The extent of political change in the local elections held in May this year can be analyzed in different ways. To begin with, we can apply to the election results a relatively simple model developed by the German-American economist Albert Hirschman. In his
study Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, originally published in 1970, Hirschman uses the terms ‘exit, ‘voice’ and ‘loyalty’ to describe the ways in which members of businesses, organizations, and states, or political systems, behave in situations of coping with problems or crises in their communities. ‘Exit’ means withdrawing from a group that has faced problems, ‘voice’ describes a state in which members offer solutions to overcome a crisis by expressing their views and thoughts, while ‘loyalty’ means expressing support and commitment to group leadership. These three types of reactions can also be applied to the behavior of citizens in politics, for example in the selection of political parties in elections. The ‘exit’ option implies political abstinence, voting for new parties and options can be understood as ‘voice’, while voting for established parties means ‘loyalty’.The application of this model to the results of the local elections does not suggest that a significant change has taken place in the Croatian political space. Most Croatian citizens opted for the 'exit' option, i.e. political abstinence. This means, if we rely on the official voter lists, that two million citizens did not take advantage of the opportunity to vote in the recent elections. One part of these citizens probably chose a physical 'exit' and left Croatia looking for their happiness in other countries, but the majority of these citizens obviously decided to mentally 'exit' from Croatian politics, probably due to the feeling that nothing important can be done by their own political engagement.
Such a situation, in which the majority of Croatian citizens opts for political abstinence and apathy, is not new. It lasts for a long time, with this category of citizens winning an absolute majority for the first time in the parliamentary elections last year, i.e. exceeding 50 percent. With such a result, Croatia, unfortunately, ranked second in the European Union, behind Romania, in terms of the lowest turnout in the parliamentary elections. The second largest group in local elections in which we can classify citizens is 'loyalty', by which we mean voting for HDZ and SDP, but also for other established parties such as IDS, HNS, HSS, HSLS, HSP, PGS, etc. Election results for the county and Zagreb assemblies show that close to a million citizens who participated in the elections chose this option. The smallest group consists of citizens who chose the option 'vote', by which we mean voting for new political movements, platforms and parties, such as Možemo!, Domovinski pokret, Centar, FOKUS, but also for independent candidates.
The general picture offered to us by Hirschman’s model therefore does not suggest major political changes. This is confirmed by the number of prefect and mayor positions won by the two largest Croatian parties, which, especially in the case of the HDZ, did not change significantly in the period from 2009 to 2021. Thus, in the 2009 elections, HDZ won 10 county prefect offices, the same number in 2013, 12 in 2017 and 13 in 2021. Similarly, the largest Croatian party won 59 mayor’s offices in the 2009 elections, four years later that number was 56, in 2017 they won 62, and 55 in 2021.
Are the assessments of major changes then completely unjustified? Another possible approach to the election results and the extent of change is to analyze the extent to which citizens have rejected or confirmed incumbents in direct elections for mayors and prefects. The analysis takes as its starting point the 2009 local elections in which mayors and prefects were directly elected for the first time. Then, for each subsequent local election – 2013, 2017 and 2021 – it was observed whether citizens in the elections rejected or confirmed the incumbents of mayors and prefects. Of course, there were also situations in which the current incumbents did not compete for a new term. This type of analysis primarily focuses on the personal level of change and points out how much citizens are really inclined to new politicians, especially in situations where these new faces compete with current, very often long-term incumbents.
The results for the elections of the prefects and the mayor of Zagreb suggest that, at that level, the biggest change took place in 2021, but that it was not huge either. Namely, in 2013, 15 current prefects defended their position in the elections, while in six counties this was not the case. Out of the mentioned 15 electoral races, the incumbents won a new mandate in as many as 14. A similar situation occurred in the 2017 elections, when 16 current prefects defended their positions in the elections. In five units this is not the case, and out of the above 16 races, the incumbents defended their mandate in 14. The largest number of the incumbents’ defeats occurred in the recent elections when again 16 defenders defended their positions, but this time five suffered electoral defeats.
The same type of analysis for mayoral elections offers similar results, i.e. it does not suggest that Croatian citizens like frequent personal political changes, especially in the recent elections. In the 2013 elections, out of 127 mayors at the time, 100 defended their position, with 78 being successful and 22 losing. Four years later, a slightly smaller number, 86 out of 127 mayors, defended their positions – 66 successfully and 20 unsuccessfully. In the recent 127 mayoral elections, as many as 106, the largest number so far, ran for re-election, and the largest number so far, as many as 90, have successfully defended their positions, while 16 have been unsuccessful.
In other words, this personal level does not lead to the conclusion that citizens wanted political change and new faces either. In fact, some of the new mayors whose victories are cited as the main proof that new political winds are blowing in Croatia did not face the current incumbents in the elections, but won the race for the 'emptied throne'. For example, if the analysis includes the 10 largest Croatian cities, then the defeat of the current incumbent did not occur in any of them. In four cases (Zadar, Slavonski Brod, Karlovac and Šibenik), the current mayors defended their position, and in six cases these positions were emptied for various reasons – death (Bandić), retirement (Opara Krstulović, Obersnel and Vrkić), accusations of political corruption (Barišić) and competition for another political office (Miletić). All this suggests that part of the changes in the recent local elections should be attributed to the change of generations, and not exclusively to the great desire of citizens for change.
The impression of the new faces in politics and the success of politicians who are different is probably mostly driven by the victories of Tomislav Tomašević and Ivica Puljak in the two largest Croatian cities, but part of the explanation is probably in the further strengthening of independent candidates. For example, in the 2009 elections only six independent candidates managed to win the position of mayor, four years later the number was 13, in 2017 22 independent candidates became mayors, while in the recent elections as many as 30 independent candidates won the position, which makes up about a quarter of the total number of mayors in Croatia.
The extent of the political changes that took place in the 2021 local elections should therefore not be overestimated. In no case can we talk about tectonic disturbances of the political space. For now, the party system in Croatia remains stable, especially if compared to what happened in the past in Slovakia, the Czech Republic or Slovenia. Nevertheless, the local elections were a stage for presenting and/or establishing various new political options, with some of these actors achieving very good or excellent results. It remains to be seen whether some of them can gain even greater support from the citizens in the coming period. The aggravating circumstance is the fact that Croatia will, most likely, see the next serious political matches only in three years.
The text is part of a broader analysis of the populist split in Croatia, co-authored with Marijana Grbeša, and published in Večernji list on July 2nd and on its website on July 7th 2021.
