September 11, 2023 – Croatian politics sometimes feels like the 24th season of a show you used to love – it’s just about entertaining enough for you not to give up altogether. Autumn is always an interesting period, so let’s have a look at what the locals think about Croatian politicians.
RTL published the results of their new Cro Demoskop survey, as reported by Index.
Ratings of Croatian Political Parties
The ruling HDZ comes out on top again this month on the rating scale of parties among Croatian voters. SDP follows with 10 percent less, while Mozemo takes the third spot.
Here is the order of the top ten parties for September:
HDZ 25.4% +0.2% (August 25.2 percent)
SDP 15.5% +0.8% (August 14.7 percent)
WE CAN 11% -0.2% (August 11.2 percent)
MOST 8.6% -0.2% (August 8.8 percent)
Domovinski Pokret (Homeland Movement) 7.8% +0.1% (August 7.7 percent)
CENTAR 2.5% (August 2.3 percent)
HSS 1.3% (August 1.4 percent)
Radnička fronta (Labor Front) 1.2% (August 1.4 percent)
Fokus 1.1% (August 1.0 percent)
HNS 1.1% (August 0.8 percent).
The lower part of the list is taken by Croatian Sovereignists (September 1.0 percent – August 0.9 percent), IDS (September 1.0 percent – August 1.0 percent), and the party of Karolina Vidović Krišto (September 1.0 percent – August 1.1)
There is a significant percentage of undecideds for whose votes the political battle has already begun (September 16.9 percent – August 16.6 percent).
Milanović the Most Positive Croatian Politician
President Zoran Milanović has been at the top of the list of the most positive people for two and a half years.
This is the order:
Zoran Milanović 17.0% +1% (August 16.0 percent)
Andrej Plenković 14.1% -0.3% (August 14.4 percent)
Tomislav Tomašević 3.9% -0.8% (August 4.7 percent)
Sandra Benčić 2.7% (August 3.9 percent)
Ivan Penava 2.3% (August 2.8 percent)
Peđa Grbin 2.2% (August 2.1 percent)
Oleg Butković 1.5% (August 0.3 percent)
Dalija Orešković 1.4% (August 0.8 percent)
Božo Petrov 1.4% (August 1.2 percent)
Biljana Borzan 1.0% (August 0.6 percent).
Nobody as their favourite among all Croatian politicians – this is the choice of almost 29 percent of Croatian citizens (28.5 percent in September) and a message that should put all politicians to shame.
Plenković the Most Negative Croatian Politician
The same bickering duo holds the top of the list of the most negative. Here is the ranking:
Andrej Plenković 29.1% (August 31.2 percent)
Zoran Milanović 14.3% (August 16.5 percent)
Mario Banožić 3.8 percent (August 3.0 percent).
Peđa Grbin 2.7 percent (August 0.5 percent).
Tomislav Tomašević 2.5 percent (August 0.6 percent)
Milorad Pupovac 2.2 percent (August 1.8 percent)
Hrvoje Zekanović 1.5 percent (August 3.2 percent
Ivan Pernar 1.4 percent (August 0.7 percent)
Gordan Jandroković 1.3 percent (August 1.3 percent)
Željka Markić 1.1% (August 0.6 percent)
Fifteen percent of citizens are of the opinion that all Croatian politicians are negative (15.4 percent in August).
Opinions on the President’s Office, Government, and Parliament
There are also ratings (out of 5) for the Office of the President, the government, and the parliament. They all fared slightly better than in August. Pantovčak scored 2.83 in September (2.79 in August), the parliament’s rating is at 2.13 (2.05 in August), and the government’s is at 2.27 in September (2.16 in August).
As far as social optimism is concerned, it is almost non-existent. Only slightly more than 17 percent of citizens believe that Croatia is headed in the right direction (September 17.4 percent – August 14.8 percent), while almost 70 percent of the respondents think that the direction is bad (September 69.3 percent – August 75.0 percent). As expected, voters of opposition politicians are more negative, but a third of HDZ voters believe the same (33.5 percent).
