President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović will meet with leaders of political parties to see whether anyone has enough support to be named Prime Minister-Designate.
President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović will at noon begin the first round of consultations with leaders of political parties elected to Parliament about forming a new government, reports Večernji List on September 28, 2016.
Consultations at the Office of the President will follow Monday’s official publication of the results of parliamentary elections held on 11 September by the State Election Commission. According to the Constitution, the President names as Prime Minister-Designate a person who can prove, based on the distribution of seats in Parliament, that they enjoy the confidence of the majority of all MPs. Therefore, since Parliament has 151 MPs, for a Prime Minister-Designate to be named it is necessary to have the support of at least 76 MPs.
It is expected that in this first round no one will have the necessary support to be named Prime Minister-designate. The closes to that threshold and the only candidate who has a realistic chance to do it is HDZ president Andrej Plenković. His party was the relative winner of the elections, winning together with its partners 61 of 151 seats. HDZ is currently in negotiations about forming a government with MOST, which won 13 seats in Parliament, as well as with eight MPs representing national minorities living in Croatia.
Representatives of national minorities will be the first to be received by the President, followed by representatives of parties according to the number of seats won. The last one to meet with the President will be HDZ delegation led by Plenković.
MOST’s representatives will be led by party leader Božo Petrov.
The President will meet separately with parties that took part in the elections as the People’s Coalition. Outgoing SDP president Zoran Milanović will not come to the consultations. He decided he would not represent his party due to intra-party electoral process which has started, and therefore the SDP delegation will be led by party vice-president Milanka Opačić. HNS delegation will be led by party president Ivan Vrdoljak, and HSU’s by Silvano Hrelja.
HSS delegation led by party president Krešo Beljak will be received separately. The party was part of the People’s Coalition at the elections, but later it confusingly decided it would support Plenković as Prime Minister, but still remain in opposition.
Last year, it took a month and a half of dramatic political negotiations for a Prime Minister-Designate to be named. It is expected that this time the process will be much shorter.
