The eight Parliament was the shortest one in modern Croatian history.
The eight Parliament since multiparty democracy was introduced in 1990 will formally be dissolved on Friday. Early parliamentary elections have to be held within 30 to 60 days, reports tportal.hr on July 14, 2016.
The eight Parliament was the shortest so far and lasted for just 200 days. There were only 57 days when Parliament was in session, with 151 MPs (only 30 women MPs) divided into 19 parties and 12 independent MPs.
This Parliament was in many ways different from all others, not least by the fact that the largest party in ruling majority brought down its own Prime Minister.
Parliamentary elections held on 8 November 2015 brought no absolute winner. HDZ and its Patriotic Coalition, after protracted and dramatic negotiations, ended up forming the government with MOST, a political entity which previously existed only at the local level. From the very beginning, their relationship was marked by arguments and distrust, which ultimately brought down the government.
Parliament was constituted on 28 December 2015. The ruling majority was comprised of HDZ-led Patriotic Coalition, MOST, MPs gathered around Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić and several representatives of national minorities. The majority elected Željko Reiner as the Speaker of Parliament.
At the end of January, Parliament confirmed with 83 votes the new Croatian government, led by Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković, a Canadian-Croatian businessman who did not belong to any party and did not take part in the elections. Deputy prime minister were HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko and MOST president Božo Petrov.
At the end of March, Parliament adopted the 2016 state budget. A few months later, HDZ and SDP managed to agree on the names of ten new judges of the Constitutional Court and thus avoided a constitutional crisis. The agreement between HDZ and SDP was necessary since it takes a two-third majority for Constitutional Court judges to be elected. This was in effect the only major decision taken during this Parliament.
One of the defining features of Parliament were problems with quorum, an indicator of strained relations between coalition partners. The ultimate crisis which brought down the government started in May. SDP raised the issue of political responsibility of Karamarko after the media started publishing information about business dealings between his wife and a lobbyists for Hungarian MOL concerning Croatian oil company INA.
In an attempt to avoid parliamentary debate on Karamarko and his possible dismissal, HDZ decided to vote for a no confidence motion against Orešković and against the government. At the same time, it was trying to succeed in a coalition reshuffle and form a new government without Orešković and MOST.
Parliament adopted the motion of no confidence against Orešković on 16 June. After it became clear that coalition reshuffle will not happen, Parliament on 20 June adopted the decision on dissolution, which will take effect on 15 July. A day later, on 21 June, Karamarko resigned as HDZ president.
After the decision enters into force, President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović will call early parliamentary elections, which will probably take place on 11 September. It is assumed that her decision will enter into force on 1 August, which would mean that parties would have until 15 August to submit their candidate lists to the State Election Commission. Afterwards, the official election campaign would start and last until a day prior to elections.
