The second round of presidential elections will be held today in Croatia. The incumbent president Zoran Milanović and the doctor, scientist and former Minister of Science, Education and Sports Dragan Primorac, who took first and second place in the previous round, are fighting for the post of head of state.
In the first round on December 29, 2024, none of the eight candidates for president of Croatia managed to receive more than 50% of the votes. Milanović and Primorac received 49.09% and 19.35% of the votes, respectively. The winner of the second round will be declared the candidate who received a relative majority, i.e. who received more votes than the opponent.
The right to vote in the second round of the presidential elections in the Republic of Croatia is 3,769,598 voters, 251,170 of whom will be able to vote abroad. 6,755 polling stations will be open for those wishing to vote, of which 105 in 38 countries.
Polling stations will open in the country at 07:00 local time and close at 19:00. The State Election Commission will publish the first preliminary election results on its website on January 12 at 20:00.
Each voter will receive a ballot at the polling station with the names of two candidates: the first on the list is Milanović, who received more votes in the first round, the second is Primorac. The State Election Commission of the Republic of Croatia announced that a total of 14,620 observers will monitor the work of the electoral bodies in the second round.
According to a survey by the IPSOS agency, commissioned by the Croatian television channel Nova TV, Milanović still has a significant advantage over Primorac - of all respondents who declared their intention to participate in the presidential elections, 67.4% are ready to vote for Milanović and slightly less than 27% for Primorac. They are undecided - 5.8%. Thus, the difference exceeds 40 percentage points.
According to the 1990 constitution, Croatia is a parliamentary republic. The powers of the head of state in this country are limited, but they are not purely representative. After consultation with the parliament, the president appoints the prime minister and the composition of the government. Together with the government, the head of state participates in the formation and implementation of foreign policy and defense strategy, controls the work of the security services and makes decisions on the establishment of diplomatic relations.
The president is the supreme commander-in-chief and has the right to appoint the command staff of the armed forces. The head of state cannot be a member of any party. The term of office is five years with the right to be re-elected once.
Milanović (born in 1966) graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb, the Free University of Brussels (Belgium), a specialist in European international law. In the late 1990s, he joined the center-left Social Democratic Party (SDP), and in 2007-2020 was its chairman (he left the party in 2020). In 1996-1999 He is Croatia's Permanent Representative to the European Union (EU), responsible for relations with NATO.
In 2003, he was Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 2007, he was Chairman of the National Committee for Monitoring Croatia's EU Accession Negotiations (member since 2013). From 2011 to 2016, Milanović headed the government. Under his leadership, the country's economy managed to emerge from recession; in 2015, a primary budget surplus of 2 billion kuna (approximately €285 million) was achieved for the first time in seven years, and unemployment decreased from 17.8% to 15.9%.
In 2016, Milanović founded the consulting firm EuroAlba and served as an advisor to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama. In January 2020, He was elected President of Croatia in 2011, defeating Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who was running for a second term with the support of the center-right Croatian Democratic Union (52.7% to 43.3%).
Milanović opposes Ukraine's accession to NATO, calling the EU's policy towards Ukraine "not in the interests of Croatia". In October 2024, he stated that he would not allow the country to be drawn into a conflict over aid to Ukraine, as he was responsible only to the Croatian people, not to the United States or the European Union. During the current election campaign, he promised to turn Croatia into a “community of solidarity of all citizens, who may be different but equal“.
Primorac (born 1965) is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zagreb in Split, the second most populous city after Zagreb. In the early 1990s, he lived in the United States, where he worked for several years as a research assistant and then as a lecturer at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and interned in a number of clinics.
Returning to his homeland, in 1996 he took up the position of head of the Laboratory of Clinical and Forensic Genetics at the Split Clinical Hospital (until 2001). In 1997 he defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Zagreb. In the same year he became a co-founder of the International Society for Applied Biological Sciences (uniting more than 6 thousand scientists). In 2003-2009 Primorac was Minister of Science, Education and Sports.
In 2007-2009 he was a member of the center-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), and in 2009 he participated in the presidential elections (receiving 5.93% of the vote). He is the president of the Cro Unum charity foundation. In the 2024 elections he ran as an independent candidate, but still enjoys the support of the HDZ. Accuses Milanovic of causing "damage to Croatia's international reputation" and of "pulling the country eastward, towards Russia". Promises to fight corruption.