Zoran Milanovic’s supporters got a fiery performance at a recent Sunday morning campaign event at Zagreb’s Culture Factory. The current president and candidate for reelection on December 29 was as combative as ever before the crowd at the packed concert hall.
After being greeted by rapturous applause, Milanovic sharply attacked his nemesis, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, along with his government, accusing him of corruption and nepotism, not to mention being a “poodle” and “puppet of Brussels” at the expense of the national interests of Croatia.
The incumbent had nothing but insults for the other presidential contenders as well, but opted not to elaborate because “an eagle doesn’t chase flies.”
Milanovic’s self-confidence is justified: For weeks, he has led every poll in the race for a second five-year mandate to the largely ceremonial role, with support most recently predicted to be around 39%.
Backing for his closest rival, Dragan Primorac, the candidate of the ruling national-conservative Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ), stood at 23%. They were trailed by Ivana Kekin from the left-wing green party “Mozemo!” (“We Can!”) and independent candidate Marija Selak Raspudic, at around 9% each.
‘A kind of Trumpism’
“Milanovic has no program at all,” Zagreb political scientist Zarko Puhovski told DW. “He is the program.” Milanovic is practicing “a kind of Trumpism,” he added.
“He presents himself as a man of clear words and clear ideas who doesn’t mince words. That’s what people like: strong men. We are seeing this in Hungary and the United States too.”
Milanovic does not care about laws or state institutions, Puhovski said. “He has broken the constitution several times, refuses to cooperate with the government and parliament, and ignores the decisions of the Constitutional Court, whose judges he described as annoying stable flies and gangsters.
“And in the last parliamentary elections [in April 2024 — Editor’s note], he unconstitutionally put himself forward as the lead candidate for his Social Democratic Party without resigning from office as president, as the Constitutional Court had demanded.”
Milanovic neither clearly left- or right-wing
Milanovic, the longtime leader of the progressive Social Democratic Party and head of government from 2011 to 2016, is neither clearly left- or right-wing. Instead, he has styled himself as a fearless fighter of corruption and the nepotism of the ruling HDZ, while disregarding the central institutions of the Croatian state.
On the one hand, Milanovic has emphasized Croatia’s role in the Western world and the EU. But on the other, he has insisted that Croatia’s interests should always come first.
He has underscored the origin of Croatian statehood in the anti-fascist struggle of the Yugoslav partisans during World War II, but awards medals to soldiers who fought for independence from Yugoslavia in the 1990s under a slogan of the Croatian Ustasha fascists.
Appealing to both sides
This ambiguity seems to be inspiring support from Croatians belonging to divergent political camps.
While HDZ candidate Primorac is perceived as the mouthpiece of his political patron, the ruling party’s chairman and Prime Minister Plenkovic, the left sees Milanovic as the only serious challenger to the powerful prime minister. Meanwhile, those on the right value his commitment to national interests and criticism of the EU.
But Milanovic has little influence on domestic policy in Croatia, where parliament and the government are decisive. As ceremonial head of state he only has a say in some matters relating to the intelligence services, some aspects of foreign policy and, as commander-in-chief of the army, in matters of defense.
Yet the fact that the president is directly elected by the people gives the office a particular legitimacy.
Staying out of Russia’s war on Ukraine
In terms of foreign policy, Milanovic wants to keep Croatia out of Russia’s war against Ukraine. “This is not our war,” he has said, using an old proverb: “When elephants fight, mice should stand aside.” Furthermore, he said at an event in early 2023, Russia “cannot be defeated by conventional means.”
While Milanovic has not questioned Croatia’s NATO membership, he rejects the potential active deployment of Croatian soldiers in the conflict, even as part of a possible peacekeeping mission.
His opponent Primorac has thus tried to discredit him as “Putin’s man” and “paid for by Russians.” But when Primorac was unable to substantiate these claims, they had little impact.
‘We have to look after ourselves’
Milanovic has also insisted on maintaining independence from the EU, in contrast with Prime Minister Plenkovic, who is seen as a dutiful follower of Brussels’ policies.
“We have to look after ourselves, our policy cannot always be that of a subordinate,” Milanovic said at the Culture Factory campaign event in December. He has long demanded more funding from Brussels. It’s “our money,” he said. “We are entitled to it.”
Milanovic has taken the same tone about Croatia’s neighbors in the Western Balkans. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Croats are one of the three constituent peoples alongside Bosniaks and Serbs, he has insisted on strengthening Croatian rights. On this point, at least, there are hardly any differences with the policy of the current Croatian government.
Milanovic’s stance toward Serbia is also not particularly different from that of Plenkovic, with one exception: He claims Kosovo was “taken away” from Serbia in violation of international law — and that Croatia was involved. In his view, that set a precedent that made Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea unsurprising.
Voters will have to weigh these differences when they head to the polls on December 29. With no candidate expected to achieve an absolute majority in the first round, a runoff between the two best-placed candidates will likely be held in another two weeks.
This article was originally written in German.
