SDP Peđa Grbin as its candidate for prime minister at the 2024 elections

Political parties in Croatia are slowly beginning to prepare their campaigns for next year’s parliamentary elections, which must be held on or before July 22nd 2024. Voters will elect the representatives of the 11th assembly of Croatian Parliament and select who will form the next government.

The SDP held a meeting of its national council on Saturday, at which, in spite recent divisions within the party, delegates voiced their unanimous support for party president Peđa Grbin and thus his position as the SDP's legitimate candidate for prime minister at next year's elections. After the meeting Grbin apologized for his recent comments while presenting the SDP's program to raise citizen's living standard, specifically pensioners, in which he said that a noose is better than suffering: “If we have hurt anyone by stating the truth about life in Croatia, then we are truly sorry. But I have to ask the question; Is it a bigger problem to talk about something, or is it a bigger problem that in Croatia there are truly people who as a result of their social, material, financial or any other status, are contemplating a noose around their necks?"

Meanwhile, after presenting his party's new member and candidate for the Mayor of Dubrovnik, Viktorija Knežević, the president of the Center Party, Ivica Puljak, once again rejected the idea that the Center Party could form a pre-election coalition with the SDP, which he described as a party in decline: "If we were to see that the SDP truly stands behind the idea of replacing the HDZ with something much better, and if they had the strength and the people to do so, of course we would. But at this time I don't see that. It seems to me that the sun has already set on the SDP."

Prime Minister and HDZ leader Andrej Plenković was in Velika Gorica on Saturday, to mark the 33rd anniversary of the founding of the youth wing of the HDZ. In his speech he reflected on his government's achievements over the past seven years, and announced that going forward the HDZ's focus will be on digital transformation, de-carbonization and demographic renewal: "Every day I follow the numbers, every month I check to see how our demographic situation stands. And it is concerning. Which is why we have implemented all of these measures. Right now we're going to amend the law on baby bonuses. We will also bear this in mind when we adopt the measures we have on the agenda next week."

Source: HRT