Milan Bandić and Anka Mrak Taritaš are expected to go to the second round.
With just four days before the first round of local elections on Sunday, current Mayor of Zagreb Milan Bandić is leading the polls again, with HNS-SDP candidate Anka Mrak Taritaš following closely behind, reports dnevnik.hr on May 17, 2017.
According to the poll published on Tuesday evening by Nova TV, in the first round, Bandić should get 24.9 percent of the vote and Anka Mrak-Taritaš 24.7 percent. Independent candidate Sandra Švaljek is fourth with 16.7 percent, followed by independent candidate Bruna Esih with 8.3 percent.
Esih, whose candidate list for the City Assembly also includes former HDZ member and MP Zlatko Hasanbegović, currently has more support than HDZ’s official candidate Drago Prgomet, who is in the fourth place with 5.8 percent. Other candidates, Ivan Lovrinović, Marko Sladoljev and Tomislav Tomašević, receive less than 5 percent each.
In the second round, Bandić and Mrak Taritaš are running neck and neck, with Bandić receiving 44.8 percent of votes and Mrak Taritaš 44.3 percent.
If Švaljek would enter the second round instead of Mrak Taritaš, she would almost certainly become the mayor. She currently has the support of 50.7 percent of respondents in the potential match up, while Bandić would get 39.9 percent of votes.
Compared to the previous poll twenty days ago, Mrak Taritaš’s support in the first round fell by 3 percentage points, while Bandić’s support increased by 0.8 percent. The biggest loser is Sandra Švaljek with a drop of 4.5 percentage points.
As for the City Assembly, the SDP-HNS-HSS-HSU coalition leads with 24.4 percent of votes, followed by HDZ with 13.5 percent, Bandić’s list with 13.2 percent, Sandra Švaljek’s list with 9.9 percent, Živi Zid with 6.5 percent, and Bruna Esih’s list with 6.2 percent.
The poll included 1,002 respondents and was conducted from 12 to 16 May.
The first round of voting will take place on Sunday. If no candidate receives a majority of votes, the second round of voting will follow two weeks later.
Being the capital and the largest city, results of the local elections in Zagreb will certainly be closely watched. Milan Bandić has been mayor more or less uninterrupted for the last 17 years, but voters’ support for him has been declining in recent years.
Problems in relations between the two main opposition parties on the national level, SDP and HNS, are obviously having effect on their joint candidate for mayor. Mrak Taritaš was considered by many to be the favourite just a few weeks ago, while now her chances seem to be declining.
Another important aspect of the elections will be the relative position between Bruna Esih and Drago Prgomet. Prgomet is the official HDZ candidate, appointed to that position personally by party president and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. It would be embarrassing for Plenković if his chosen candidate received less votes than Esih, who is popular among the more rightwing segment of his party.
