CROATIA’S conservative president narrowly made it to a run-off election against a leftist former prime minister yesterday, after a nationalist folk singer won over a large chunk of her camp’s far-right wing.

The hotly contested first round vote signalled the appeal of populism in a Balkan country struggling with an influx of migrants at its borders, an emigration exodus and widespread corruption.

It also leaves Croatia waiting to know who will be head of state as the country takes over the European Union’s rotating presidency in the new year.

With nearly all ballots counted, centre-left former prime minister Zoran Milanovic took the lead with 29.5% of the vote, according to the electoral commission.  

Incumbent President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic garnered 26.6%, eking out a second place finish just two points ahead of 57-year-old far-right singer Miroslav Skoro.

Skoro, whose patriotic folk tunes were a hit in the 1990s, won nearly a quarter of the vote with campaign promises, such as pardoning a notorious war criminal and deploying troops to stop migrants at the border.

Though Skoro’s nationalist pledges didn’t push him to round two, analysts said the strong showing revealed a clear shift to the right among Croatia’s electorate.

As Grabar-Kitarovic addressed supporters late yesterday, the 51-year-old urged them to unite for the run-off on January 5. 

“Now we have to get together and let’s go for a victory!” she said, this time describing her opponent Skoro as a “co-candidate on my political spectrum”. 

Grabar-Kitarovic became Croatia’s first female president – a largely ceremonial role – in 2015 with the backing of the centre-right HDZ, which has led Croatia for most of the past three decades. 

She has often wavered between representing moderates and pandering to the nationalist faction.

If she fails to unite the two wings of the party in the run-off, analysts said it would spell trouble for HDZ’s moderate Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic when he faces a general election next year.

In the meantime, Plenkovic’s government will be tasked with holding the EU presidency for a six-month term, with thorny issues like Brexit and the Western Balkans’ membership bids on the agenda. 

The left appeared to rally around Milanovic, a 53-year-old who served as prime minister from 2011 to 2016 and hails from the Social Democrat opposition. – AFP, December 23, 2019.