incumbent US President's.

[Estrella]

Amazing summary Estrella, congrats!

I'm quite curious also about Croatian politics. About the 2019-20 presidential election, why did Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović became so unpopular at the end? One would though that after Zoran Milanović left office as PM, he was a bit unpopular.

Also, isn't former HDZ leader and PM Ivo Sanader in jail right now?

Thanks! Astatine seems to know much more than me though hahaha

Yep, Sanader is, since 2018, serving a 2.5 year jail term for various corruption scandals and kickbacks from the Hypo Alpe Adria bank (whose mismanagement and subsequent collapse killed the Carinthian FPÖ), receiving bribes from Hungarian oil company MOL, creating a slush fund for HDZ and some other stuff. The case has been going on since 2010, when, just before parliament lifted his immunity from prosecution, Sanader fled to Austria, where he was promptly arrested and extradited back to Croatia.

[mileslunn]

While not too familiar with Croatian politics, I am wondering why governing party doesn't have a bigger lead due to COVID bounce.  It seems most countries where leaders aren't messing up badly (i.e. US, Brazil and to lesser extent UK), leaders are getting bounces.  Croatia has one of the lowest rates of COVID-19 and in fact this month, most days has no new cases while only 9 active cases so I would think with COVID-19 being #1 issue and Croatia being so low compared to most of Europe (even lower than neighbours), that would bode well for the government.

[Astatine]

While not too familiar with Croatian politics, I am wondering why governing party doesn't have a bigger lead due to COVID bounce.  It seems most countries where leaders aren't messing up badly (i.e. US, Brazil and to lesser extent UK), leaders are getting bounces. Croatia has one of the lowest rates of COVID-19 and in fact this month, most days has no new cases while only 9 active cases so I would think with COVID-19 being #1 issue and Croatia being so low compared to most of Europe (even lower than neighbours), that would bode well for the government.

I would not say that the incumbent government didn't get any effect from their relatively good response to Covid-19.

After Kolinda's loss, the HDZ was basically paralyzed since she was a heavy favorite until the last days before the elections. Combined with Miroslav Skoro founding an own party and the government's general relative unpopularity, HDZ had a pretty strong drop in polling. Before the presidential election, HDZ was at 26 % with SDP being at 23 % (average for December).
In February, those numbers dropped to 24 % for HDZ and 29 % for SDP with Skoro at 11 %. After the presidential election, SDP was consistently strongest party - until Covid 19 emerged, in late March HDZ took the lead again and at the end of May HDZ was at 30 % with SDP at 27 % and Skoro at 10 % (non coalitions).

So Andrej Plenkovic saw a slight upwards trend for his party. I think it should not be forgotten that the country is relatively polarized, with roughly 30 % of voters being more or less loyal to HDZ, 25 % loyal to SDP, 10 % being loyal to small splinter parties (for instance regionalist IDS) and the rest 35 % being volatile electorate which is either open for protest votes (Zivi Zid, MOST and Skoro currently... in 2014/15 there was a SDP split off with strong numbers called ORaH), supporting one of the two major parties or abstaining. If you look back at Croatian opinion polling, this pattern was consistent for some years. This would explain why the bump for HDZ does not seem to strong, because a.) they have a relatively high floor (higher than SDP) - they just did not drop more extremely after Kolinda's loss and b.) their ceiling is relatively low, especially with several center-right alternatives, so the bump is less visible.

[Estrella]

While not too familiar with Croatian politics, I am wondering why governing party doesn't have a bigger lead due to COVID bounce.  It seems most countries where leaders aren't messing up badly (i.e. US, Brazil and to lesser extent UK), leaders are getting bounces. Croatia has one of the lowest rates of COVID-19 and in fact this month, most days has no new cases while only 9 active cases so I would think with COVID-19 being #1 issue and Croatia being so low compared to most of Europe (even lower than neighbours), that would bode well for the government.

I would not say that the incumbent government didn't get any effect from their relatively good response to Covid-19.

After Kolinda's loss, the HDZ was basically paralyzed since she was a heavy favorite until the last days before the elections. Combined with Miroslav Skoro founding an own party and the government's general relative unpopularity, HDZ had a pretty strong drop in polling. Before the presidential election, HDZ was at 26 % with SDP being at 23 % (average for December).
In February, those numbers dropped to 24 % for HDZ and 29 % for SDP with Skoro at 11 %. After the presidential election, SDP was consistently strongest party - until Covid 19 emerged, in late March HDZ took the lead again and at the end of May HDZ was at 30 % with SDP at 27 % and Skoro at 10 % (non coalitions).

So Andrej Plenkovic saw a slight upwards trend for his party. I think it should not be forgotten that the country is relatively polarized, with roughly 30 % of voters being more or less loyal to HDZ, 25 % loyal to SDP, 10 % being loyal to small splinter parties (for instance regionalist IDS) and the rest 35 % being volatile electorate which is either open for protest votes (Zivi Zid, MOST and Skoro currently... in 2014/15 there was a SDP split off with strong numbers called ORaH), supporting one of the two major parties or abstaining. If you look back at Croatian opinion polling, this pattern was consistent for some years. This would explain why the bump for HDZ does not seem to strong, because a.) they have a relatively high floor (higher than SDP) - they just did not drop more extremely after Kolinda's loss and b.) their ceiling is relatively low, especially with several center-right alternatives, so the bump is less visible.

To add to that point about polarization and undecided voters, here's a different graph of opinion polls from Wikipedia. Re: colors - HDZ, SDP, DPMŠ, Živi zid, Most, undecided.

There was a depolarization of electorate after the close 2016 election and a rapid increase in the number of undecideds, but other than that the two main parties remained mostly stable - see Škoro gaining mostly from undecided voters. Now, just before the elections, in addition to an increase for HDZ and SDP from voters coming back home after being ambivalent throughout the term, you can see trends of voters going SDP'16 > undecided > Živi zid > SDP'20 and HDZ'16 > undecided > Škoro'20.

[Astatine]

I actually wonder whether MOST and ZZ will survive the July elections, I am not even sure about Skoro.

MOST was a kinda conservatish center-right party first time successful in 2015, more or less anti-establishment and with a typical populist reform platform. MOST gained 12 % in 2015 and supported a government led by an independent close friend of Kolinda so that the corrupt and unpopular then-leader of HDZ Tomislav Karamarko would be kept away from the Prime Minister's office, but after short time, the whole alliance collapsed and in the snap elections, MOST lost (no rhyme intended) a bit down to 8 % and first supported Plenkovic but later withdrew their support. They performed poorly in the EU elections 2019 and their polling is not the best, especially considering that they didn't join a coalition for the elections so far.

I could see Skoro doing the same, supporting a HDZ led government under certain conditions and then withdrawing their support and losing until the next election.

Btw, as I mentioned ORaH in my last post: The tradition of protest parties in Croatia does not include center-right but also center-left parties. The gothic former SDP environmental minister Mirela Holy left SDP in 2013 and founded a green party called ORaH (Sustainable Croatian Development), and they succeeded in the 2014 EU elections, gaining one seat (9 %) and with the unpopularity of the SDP government, they got a good number of former SDP voters. At some point, they were polling at 18 % just shortly behind SDP. But with the SDP gaining traction (and their voters back) and MOST emerging as the protest party, ORaH's support plummeted and they just won 2 % and not seats. Mirela Holy subsequently left ORaH and is now heading the environmental policy group in SDP, with some media speculating she might run for local elections in Zagreb in 2022.

ZZ kinda shares the same fate with the only exception that they really almost completely depend on anti-establishment and protest vote and they actually had the luck of perfect timing of elections to gain parliamentary representation, plus MOST already losing ground so they could suck up some of the protest voters.

[Astatine]

Little fun fact, but Croat politicians seem to quite creative when it comes to party names, as they include several puns:

Glas means Voice in Croatian and is an abbreviation for the center-left Građansko-liberalni savez (Civic Liberal Alliance).
Orah is the Croatian word for walnut, being the abbreviation for the green Održivi razvoj Hrvatske (Sustainable Development Croatia).
Hrast means oak tree and stands for the right-wing Hrvatski Rast party (Croatian Growth).
Snaga stands for energy and is the abbreviation for the center-left minor party Stranka narodnog i građanskog aktivizma (Party of People's and Civic Activism).

There is a minor party called Desno, which means right (political and direction), an abbreviation for the far-right Demokratski savez nacionalne obnove (Democratic Union of National Renewal), but it didn't gain any seats in 2016.

[Estrella]

https://twitter.com/nino_kadic/status/1273664327359348737

FF Kolinda!

[Astatine]

As it hasn't been posted so far: The latest poll shows some interesting results:

total seats: 151, 76 seats needed for majority

Restart Coalition: 64 seats
HDZ: 52 seats (+1)
Skoro's Homeland Coalition: 15 seats
MOST: 8 seats
HNS-LD: 1 seat
Minorities/Diaspora: 10 seats

140 seats are distributed in Croatia, 3 seats are reserved for the (quite conservative) diaspora and 8 seats for minorities. I added 1 seat to the HDZ seat count because it is all but 100 % sure they will get at least one seat in the diaspora vote, if HDZ falls badly they might lose their second.

This would basically leave the following coalition possibilities:

Restart Coalition + HDZ (116 seats) - Grand Coalition, highly unlikely with such a polarized electorate
HDZ + Skoro's Homeland Coalition (67 seats), maybe with MOST (75 seats) - likely minority government, leaves some question marks, as Skoro is basically running against the establishment and HDZ under Plenkovic is the personification of establishment (he nevertheless expects such a coalition), plus Skoro is running with harsh anti-Serb rhetoric, thus the Serb minority (3 seats last time) will not support such an agreement which could leave the coalition with a majority, I also doubt that HNS would support such a right-wing coalition
Restart Coalition minority government (64 seats) - could see some minority MPs backing this, maybe some defectors from Skoro (populist parties are highly volatile for defection) whom are promised to get some good positions, HNS could also back this, MOST rather not
HDZ minority government (53 seats) - honestly, a HDZ minority government seems like the most probable outcome, maybe Skoro's Coalition gets Speakership of Parliament in exchange and MOST gets some things too, HNS would probably back this

This looks pretty much like a repeat of 2015 - a basically ungovernable situation due to a new protest party popping up. I think it is very likely that snap elections occur.

Plus, some other things from this poll:

Andrej Plenkovic is a polarizing person, being the most popular (this pollster asks for the favorite and least favorite politician, not for approval ratings) and most unpopular politician at the same time (11,7 % favorite, 22,2 % least favorite), SDP leader Davor Bernadic is closely behind as most popular politician with 10,3 %, but not the second most unpopular, this being President Zoran Milanovic at 21,4 %. What stated before in this thread by Mike88 that Milanovic was unpopular is really true, he is extremely hated by HDZ loyals (being the most prominent face of SDP and him having stolen an election perceived as "unlosable"), while being seen neutral to modestly positive by others and SDP loyals being enthusiastically behind their new leader. #muhpolarization
Josipa Rimac is #3 on the list of most disapproved politicians with 3,9 %, most likely due to a corruption scandal leading to her expulsion from HDZ two weeks ago.

Plenkovic's government has an 21,7 % approval and 47,6 % disapproval rating, but generally spoken... Many Croats are dissatisfied with everything political, no matter who governs. I remember some polls from years ago in which the favorite politician was "no body", followed by Kolinda, and the least favorite politician was "every politician", followed by ex-HDZ leader Tomislav Karamarko.

[bigic]

Most was in government with HDZ two times and both times they shortly left - why would you think that Most forms a coalition with HDZ again?

[Astatine]

Most was in government with HDZ two times and both times they shortly left - why would you think that Most forms a coalition with HDZ again?

I did some research...
MOST leaving for first time was basically inevitabe due to their distrust in then (right-wing and incompetent) HDZ leader and Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Karamarko. As Karamarko is out of HDZ leadership, this wouldn't be an issue.
And for the second time, there were some clashes between Finance Minister Zdravko Maric and MOST. As Maric elevated to the position of Deputy PM recently, you're right, this at least will probably stand between another MOST and HDZ agreement. I hadn't done much research about this actually in advance to the last post, so I'd retract my statement about the possible coalitions there partially. An inclusion of MOST seems... unlikely.

My main thinking point was that MOST is ideologically closer to HDZ (as they... formed a coalition twice) and the power perspective. MOST will probably disappear after the next election anyways (as kinda moderately conservative protest party), their voter base has been shrinking and them leaving the government didn't really bring them any larger benefits. So why not providing the government a majority if snap elections would (they could be made responsible for that) diminish them even more?

Against the backdrop of all those points I'd guess MOST would support Plenkovic if...

- Maric is not included in the government or downgraded to some lower position.
- there is no simultaneous participation of Skoro's Party.
- polling shows that snap elections would cause even more trouble for MOST so supporting the government would be the better option to keep the seats for some time.

If the latter is the case, I wouldn't rule out a real coalition deal instead of confidence and supply.
But yeah, you're right, I did not go too much into detail why and how such an agreement would work.

[mgop]

sdp will win, skoro could become official opposition and hdz should go in history, that would be lovely.

[CumbrianLefty]

Very much in the "believe it when I see it" category, though.

[bigic]

skoro could become official opposition and hdz should go in history

LOL

[Baki]

A little native Croatian news.

The main story today is the PM refusing to go into selfisolation.

3 days ago he met with Novak Đoković at the AdriaTour in Zadar where they had a short talk for a couple of minutes. During the day pictures surfaced of Plenkovic touching Đokovics shoulder.

[Astatine]

New poll:

HDZ: 26.7 %
Restart Coalition: 24.6 %
Skoro's Homeland Coalition: 11.1 %
MOST: 6.8 %
Green-Left: 4.5 %
Pametno: 4.1 % (another... social-liberal platform)
ZZ: 3.3 %
HNS-LD: 0.6 %
Labour: 0.5 %

[bigic]

Miroslav Škoro says that a coalition with HDZ isn't impossible ("Plenković is the main problem"), and rejects the possibility of coalition with SDP.
https://www.jutarnji.hr/izbori/teme/skoro-konacno-izrekao-kljucnu-predizbornu-recenicu-nikad-nisam-rekao-da-necu-s-hdz-om-15005250