A look at the latest Croatian election poll.
The big SDP rally which took place on Saturday showed that SDP is ready for the elections and that its members believe in victory. One of the reasons for their optimism are the results of SDP’s newest election poll, according to which the SDP’s coalition will win 53 seats in parliament, two more than the coalition led by HDZ, reports Vecernji List on September 28, 2015. The survey was conducted for SDP in all ten constituencies by Ipsos Puls agency during the first half of September, before the refugee crisis in Croatia began. In total, 5,000 voters took part in the poll.
According to the results, not only is SDP’s coalition slightly ahead of its competition, but SDP president and current prime minister Zoran Milanović is much more popular than his main opponent, HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko. However, neither left nor right coalition will be able to form a government alone, so the role of smaller parties will be crucial.
The results show that six smaller parties and coalitions will cross the electoral threshold. The best results have been achieved by the ORaH party, led by former environmental protection minister Mirela Holy, which should win 12 seats, followed by Živi Zid with eight seats, and MOST with six. The party of Milan Bandić and HDSSB should receive four seats each, while IDS should win only two seats.
According to the results of the SDP’s survey, the Successful Croatia coalition, led by former president Ivo Josipović and Radimir Čačić, will not cross the 5-percent electoral threshold. The closest it gets to the threshold is in the eight constituency where they receive 4.10 percent of votes and where Josipović has been extremely engaged in recent months. Ruža Tomašić and her conservative coalition also did not cross the threshold. Interestingly, in the first constituency, which covers a large part of the city of Zagreb, the SDP and the HDZ-led coalitions won five seats each.
The survey also showed that the new fortress of SDP is the third constituency (Zagorje, Varaždin, Međimurje), and not the eight constituency as during previous elections. According to the results, the SDP’s coalition could get only six seats in the eight constituency, while in the previous elections it had as many as 11 seats, together with IDS.
The study also showed that voters believe that Zoran Milanović would be better prime minister than Tomislav Karamarko. Milanović was chosen by 48 percent of voters, while only 26 percent supported Karamarko. The results show that Milanović is much more popular than his coalition, while Karamarko has less support than his Patriotic Coalition.
