Lessons (Not) Learned

The recently held parliamentary elections stimulated analyzes and discussions among the Croatian professional public on numerous issues related to election processes and outcomes. In this text, I will focus on two such questions. The first of them is related to the turnout of citizens in the elections. Namely, in the expert discussions that took place before the elections, some analysts, including this author, pointed out that the greater turnout of citizens in the elections increases the chances of the opposition to "overthrow" the ruling party (HDZ), that is, to win the elections. Some analysts claimed, on the other hand, that the turnout of citizens was not decisive for the election results. What can we say about this topic after the elections?

I will focus on the turnout in the ten constituencies and the comparison with the 2020 results. Four years ago, 1,677,906 voters participated in the elections, out of a total of 3,643,765 voters with the right to vote, which means that 46.1 percent of voters participated in the elections. The results, viewed from a democratic perspective, are much better in the recently held elections, which were attended by 2,140,824 voters out of a total of 3,482,150 voters, which means that the turnout was 61.5 percent. In other words, 462,918 more voters participated in the recently held elections than in those held four years ago, which certainly represents significant progress. Before I address the question of the possible influence on the election results, it is necessary to refer to two more topics related to turnout.

First, the mentioned turnout of 61.5 percent caused almost unanimous enthusiasm in Croatia, which is perhaps understandable if it is compared with the turnout from 2020. However, a somewhat wider view, at other EU member states, suggests that we do not have that much reason for complacency. For example, in the parliamentary elections held in Poland in November 2023, marked as crucial for the liberal-democratic perspective of that country, the turnout was as high as 74 percent, which was a big jump compared to the turnout of 61.7 percent in the 2019 elections. At the same time, the largest number of these "new" voters voted for the opposition parties, which enabled the change of government, that is, the end of the eight-year rule of the right-wing populist party Law and Justice.

Second, the only important political actor who publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the increase in voter turnout in the elections is the long-time prime minister and the president of the strongest political party, Andrej Plenković. In the cacophony of possible scenarios about the formation of a new parliamentary majority, Plenković's statement, which, from the perspective of democratic political culture, is deeply problematic, is insufficiently thematized in the public. Explaining the election results, Plenković states that if fewer voters had gone to the elections, HDZ would have had 66 mandates and an already formed parliamentary majority and government, thereby implicitly telling the public that he would have preferred a lower turnout. Party interests ahead of citizens' political participation – this is an ugly message, for which Plenković should apologize as soon as possible.

Plenković, therefore, believes that voter turnout affected the election results and prevented HDZ from quickly forming a new majority. On the other hand, comments began to appear in the public that the elections of April 17 debunked the myth according to which HDZ cannot win when voter turnout is high. If we focus on the number of voters instead of parliamentary mandates, then the total turnout in 2024 was 27.6 percent higher than in the 2020 elections. How was that larger percentage distributed by parties, that is, by their coalitions? One possible direction of analysis is shown in the table.

The results, in my opinion, suggest that a higher voter turnout in the elections better corresponds to the opposition's political options. Možemo! improved its result by as much as 65.8, Most by 39.4, and SDP by 29.9 percent, while the increase in the case of HDZ was smaller and amounted to 15.7 percent. Additionally, the last column shows the percentage share of each of the parties in the total increase in the number of voters. For example, HDZ contributed to the increase with a total of 94,711 "new" voters, which, if we know that the total number of "new" voters is 462,918, is a percentage share of 20.5 percent. And such a calculation clearly suggests that the higher turnout favored the opposition parties.

Thus, of the total number of "new" voters, 20.5 percent voted for HDZ, as many as 58 percent for one of the four main opposition parties, while 21.5 percent voted for some of the other political options. All these data clearly suggest that a higher turnout in the elections suits the opposition, and is to the detriment of HDZ, which is a lesson that the opposition parties should learn. In addition to the fact that they need to work intensively on mobilizing an additional number of voters, perhaps it is time to start thinking about reforms that they could jointly advocate, which would go in the direction of democratizing the Croatian political system, in terms of creating preconditions for even higher voter turnout. These reforms may include the introduction of electronic and postal voting, lowering the age limit for acquiring active political rights to 16, or introducing mandatory voting.  

It is obvious, however, that the increased turnout did not lead to a clear "overthrow" of HDZ, and the reasons for such an outcome are multiple. One of them is certainly the fact that HDZ, in terms of organizational and mobilization capacities, is by far the strongest Croatian political party. This is evidenced by the fact that, after eight years in power, with all the corruption scandals in which some leading members of the party were involved, they managed to mobilize, compared to the elections four years ago, almost 100,000 new voters, which is a very respectable result. One of the reasons why the HDZ managed to maintain its status, at least as a relative winner, relates to another issue that I want to address, namely the coalition strategies of the opposition parties, and in this text I focus on the parties of the Left.

The two main parties of the Left, SDP and Možemo!, decided to participate in the elections separately, after negotiations on a pre-electoral coalition in some constituencies ended unsuccessfully. It turned out that such a decision, about going to the elections separately, is an unlearned lesson from the 2020 elections. The analysis after those elections has shown that with a joint list, SDP and Možemo! would have achieved five more mandates. In those elections, SDP and its coalition partners won 41, and Možemo! 7 mandates. Assuming that their coalition would have neither positive nor negative effects on voters' decisions, in the case of a pre-electoral coalition, they would win 53 mandates, with additional mandates won in the first, third, fourth, sixth and tenth constituencies. The mentioned mandates would be won at the expense of HDZ (2), DP (1), the coalition gathered around the Center party (1) and the People's Party – Reformists (1). In that case, HDZ would win 61 and 64 mandates, so it can be argued that this would not have a major impact on the formation of the parliamentary majority and the government.

However, the situation after the recently held elections even more dramatically confirms the need for the alliance of the main left-wing parties in the parliamentary elections. Namely, if SDP and Možemo! participated in the elections together, they would have won six more mandates, i.e. 58 instead of the 52 they won by competing separately. Additional mandates would be achieved in the first, second, fourth, eighth, ninth and tenth units, whereby three mandates would be "taken away" from HDZ, and three from DP. The overall result, at least as far as ten constituencies are concerned, would be significantly different. In that case, SDP and Možemo! would have 58 mandates, and HDZ 55, which would better reflect the fact that SDP and Možemo! together achieved a total of slightly more than 30,000 votes from HDZ. In the case of such an alliance in the elections, a higher voter turnout would be fully expressed.

Of course, one objection can be made to this method of calculation, which we continuously heard during the pre-election period, primarily from the leaders of Možemo! According to their estimates, going to the elections together with the SDP would "drive away" some of the voters who normally vote for Možemo! from voting for that coalition, so the big question is what the result would be. Whether the effects of creating such a coalition would be positive, negative or, as the calculation presented here assumes, neutral, is likely to be debated. However, the lesson of the recently held elections, as well as those of 2020, is that the main parties of the Left, if they want to replace the HDZ, should participate in the elections together. This is a lesson that the Možemo! should study first. They will have to decide whether it is more important for them to preserve the ideological purity of the party in front of their voters, or whether the main goal is still the "ousting" of HDZ and coming to power.

All data used were taken from the official website of the State Electoral Commission: www.izbori.hr. I would like to thank my colleague Goran Čular for his suggestions regarding data processing methods. Data interpretation is the sole responsibility of the author.