After a fierce campaign between two election rounds, and the first change of city government in two decades, it is a good time for a glance into the past of the turbulent last hundred years of elections in Zagreb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gendarmerie Against Communism: Heinzel Instead of Deli\u0107<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The story begins with the March 1920 election for the City Representation, as the city representative body was then called. This was the first election at which there was no longer an educational and property census. Yet women, as well as soldiers and prisoners, were excluded from the electorate. The lists competed for 50 seats, which were distributed according to the Hare quota and the largest remainder method, without an electoral threshold. With a turnout of 77.1 percent, 40 percent of the seats were won by Communists, led by Svetozar Deli\u0107<\/strong>, formally assembled in the Socialist Workers' Party of Yugoslavia. Deli\u0107 was elected mayor, but in less than a week Ban Matko Laginja will annul his election, and Communist councilors will be suspended. The star-crossed mayor had barricaded himself in the town hall for a few days but was eventually expelled from it by the gendarmerie. The Ban appealed to the pre-World War I law banning activities of revolutionary organizations, while the Communists\u2019 reluctance to take the oath to the king also did not help their cause. It is worth mentioning that the Jewish Party also won two seats at the same election. In June, the centrist Croatian Union won the by-elections, reaching a total of 28 out of 50 seats. Only 13.6 percent eligible Zagrebers went to the polls. The Union\u2019s candidate Vjekoslav Heinzel<\/strong> was elected to the top post, where he will remain for a total of eight years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the passing of the Vidovdan Constitution in 1921, a new city election was held. Heinzel was reelected as a candidate of the Croatian Bloc, i.e., the Croatian National Representation, which won a whopping 36 out of 50 seats, with a turnout of 75.5 percent. The Croatian Bloc, a coalition consisting of the Croatian Union, Radi\u0107's Croatian Republican Peasant Party and the Croatian Party of Rights, strived for a federalist transformation of the Kingdom of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tenants' Bloc and the 6 January Dictatorship<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1925, according to the current election law, an election was held for half, i.e., 25 aldermen. The Croatian Bloc won win 15 seats, with a turnout of 47.1 percent. Meanwhile, Radi\u0107 parted ways with the Croatian Bloc and led an independent HSS list in Zagreb. However, at the 1927 election, the Croatian bloc garnered 25 of the 50 seats, with a turnout of 57.5 percent. Runner-up was the Labor Alliance of Workers and Peasants, a party through which the Communists competed after the 1921 CPY ban. The Jewish Party, which at the time was already dominated by supporters of the establishment of the State of Israel, won three, and the Tenants' Bloc, a party that attracted Zagreb residents plagued by high rental prices and housing shortages, won two seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the introduction of the king\u2019s 6 January Dictatorship and the banning of all political parties in 1929, further city elections were suspended, while mayors were directly appointed by the Ban of the Sava Banovina. With the establishment of the Banovina of Croatia in the summer of 1939, new local elections were to be held. However, on the eve of the election, held in May and June 1940, Ban Ivan Suba\u0161i\u0107<\/strong> postponed the election in a number of urban areas, including Zagreb, fearing a Communist victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From Ustasha to People's Democracy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Following the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia, Paveli\u0107 will directly appoint a new mayor. However, after the death of mayor Ivan Werner<\/strong> in June 1944, the Ustasha authorities organized a new city election in August, according to the corporatist, estate principle. The regime called this \u2018Ustasha democracy\u2019, an alternative to bourgeois, Western democracy. Each corporation (workers, craftsmen, merchants, employees, etc.) had a certain number of representatives which proposed the names of councilors, but the final list of aldermen was made by the chief state corporatist and approved by Paveli\u0107 himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the Partisan resistance, people's committees were established as a civilian form of government, while after the war they became the new local administration, initially functioning as a transmission mechanism of state (republican) authorities and not local government in the true sense of the word. Women will be given the right to vote, but citizens marked as enemies of the people will lose the suffrage. At the first post-war election in October 1945, 85.4 percent, or just over 140,000 Zagrebers voted for two lists, both composed of members of the Popular Front, led by the CP of Croatia. Dragutin Saili<\/strong>, whose nom de guerre was the Conspirator, became mayor. His formal title was the president of the City Board. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, almost every year, the mayorship alternated. This changed with Ve\u0107eslav Holjevac<\/strong>, who will remain at the helm of Zagreb from 1952 to 1963. In 1963, the City Assembly was established in its present form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From HDZ Hegemony to the Zagreb Crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n From 1974 to 1990, delegate elections were held, whereby citizens elected their councilors in the workplace (organizations of associated labor), as well as through mass organizations (League of Communists, Confederation of Trade Unions, Federation of Veterans' Associations et al.) in three (initially five) chambers of representatives. Thus, the city government mirrored the structure of workers\u2019 self-management elections used for the Croatian Sabor. By the same token, City Assembly members were elected through a two-round majoritarian local election held concurrently with the 1990 parliamentary election. HDZ elected 49 out of 66 councilors in the Council of Associated labor and won 51 out of 56 seats in the Council of Municipalities and 39 out of 40 seats in the Socio-Political Council. The actor Boris Buzan\u010di\u0107<\/strong>, who played the Split mayor Vice in the Velo misto series, was elected new mayor of Zagreb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1993, the city election was held according to the same parallel voting system as the parliamentary election. Out of 60 Assembly members, half was elected in single-member districts, while the other half came from city-wide lists, with the application a three-percent threshold and the D\u2019Hondt method. With a turnout of 67.6%, HDZ won just over 220,000 votes, which amounted to 35 seats (17 out of 30 list seats and 18 out 30 direct seats). Branko Mik\u0161a<\/strong>, Minister of Tourism and Commerce in the \u0160arini\u0107 Cabinet, became mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Me\u0111utim, 1995. godine \u0107e Zagreb biti pripojen Zagreba\u010dkoj \u017eupaniji, a gradona\u010delnik istovremeno i \u017eupan te \u017eupanije. Skup\u0161tina je smanjena na 50 zastupnika, uz dvije tre\u0107ine listovnih i jednu tre\u0107inu izravnih mandata. Oporba, udru\u017eena u \u0161iroku koaliciju, koja je sezala od ASH do HSP-a, pobje\u0111uje, osvojiv\u0161i ukupno 34 mandata. Uslijedit \u0107e politi\u010dko-pravna situacija poznata kao \u201eZagreba\u010dka kriza\u201c, koja \u0107e potrajati dvije godine. Tih godina po gradu su bile popularne bijele majice na kojima je stajalo \u201ei ja sam zagreba\u010dki gradona\u010delnik\u201c. Udru\u017eena oporba bira Gorana Grani\u0107a iz HSLS-a za gradona\u010delnika, no Tu\u0111man, koji je po zakonu trebao formalno potvrditi \u017eupana, odbija ga potvrditi. Gradska ve\u0107ina zatim predla\u017ee Jozu Rado\u0161a (HSLS), nasuprot kojega Tu\u0111man imenuje Marinu Matulovi\u0107-Dropuli\u0107<\/strong>, ministricu prostornog ure\u0111enja, graditeljstva i stanovanja u Mate\u0161inoj vladi. No, Skup\u0161tina ju odbija izglasati te bira Ivu \u0160krabala (HSLS). Predsjednik ponovno imenuje svoju kandidatkinju, a Skup\u0161tina pak bira Dra\u017eena Budi\u0161u, kojeg Pantov\u010dak tako\u0111er odbija te Banski dvori postavljaju Vladinog povjerenika Stjepana Brolicha. Zdravko Tomac to uspje\u0161no osporava ustavnom tu\u017ebom, a nakon savjetodavnog referenduma dr\u017eavna vlast popu\u0161ta te ponovno izdvaja Zagreb iz \u017eupanije.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the new election, the number of direct seats was reduced to one quarter, while the remaining three quarters of councilors were elected from a citywide list. HDZ won 24 seats, one short of a majority. It finally gained control of the Assembly with the help of two HSS councilors who crossed the floor, leading to Matulovi\u0107-Dropuli\u0107\u2019s election to Zagreb\u2019s first female mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From Cvrco<\/em> to Senf<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2000 snap election was triggered by a vote of no confidence, after opposition councilor Milan Bandi\u0107<\/strong> (called Cvrco in his school years) had collected signatures not just of the 24 members of the opposition, but also two HDZ aldermen. The city was taken over by Josip Kregar as the Government's commissioner. This election saw only 33.7 percent of eligible citizens head to the polls and a victory of the opposition led by SDP and HSLS. The new Assembly majority gave the mayorship to Bandi\u0107. The next year, SDP will alone gain 20 out of 51 seats, albeit with a turnout of 39.8 percent. Bandi\u0107 was reelected mayor yet had to turn over the executive post to his deputy Vlasta Pavi\u0107 from 2002 until the new election in 2005 due to his drunk driving and attempted bribery of a road patrol. In 2005, 36 percent went to the polls, with just over 100,000 votes going to SDP, amounting to 25 out of 51 seats. Bandi\u0107 will once more have to hand over the mayorship to his female colleague \u2013 from 2014 to 2015 he was deputized by Sandra \u0160valjek while he sorted out \u2018misunderstandings\u2019 with judiciary and criminal investigation authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The introduction of direct mayoral elections increased citizen participation, leading to a turnout of 41.7 percent of Zagrebers in the 2009 first round, when Bandi\u0107 missed an outright victory by a hairbreadth (48.5 against 23.2 percent for Kregar). Four years later, the turnout will increase to 44.2 percent, with Bandi\u0107 going in a runoff with former party colleague Rajko Ostoji\u0107, again missing a first round victory by a few percentage points. Bandi\u0107 secured his last term in 2017, garnering some 30,000 votes from than Anka Mrak-Tarita\u0161 in the runoff. Mrak-Tarita\u0161 and the incumbent mayor Tomislav Toma\u0161evi\u0107<\/strong> (privately known as Senf) were the only mayoral candidates that ran both in 2017 and 2021. These two showcased a dramatic change in the number and percentage of votes gained in a four year span. While Toma\u0161evi\u0107 received just shy of 13,000 votes (3.9 percent) in the first round in 2017, in 2021 he reached almost 150,000 (over 45 percent). On the contrary, four years ago, Mark-Tarita\u0161 gained the support of just over 80,000 Zagrebers (one quarter of the vote), but this May she reached the penultimate position, with less than 3,000 votes (0.83 percent).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Into a Brighter Future<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After this overview of a century of city elections, bordering on tragic comedy, one can only hope that the next hundred years will bring a continuation and consolidation of a tradition of free, fair, and competitive elections, which will finally attract a vast majority, and not merely a half of Zagreb voters, to springtime polling stations.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After a fierce campaign between two election rounds, and the first change of city government in two decades, it is a good time for a glance into the past of the turbulent last hundred years of elections in Zagreb.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analihpd.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analihpd.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analihpd.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analihpd.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analihpd.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/analihpd.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424,"href":"https:\/\/analihpd.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions\/424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analihpd.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analihpd.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analihpd.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analihpd.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}