Croatian presidential election goes to runoff as Milanović falls just short of majority

(Photo: HINA/ Damir SENÈAR/ ua)

ZAGREB, 29 December 2024 (Hina) – Although Croatia’s incumbent president, Zoran Milanović, came very close to winning outright in the first round, the country is heading to a second round of presidential elections in two weeks, on Sunday, 12 January.

While exit polls conducted at polling stations predicted Milanović would secure a new presidential term in the first round with 51.48% and 50.73% of the vote, the results overestimated his performance by around two percentage points, resulting in a second-round runoff.

According to provisional results from the State Electoral Commission (DIP), the current president and candidate of the SDP and its partners, Zoran Milanović, won 49.11% of the vote.

His main opponent, Dragan Primorac (HDZ and partners), garnered 19.36% of the vote and will face Milanović in the second round. The other six candidates each received less than 10% of the vote.

The gap of approximately 30 percentage points between the two leading candidates advancing to the second round is the largest in Croatia’s history.

In this election, Milanović secured 792,106 votes in the first round, significantly more than the 562,783 votes he received in the first round of the 2019 election.

To date, only Franjo Tuđman and Stjepan Mesić have been re-elected as Croatian presidents, with Tuđman being the only one to have won in the first round.

Since 1992, when the first direct presidential elections were held, Croatia has elected the following presidents: Franjo Tuđman (1992 and 1997), Stjepan Mesić (2000 and 2005), Ivo Josipović (2009), Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović (2014), and Zoran Milanović (2019).

Tuđman was technically elected president three times. He was first elected president of the Presidency of the then Socialist Republic of Croatia in Parliament following the HDZ’s victory in the first multi-party elections in 1990. He was then re-elected twice through direct elections in 1992 and 1997, winning both times in the first round.

In 1992, Tuđman defeated Dražen Budiša, Savka Dabčević-Kučar, Dobroslav Paraga, Silvije Degen, Marko Veselica, Ivan Cesar, and Antun Vujić in the first round, with 56.73% of the vote.

In the 1997 elections, Tuđman secured his second term in the first round with 61.41% of the vote, defeating Zdravko Tomac and Vladimir Gotovac.

The second Croatian president, Stjepan Mesić, won his first term in 2000, defeating Dražen Budiša in the second round. In 2005, he was re-elected after defeating Jadranka Kosor in the second round.

Ivo Josipović became president in 2009 after defeating Milan Bandić in the second round.

Josipović was the first president not to secure a second term, losing to Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović in the 2014 election’s second round. Grabar-Kitarović thus became Croatia’s first female president.

However, she also failed to win re-election, losing to Zoran Milanović in the second round in 2020. Milanović now faces another battle in the second round of the 2024 election.

The Croatian president is elected through a majoritarian electoral system, requiring a majority of votes from all participating voters. If no candidate achieves this, the top two candidates proceed to a runoff held 14 days later, in this case, on 12 January 2025.

The presidential term lasts five years, with a maximum of two terms allowed.