Croatia’s political parties to meet the president to discuss forming a government.
Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarović will meet today with the leaders of parliamentary parties elected to the Croatian Parliament and discuss the issue of who will be named as prime minister-designate. According to the Constitution, the right to try to form a new government has the person who, due to the distribution of seats in the Croatian Parliament, enjoys the confidence of the majority of all members, which means at least 76 members of parliament, reports Index.hr and Jutarnji List on November 26, 2015.
Consultations will begin after the final official results of the parliamentary elections were announced on Tuesday, but it is not likely that anyone will come to the President with the sufficient number of signatures at this moment.
According to the unofficial information, SDP president and current Prime Minister Zoran Milanović will bring 67 signatures of support from newly-elected members of parliament. In addition to 56 seats his coalition has won, Milanović has seven signatures from representatives of national minorities, three signatures from IDS and one signature from a single Reformists’ member of parliament.
HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko will come to the Presidential Office with at least 59 signatures of support, which have been won by his coalition. It is not known whether he will bring any additional signatures of support.
In order to obtain the majority, both main coalitions have been negotiating with MOST which has won 19 parliamentary seats. However, Drago Prgomet, who won one of MOST’s seats, has been ejected from MOST due to a secret meeting with Milanović. He has since formed political party HRID, together with two additional members of parliament from MOST.
There are also several of the smaller parties coming to the consultations. HDSSB and Milan Bandić 365 Party have two seats each, Živi Zid has one seat, and there is also the eighth minority representative which has still not publicly said which side she will support.
The President will first meet with IDS (1.45 pm), followed by representatives of national minorities, Živi Zid and Reformists. Milan Bandić will not come to the consultations since he is away on official business as mayor of Zagreb. Two main parties will come last: SDP at 6 pm, and HDZ at 6.45 pm. It is expected that the president will give a statement after the consultations are over.
According to the first Crobarometer poll, conducted by the Ipsos Puls agency after the elections, SDP currently has the greatest support of voters. The survey was conducted from 8 to 20 November. According to the poll data, SDP currently has the support of 29 percent of voters, HDZ is second with the support of 28.2 percent of voters, while MOST is third with the support of the 19.1 percent of voters.
Results of the poll show that, in general, MOST has not hurt neither SDP nor HDZ, but mostly other smaller parties. Živi Zid currently has the support of 3.8 percent, followed by Milan Bandić (2.3 percent), IDS (1.7 percent), HSS (1.4 percent), HNS (1.2 percent), and ORaH (1.2 percent).
