(Bloomberg) -- Croatians shot down President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic’s bid for a second term, an exit poll showed, electing a former prime minister to replace her in a ballot that rebalances politics in the European Union’s newest member.
Zoran Milanovic, who ran the Adriatic state’s government from 2011 to 2015, won 53.3% of votes in Sunday’s presidential runoff, according to a survey by Ipsos for Nova TV. Kitarovic, a former NATO executive whose campaign was marred by links to the scandal-plagued mayor of Zagreb, won 46.8%. Final results will start coming in during the evening.
Kitarovic’s defeat could spell trouble for her ally Andrej Plenkovic, the prime minister, before general elections in the fall. While she reached out to voters embracing anti-immigrant positions seen in fellow EU states Poland and Hungary, Milanovic vowed to reject extremism, fight graft, and stop the outflow of young people who have left Croatia to seek better lives in western Europe.
“I will fight against the plague that’s consuming Croatia, and that’s corruption and conflicts of interest,” Milanovic said in a televised debate with Kitarovic before the vote. “We can overturn demographic trends and keep our young people here only with a decent, honest government.”
While the president’s role is largely ceremonial, the office commands the armed forces and decides over foreign-policy appointments with the premier. It also provides a political platform and Milanovic’s opposition-leading Social Democratic party is looking for any edge it can get over Plenkovic’s conservative Croatian Democratic Union.
Parliament Vote
A main issue before the parliamentary vote is corruption, and Kitarovic’s campaign suffered after she was filmed singing Happy Birthday and giving a cake to Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic. He’s fighting graft accusations over the granting of preferential access to stalls at Zagreb’s Christmas market.
The accusations, which Bandic denies, come at a sensitive time for the Adriatic nation of 4.2 million, which joined the EU in 2013 and took over the EU’s six-month rotating presidency on Jan. 1.
The bloc is scrutinizing Croatia’s readiness to adopt the euro and join Schengen, the EU’s passport-free travel zone. Graft concerns delayed similar efforts in nearby Bulgaria, adding pressure to Croatia, which is ranked fifth-worst in the EU by Transparency International.
There is also the economy, which suffered a recession under Milanovic’s rule. It’s expected to grow about 3% this year, below that of some of Croatia’s regional peers.
“Milanovic’s victory means all bets are off now for parliamentary election in the fall,” said Zarko Puhovski, political science professor at the University of Zagreb. “For the rest of the year we will have an unclear picture of where the real power in the country is situated.”