‘It’s a defeat for the SDP’

first ever representatives in the European Parliament, following the country’s accession to the EU on July 1, has been won by a coalition led by the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which scored 32.87 per cent to obtain six of the 12 available seats. A rival coalition led by Prime Minister Zoran Milanović’s Social Democratic Party (SDP) won five seats with 32.07 per cent of the vote, while the Labour Party won one seat with 5.76 per cent.
In the right-wing coalition, anti-Europe candidate Ruža Tomašić, the leader of the Croatian Party of Rights Dr. Ante Starčević, led the field with close to 26 per cent of preferences.
The newspaper attributes “Milanović’s worst result since general elections in 2007” to “the disaffection of centrist voters”, who are unhappy with the performance of the current government. It further argues that the low turnout for the vote (20.84 per cent), can be explained by “candidates that were unknown and campaigns that were unconvincing,” which focused on side issues like MPs' salaries and their knowledge of English.