Croatians to vote in general elections amid refugee crisis
People in Croatia will head to the polls this weekend to vote in general elections amid a sluggish economy and an influx of refugees from the Middle East.
Croatians will start voting in parliamentary elections on Sunday morning, with polls showing the country’s center-right Croatian Democratic Union or HDZ led by Tomislav Karamarko having better chances.
However, the arrival of over 300,000 refugees has been a great boon to Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic and his center-left Social Democratic Party (SDP); Milanovic has drawn on the issue to project himself as a compassionate leader fighting for national interests.
Forty nine-year-old Milanovic first clashed with neighboring Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia over the handling of the refugees arriving in the Balkans, and then struck a deal with Serbia to transport the refugees across their shared border.
“The government was lucky that ahead of the elections a political issue emerged that pushed everything else – namely resolving economic issues – into the background,” independent political consultant Davor Gjenero said.
Karamarko, the HDZ leader, accuses Milanovic’s administration of prevalent corruption, nepotism, mismanagement, and an enormous public debt.
Croatia is among the poorest-performing economies of the 28-member European Union (EU), and public debt stands at nearly 90 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). The rate of unemployment averaged 16.2 percent in September, and was at 43.1 percent among youths.
Moreover, the ruling center-left coalition government is gripped by six years of recession, and is struggling to return to a growth of nearly one percent.
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