This Sunday, January 12, the second round of the presidential election in Croatia is due to take place. And if we stick to the polls of recent weeks, outgoing president Zoran Milanovic should be re-elected for a second consecutive term. If this is the case, he will still have to deal with the opposition which is the majority in Parliament. Who is Zoran Milanovic, this former Croatian civil servant who notably worked for the Croatian mission to the European Union and NATO in Brussels in the 1990s and who, today, gives an anti-NATO, anti- European and who is presented as pro-Russian? The one that many today call the “Trump of the Balkans”?
Zoran Milanovic is anything but an unknown, at least in the Balkans. This trained lawyer, born in 1966 in Zagreb, who is seeking a second presidential term, had for example already led the country as Prime Minister between 2011 and 2016. At the time, at the head of the social democratic party, he had pursued a left-wing policy. Zoran Milanovic then had moderate and rather progressive positions on societal aspects, such as for example on the question of gender equality, even if he was accused by the left wing of his party of pursuing an economic policy that was too liberal. But as Romain Le Quiniou, general director ofEuro Creativea think tank on Central and Eastern Europe, this Milanovic is not the one who took over the country’s presidency in 2020: “Mr Milanovic managed to be elected President of the Republic and to change his views. He said he wanted to be a president with attitude. And ultimately, he kept this ambition: to try to be a president who says what he thinks, who speaks frankly, who is not afraid of excesses, who is not afraid to tell the truth. A president who is a little bit anti-system. But we did not necessarily understand that it was a shift that Mr. Milanovic had not only used to win this presidential election in 2020, but that he was using this position to stay in power as well. »
An opposing president
Elected for a first term in 2020, he then became the first opponent of the government of Andrej Plenković, member of the HDZ, the Croatian Democratic Union, a right-wing party which has governed the country almost continuously since independence in 1991. Zoran Milanovic opposes the restrictions put in place during the pandemic, opposes military aid to Ukraine, supports Russian positions, criticizes NATO and the European Union. Positions not necessarily shared by his compatriots, but which had their effect, believes Florian Bieber, political scientist and specialist in the Balkans: “The majority of Croats are not pro-Russian. I think people support Zoran Milanovic more for the fact that he is a populist, that he says things as he thinks. He has the image of someone who has no fear of speaking his mind. » This freedom of yours pleases the Croats. And Zoran Milanovic has become a master at this. It must be said that today, as the historian and Balkans specialist Joseph Krulic details, this is the only power held by the Croatian president: “ Since a constitutional reform of July 2001, the Croatian president, although he has been elected by universal suffrage since 1992, has essentially no executive power. So he is relatively paralyzed. But he has the ministry of words and he allows himself to do so, particularly in foreign policy. »
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An election that allows the balance of powers
It’s not just this freedom of tone that appeals to Croats. They also want to avoid a concentration of powers. And the presence of Zoran Milanovic at the head of the Republic allows us to benefit from a sort of counter-power against the conservative government of Andrej Plenković. A government that supports Ukraine, which is in line with the European Union and NATO. In short, the complete opposite of the positions of Zoran Milanovic who, however, benefits from numerous support in the Croatian political class. “He gained a lot of support following his strong criticism of the current government and especially the Prime Minister, Andrej Plenković, analysis Florian Bieber. So, it is obvious that he will criticize the government even more. And so we can expect a lot of battles between him and the current government, and not just in foreign policy, but also in domestic policy. »
Zoran Milanovic should logically be reappointed as head of the Croatian Republic for the next five years. Five years of standoff with the government, but also with NATO and the European Union. In short, a mandate which is part of the continuity for the man nicknamed the “Trump of the Balkans”.
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