Croatia will hold parliamentary elections on 17 April, the country’s president said on Friday.
President Zoran Milanović called the vote after Croatia’s parliament dissolved on Thursday. In next month’s election, the ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union will compete against a group of centrist and leftist parties that have announced they will run as an alliance.
Milanović has also set the European Parliament vote for 7 June. Prime Minister Andrej Plenković has called for national parliamentary elections to be held first. In the run-up to the vote, Plenković and his HDZ party have faced growing allegations of corruption by the opposition. He has denied those accusations.
According to a 10 March Promocija Plus poll, the HDZ is leading in the polls with about 27 per cent support, almost 10 percentage points more than the main opposition Social Democrats. The right-wing Homeland Movement and another party Bridge gained single digits.
Plenkovic’s HDZ party has been largely in power since Croatia gained independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. The country on the Adriatic Sea became a new member of the European Union in 2013 and joined Europe’s free movement and euro zones last year.
