Croatia's early election to see coalition government: analyst

Croatian parties have started their campaign for an early election, set for September 11 this year, but the latest poll has showed no party would win an absolute majority.

The People's Coalition, led by the biggest opposition Croatian Social Democratic Party (SDP), won 29.2 percent of the votes, while Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), the main party in the government which fell in June, got 28.3 percent. The junior partner in the former cabinet MOST was the third most popular option winning 11.4 percent of the support, according to a poll released on Friday.

Zarko Puhovski, a political analyst and professor of political philosophy, believed the center-left People's Coalition would have some advantages in the coming election, but would not be able to form a new government without a partner, for example, the MOST.

He believed MOST would play a key role again in forming a coalition government like the previous election in November 2015 when both SDP and HDZ did not have a majority in the parliament. After months of negotiations, HDZ and MOST reached an agreement and formed a government with a non-partisan prime minister.

"The MOST has a bigger chance to form a coalition government with the HDZ again", Puhovski said, adding "I believe that will happen in the end."

"It may be absurd since their coalition failed after being in the office only for five months. But similar things have happened in other European countries", he added.

Puhovski said his analysis was based on the reshuffle of HDZ's leadership. Andrej Plenkovic, a former diplomat, replaced former vice prime minister Tomislav Karamarko as the new president of HDZ. Karamarko resigned as vice prime minister and president of HDZ after alledged interest conflict involving his wife's business deals with a lobbyist from the Hungarian oil company MOL, which holds 49 percent stake of the Croatian energy company INA.

Plenkovic, the new face of HDZ, was struggling to improve his party's image and some analysts here believe so far he's doing well.

According to a poll in June, HDZ lags by 10 percent of the votes behind SDP, but the latest poll showed the gap narrowed to about one percent.

For MOST, HDZ would become a more acceptable partner under the leadership of Plenkovic. MOST's leader Bozo Petrov has said clearly that his party would not form a new government with the People's Coalition if Zoran Milanovic, the president of SDP, would become new prime minister.

Analysts also pointed out the likelihood of a grand coalition between the two biggest parties HDZ and SDP. "If the new government fails again after a couple of months, a grand coalition would be a serious option", Puhovski said.

By now SDP has allied the Croatian People's Party-Liberal Democrats, the Croatian Party of Pensioners and Croatian Peasant Party to run the election, while HDZ is heading to the election without national coalition partners.

Croatian economy emerged from a six-year recession with 1.6 percent growth last year, but political instability has hampered the growth momentum. The three international ratings agencies Standard and Poor's, Fitch and Moody's recently gave the country's economy a rating of 'BB', below investment grade, with negative outlooks.

Analysts here warned that Croatia, one of the weakest European Union economies, desperately needed political stability to boost growth. Any further political turmoil, including prolonged post-election negotiations, or a hung Parliament would put the country's economy at risk, they warned. Enditem