Can HDZ Lose Elections While Croatia Is Not in Recession?

For an editor and columnist of a business media outlet, there is no more challenging period than the weeks during election campaigns. Frustration is at its highest level. On one hand, the public is overwhelmed, with few exceptions, by more or less worthless and thoughtless promises from politicians who, after four years of comfort, must go to the (electoral) market. On the other hand, the business community is not indifferent to who will be in power for the next four years: ‘What economic policies will the next government implement? Will political (in)stability affect the business climate? Do we have any known figures in the future government?’

It is easiest to succumb to clichés. So, select a few topics important to the business community, compile questions, and send them to parties with higher percentages in polls. Unfortunately, experience shows that the responses received carry almost no weight. What politicians promise in the heat and panic of the election campaign is usually forgotten by election night. It is even more dangerous if the winners, in their attempts to maximize votes through populism, start to implement their hastily cobbled-together solutions at the last minute. Excluding the surprise called Zoran Milanović as the SDP candidate for prime minister, there are no significant innovations worthy of attention for the economy in the political marketplace of ideas.

Therefore, this year in Lider, we will not conduct surveys among political parties. It is a waste of space. Kudos to democracy; it is, for now, the least bad form of political system. Let the festival of democracy take place according to the usual rules. Perhaps it is worth mentioning a few circumstances in which the election campaign for the new composition of the Parliament and a new mandate is being conducted.

Growth or Corruption?

The central question is whether on election Wednesday, March 17, 2024, relatively good economic results of two terms of HDZ under the leadership of Andrej Plenković will prevail, or whether many corruption scandals accompanying HDZ’s rule will weigh more heavily with voters. So far, the economic climate has been more important than corruption.

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It should be remembered that SDP, with coalition partners, came to power in years when the economic situation in the country was extremely poor. Ivica Račan became prime minister in 2000, during a recession that erupted a year earlier. Unpaid debts in the economy were dramatic. Debts longer than sixty days amounted to 25 billion kuna, which, compared to GDP, was even 18 percent. Zoran Milanović became prime minister in 2011, at the height of a recession that was a combination of accumulated imbalances from previous HDZ governments and the global recession. Once again, a leftist government, despite many mistakes, extinguished the inherited fire, and then HDZ ‘said thank you’ and returned to power in 2016.

When it comes to corruption and nepotism, it has been shown so far that elections in Croatia are not won on this topic. On one hand, the corrupt behavior of part of the first, second, or third level of the ruling party, or individuals connected to them, has not shaken HDZ voters to vote for that party again. And the opposition in the last two parliamentary votes has not succeeded in pulling those who grumble but do not vote from the sofas and armchairs to the polls on the topic of corruption.

The key question, therefore, is whether things will turn upside down in 2024. Can HDZ, despite stable economic conditions, lose elections due to corruption scandals and personnel policies, currently represented by Ivan Turudić, who has been elected as the chief state attorney?

America or Kaptol?

What else should be monitored in the remaining three weeks until the parliamentary elections? One of the significant aspects will be whether HDZ will unearth any scandal related to public procurement during the current term of the (co)leader of the Možemo! party, Zagreb mayor Tomislav Tomašević. If no such scandal emerges, it will be a sign that established tender schemes, where it is known who will get the job, can be broken, and those who dare to change the rules of the game do not suffer. Of course, the stakes and teams regarding the Zagreb budget are still at a lower level than in the case of the state treasury.

Experience from the past three decades of the return of multi-partyism to Croatia suggests that in monitoring signals that could determine who will form the next government, one should not lose sight of whether and how two key stakeholders will react: the Americans and Kaptol. Is the US administration too preoccupied with its elections to pull strings behind the scenes in Croatia? And will there be changes in signals from Kaptol now that a new archbishop is at the helm?

If it is already inevitable to monitor the elections, it is better for the analyst to determine for themselves what to listen for than to be seduced daily by every statement at the beginning of the TV news.