Parliamentary elections were held in Croatia on Sunday, 4 December 2011 to elect 151 members to the Croatian Parliament. They were the sixth parliamentary election in Croatia since independence.
Elections were held in 10 electoral districts inside Croatia (each electing 14 members of parliament), Law defining electorates one electoral district for Croatian citizens living abroad (3 members of parliament), and one electoral district for national minorities (8 members of parliament). Candidate lists have to win more than 5% of the votes in an electoral district in order to be represented in Parliament.
The previous elections were a close race between the two major political alliances and resulted with Ivo Sanader winning a second term as Prime Minister. After his sudden and unexpected resignation in mid-2009, Jadranka Kosor succeeded him as head of the governing party (Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ) and formed a new Government. Zoran Milanović, despite losing a close race four years ago, was again chosen to be the Opposition's candidate for prime minister.
Domestic policy and the economy were the main themes of the campaign. The cabinet supported by the parliamentary majority, marked by numerous corruption scandals, high unemployment and a grim economic outlook, was highly unpopular and had been lagging in the polls since early 2009.
The elections resulted in a resounding loss for the governing parties with HDZ and the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) receiving the lowest number of seats and the lowest share of the vote in their histories. HDZ lost a total of 21 seats, losing all but two electoral districts in the country. HSS was reduced to a sixth of its previous membership, with two sitting ministers losing their seats. The centre-left four party Kukuriku coalition, led by the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP) contested the election, unlike four years ago, with a joint appearance and won the election in a landslide achieving an absolute majority with 81 elected members. All members of the coalition, except the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS), achieved their best results yet. This election was the first in which HDZ did not become the strongest individual party in Parliament, with the Social Democrats winning almost twenty more seats.
Background
After two consecutive wins in 2003 and 2007, the governing HDZ was hoping to secure yet another term in office. The Social Democrats sought a first win after two consecutive parliamentary losses since 2000.
The 2007 election resulted in the formation of the Sanader II cabinet, supported by a narrow majority of 7. One of the main goals of the administration was completing Croatian negotiations with the European Union. Croatia had been a candidate for EU since 2005. In December 2008 Slovenia blocked the negotiation progress of Croatia due to a border dispute. Sanader and his Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor were unable to settle their differences in the following months which meant Croatian's accession to the European Union was in a standstill.
The 2009 local elections were held on 17 and 31 May and resulted with the Social Democrats making considerable gains in certain traditionally HDZ-leaning cities and constituencies, such as Dubrovnik, Šibenik, Trogir and Vukovar, as well as retaining such major traditionally SDP-leaning cities as Zagreb and Rijeka.
On 1 July 2009, Ivo Sanader announced he was resigning the Premiership and leaving his deputy Jadranka Kosor as prime minister. Parliament approved her and the new Cabinet which made Kosor the first woman ever to be appointed prime minister. Ever since late 2008, SDP had been leading the polls, however by a narrow margin. After the sudden resignation of Sanader HDZ plummeted in the polls to their lowest level since 1999 when corruption scandals were rocking the party establishment. There was much speculation, since Sanader hadn't given a reason for his departure, whether the Slovenian blockade was the cause for his resignation.
The new premier, faced with a huge deficit and high unemployment, introduced an emergency budget aimed to reduce spending and the national debt. One of the most unpopular austerity measures taken along with the introduction of the budget was a new income tax called the "crisis tax" (krizni porez). In addition, the value-added tax rate was increased from 22% to 23%. The government's handling of finances was unpopular among the public resulting in the Prime Minister's dismal approval rating of 32% by the end of her first month. In the following months Kosor and Pahor met several times, trying to resolve the border dispute. The negotiations resulted in an agreement which led to the continuation of negotiations for the Croatian accession to the European Union. The solution was an Arbitration Agreement which was signed in Stockholm on 4 November 2009, by both countries' Prime Ministers and the president of the EU, Fredrik Reinfeldt.
In the last quarter of 2009 many public officials as well as members of the boards of various government agencies became suspected of participating in corrupt activities. Most of the accused were members of the governing HDZ which resulted in great criticism for Kosor, who claimed she was not familiar with any criminal activity from her colleagues in the party. Others, however, praised Kosor and her Government for finally starting to tackle the difficult issue of corruption. The Opposition accused the Prime Minister for political responsibility claiming that it was impossible that Kosor didn't know what was happening around her when she was a Vice President of the government almost seven years before becoming premier. The accusations grew louder as more and more corruption affairs were tied with the former prime minister Ivo Sanader. On 30 October 2009 Damir Polančec, member of the HDZ Presidency, resigned as deputy prime minister and Minister of the Economy following allegations of corruption.
On 3 January 2010 Ivo Sanader announced he was returning to active politics saying it was a mistake he ever left. He accused Kosor and the members of the HDZ Presidency of failed leadership citing Andrija Hebrang's poor result in the first round of the presidential election held just a week earlier. Hebrang achieved an embarrassing 12% claiming third place, the lowest result for an HDZ presidential candidate ever. Ivo Josipović, the candidate of the SDP, won a landslide victory in the resulting runoff on 10 January. Most political pundits as well as the majority of the public believed the true reason of Sanader's surprise return was fear that he would eventually be tied with the numerous corruption scandals which have emerged since he left office. On January 4, the day after Sanader's coup as it was called by the press, the HDZ Presidency decided to expel Sanader from the party. On 9 December 2010 USKOK issued an arrest warrant on Ivo Sanader which resulted in him fleeing the country before his political immunity was stripped by Parliament.Sanader u bijegu: Preko granice ga odvezla kći, on čitao novine, Večernji list He was put on the Interpol wanted listWanted: SANADER, Ivo, Interpol and arrested the following day in Salzburg, Austria.Croatian ex-PM Ivo Sanader arrested in Austria, BBC News
Throughout 2010, economy topped corruption as the biggest concern of the government. Industry shed tens of thousands of jobs, and unemployment soared. Consumer spending reduced drastically compared to record 2007 levels, causing widespread problems in the trade as well as transport industries. The import/export balance did derive a benefit from a large decrease in imports and a more tempered decrease in exports. The continuing declining standard resulted in a quick fall in both the Prime Minister's as well as government's support.
The recession and high unemployment continued throughout 2011 resulting in many anti-government protests around the country.Rastrgali zastavu HDZ-a, zapalili SDP-ovu i EU-a , Novi list On 15 April former Croatian general Ante Gotovina was sentenced to 24 years in prison by ICTY after being found guilty of war crimes during Operation Storm.HAŠKA PRESUDA: Gotovina je izgledao mirno, a u njemu je ključalo. Čeljust mu se tresla , Jutarnji list This caused great dissatisfaction in Croatia, especially on the political right. Investigations on the governing party's 'black funds' intensified in 2011 after former HDZ treasurer Branka Pavošević testified to USKOK about the illegal finances used for previous elections, including Jadranka Kosor's own 2005 presidential campaign.Iskopana tajna: HDZ s prljavih 13 milijuna kuna financirao Jadranku Kosor, ali i Houdeka, Škoru, Kindl... , Jutarnji list The investigation resulted with the Mladen Bajić, the Attorney General, issuing an indictment against HDZ as a legal entity.J. Kosor: Neću dati ostavku i nećemo dopustiti da se HDZ uruši, Večernji list
On 28 October MPs voted to dissolve Parliament. President of the Republic Ivo Josipović agreed to a dissolution of Sabor on Monday, 31 October and scheduled the election, as previously suspected, for Sunday 4 December.
Election date The regular parliamentary election after the 2007 Croatian parliamentary election was to be held on or before 11 March 2012, which was the last constitutional deadline.Borba za prevlast po izbornim jedinicama, Jutarnji list
The unstable political climate following the resignation of the Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in July 2009 prompted many political observers and experts to raise the possibility of an early general election. This did not materialize, rather, the Cabinet of Jadranka Kosor decided to continue with some changes in personnel.
Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor had repeatedly stated in 2010 that they would most likely be held in late 2011, presumably in November.Umjesto na proljeće, izbori će biti tek krajem 2011. , Net.hr The tentative election date was the last Sunday of November 2011, however many pundits as well as opposition politicians had guessed that the election could be held earlier, in order to coincide with the pending European Union accession referendum. The final date was decided by the ruling parties on 15 July.
The election was officially called when the President of the Republic agreed to a dissolution of Parliament on 31 October, allowing the general election to take place on 4 December. The candidate lists were finalized in the State Election Committee on 17 November, and the official campaign lasted until the election silence on the midnight of 2 December.
Electoral system
Since 1999 Croatia has been divided into 10 Croatian Parliament electoral districts, named using Roman numerals. These districts are roughly based on geography, but shaped according to the number of voters so that each district holds roughly the same number of registered voters, around 400,000. These districts therefore do not correspond to the borders of top administrative divisions within Croatia and each district contains one or more or parts of several Croatian counties.
Each district sends 14 MPs to the parliament and winning candidates are determined using the party-list proportional representation voting system. This means that parties make lists of 14 candidates to be elected, and seats get allocated to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party receives, with the election threshold set at 5 percent of votes in each district, calculated using the standard D'Hondt formula.