Croatian voters are casting their votes on Wednesday in parliamentary elections marked by a bitter rivalry between President Zoran Milanović, a Social Democrat friendly towards Moscow, and conservative Prime Minister Andrej Plenković.
The latest polls put Plenković's long-ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) ahead of the opposition Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP).
Milanović made a surprise announcement a month before the elections that he would seek the post of prime minister as the head of the SDP. As president, he has made right-wing populist and pro-Kremlin remarks.
He says his bid to become prime minister is motivated by corruption in the HDZ-led government. Milanović's crude insults of political opponents as "gangsters" and "parasites" have earned him the nickname "Croatian Trump."
Croatian voters had been set to go to the polls in the autumn.
Observers believe that Plenković, who only had a narrow majority in parliament before it was dissolved in March, wanted the snap election to forestall the threat of a further drop in popularity.
Plenković has been in office since 2016; the HDZ has been in power for 26 of the 33 years since Croatia's independence.
The incumbent prime minister continued the expansion of corrupt networks in the state and administration begun by his predecessors. In his almost eight years in office, he lost 30 ministers due to corruption scandals.
At the same time, Plenković has positioned himself as pro-Western and pro-European.
With the recent appointment of chief prosecutor Ivan Turudić, who is loyal to the HDZ, Plenković now appears to want to put an end to the fight against corruption and the previously fruitful cooperation with the European Public Prosecutor's Office.
Milanović was prime minister from 2011 to 2015 as the then leader of the SDP. Since becoming president in 2020, he has displayed an increasingly nationalistic, Covid-sceptic and pro-Russian stance. Among other things, he tried in vain to prevent Finland and Sweden from joining NATO.
President Milanović's entry into the election campaign narrowed the gap between the HDZ and SDP in the polls. The coalition options for the two major parties will depend on the outcome of the election.
The right-wing nationalist Most (Bridge), the far-right Homeland Movement and the parties of the ethnic minorities are likely to be available as potential coalition partners and majority procurers.
Polling stations opened at 7 am for the nation's 3.7 million eligible voters and are set to close at 7 pm (1700 GMT).
Initial results are expected later in the evening.
