Zoran Milanović wins another term as leader of Social-Democratic Party.
Zoran Milanović has been re-elected as president of SDP, Croatia’s largest opposition party. On Sunday’s party elections, he received more votes then his only opponent Zlatko Komadina. Members of SDP went to the polling stations today in their municipal, city and local party branches, voting for the party president for the next four-year term, reports Večernji List on April 2, 2016.
According to unofficial results, Milanović won convincingly. Although not all the votes have been counted, Milanović has won about 61 percent of votes, while his opponent, Zlatko Komadina, has 39 percent of votes. The turnout was around 60 percent.
“Thank you for your trust. It was a fair and tough fight and those who believe it has weaken SDP are mistaken”, said Milanović, adding that the party was not divided because differences among the members are small when it comes to values. He ended his victory speech with: “Long live SDP, long live Croatia”.
His opponent Zlatko Komadina, Prefect of Rijeka-Primorje Country, congratulated the newly re-elected party president. He repeated the words he said during the campaign that, even though there are two candidates, there is only one SDP. “I would like to thank all those who voted for social-democracy. I am sorry they did not vote for change. Zoran Milanović has won this election fairly”, said Komadina and shook hands with Milanović.
Zlatko Komadina said earlier that he would not run for the party vice-president, but he also said that he expected purges in the party. He added that he would remain an active SDP member. Commenting on the poor turnout in his Rijeka, he said that the turnout was always poor in Rijeka.
President of the Zagreb party branch Davor Bernardić, who was one of the loudest supporters of Komadina, said he did not plan to offer his resignation to SDP president, despite the fact that Komadina lost to Milanović in Zagreb. He said that the only important thing are the voters and that he would consider resigning only if he loses the upcoming local elections in Zagreb.
“There is no surrender. Thank you all”, announced Milanović earlier on Facebook.
According to unofficial results, Milanović won 53 percent of votes in Zagreb, while Komadina won in Rijeka. In Šibenik-Knin County, Milanović won 71 percent of votes, while in Split-Dalmatia County he won 68 percent of votes.
