The politics of Croatia are defined by a parliamentary, representative democratic republic framework, where the Prime Minister of Croatia is the head of government in a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the Government and the President of Croatia. Legislative power is vested in the Croatian Parliament. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The parliament adopted the current Constitution of Croatia on 22 December 1990 and decided to declare independence from Yugoslavia on 25 May 1991. The Constitutional Decision on the Sovereignty and Independence of the Republic of Croatia came into effect on 8 October 1991. The constitution has since been amended several times. The first modern parties in the country developed in the middle of the 19th century, and their agenda and appeal changed, reflecting major social changes, such as the breakup of Austria-Hungary, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, dictatorship and social upheavals in the kingdom, World War II, the establishment of Communist rule and the breakup of the SFR Yugoslavia.
Parliamentary elections to elect all 151 members of the Croatian Parliament were held on 23 November 2003. They were the fifth parliamentary elections to take place since the first multi-party elections in 1990. Voter turnout was 61.7%. The result was a victory for the opposition Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) which won a plurality of 66 seats, but fell short of the 76 needed to form a government. HDZ chairman Ivo Sanader was named the eighth Prime Minister of Croatia on 23 December 2003, after parliament passed a confidence motion in his government cabinet, with 88 MPs voting in favor, 29 against and 14 abstaining. The ruling coalition going into the elections, consisting of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Croatian People's Party (HNS), Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), Party of Liberal Democrats (Libra) and the Liberal Party (LS), did not contest the elections as a single bloc; the SDP ran with the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS), the Party of Liberal Democrats (Libra) and the Liberal Party, HNS ran with the Alliance of Primorje-Gorski Kotar (PGS) and the Slavonia-Baranja Croatian Party (SBHS), while HSS ran on its own.
The Croatian Parliament or the Sabor is the unicameral legislature of Croatia. Under the terms of the Croatian Constitution, the Sabor represents the people and is vested with legislative power. The Sabor is composed of 151 members elected to a four-year term on the basis of direct, universal and equal suffrage by secret ballot. Seats are allocated according to the Croatian Parliament electoral districts: 140 members of the parliament are elected in multi-seat constituencies. An additional three seats are reserved for the diaspora and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while national minorities have eight places reserved in parliament. The Sabor is presided over by a Speaker, who is assisted by at least one deputy speaker.
The Social Democratic Party of Croatia is a social-democratic political party in Croatia. The SDP is anti-fascist, progressive, and strongly pro-European. The SDP was formed in 1990 as the successor of the League of Communists of Croatia, the Croatian branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, which had governed Croatia within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia since World War II.
The Istrian Democratic Assembly is a centre to centre-left, regionalist, liberal political party in Croatia primarily operating in Istria County.
The Croatian People's Party – Liberal Democrats is a social-liberal political party in Croatia.
Parliamentary elections were held in Croatia on 25 November 2007 and for overseas voters on 24 and 25 November. The campaign officially started on 3 November. The President of Croatia announced elections on 17 October and 14 days were allowed for candidate lists to be submitted.
Parliamentary elections were held in Croatia on Sunday, 4 December 2011 to elect 151 members to the Croatian Parliament. They were the sixth parliamentary election in Croatia since independence.
Rivers of Justice is a centre-left political alliance in Croatia. Gathered around the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP), the coalition was originally formed in 2010 as the Kukuriku Coalition. This somewhat facetious name meaning 'cock-a-doodle-doo', taken from a restaurant of the same name in Kastav where the coalition leaders first convened in July 2009, became well known and was eventually taken as the coalition's official name. The coalition originally consisted of four centrist and centre-left parties in the Croatian Parliament: the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP), Croatian People's Party – Liberal Democrats (HNS-LD), Croatian Party of Pensioners (HSU) and Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS). The coalition won an absolute majority of seats in the 2011 parliamentary election and successfully formed a government led by Zoran Milanović (SDP).
Parliamentary elections were held in Croatia on 8 November 2015. All 151 seats in the Parliament were up for election. This parliamentary election was the 8th since the first multi-party election in 1990 and the first since Croatia joined the European Union in 2013. The ruling center-left Croatia is Growing coalition, led by Prime Minister Zoran Milanović, was challenged by the center-right Patriotic Coalition led by the HDZ and headed by its party chairman Tomislav Karamarko, and also faced several new political coalitions.
The Twelfth Government of the Republic of Croatia was the Croatian Government cabinet led by Prime Minister Zoran Milanović. It was in office from 23 December 2011 until 22 January 2016. It was formed following the November 2011 election won by the centre-left Kukuriku coalition.
Since its founding in 1990, elections within the Social Democratic Party of Croatia were held numerous times.
Parliamentary elections were held in Croatia on 5 July 2020. They were the tenth parliamentary elections since the first multi-party elections in 1990 and elected the 151 members of the Croatian Parliament. 140 Members of Parliament were elected from geographical electoral districts in Croatia, three MPs were chosen by the Croatian diaspora and eight MPs came from the ranks of citizens registered as belonging to any of the 22 constitutionally recognized national minorities.
The Croatian Left has consisted of a broad range of individuals, groups, and political parties who seek egalitarian, economic, social and cultural rights in Croatia. Left-wing ideologies came to Croatia in the late 19th century during the Austria-Hungary regime. In 1894, the Social Democratic Party of Croatia and Slavonia was formed. It was the first workers party in Croatia at the time. In the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes the leftist movement grew but it was suppressed by the royal government. In 1920, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was proclaimed illegal and its sympathizers were brutally persecuted after winning a large number of positions in the local elections. During the 1920s, Stjepan Radić and his Croatian Peasant Party led a centre-left agrarianism and anti-royalist policy. They were the leading Croatian political party at the time. After the assassination of Radić in 1929, the Croatian Peasant Party was taken over by Vlatko Maček who enforced a more conservative and nationalist rhetoric. During the Socialist Yugoslavia era, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was the only legal party in the country. In 1990, political plurality was restored and a number of left-wing parties emerged with the most notable one being the Social Democratic Party of Croatia.
Peđa Grbin is a Croatian lawyer and politician serving as president of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) since 2020. He was also Leader of the Opposition from 2020 until 2022, when he was replaced by Davorko Vidović, the leader of the Social Democrats. He has represented the VIII electoral district in the Croatian Parliament since 2011.
Parliamentary elections were held in Croatia on 17 April 2024 to elect the members of the 11th Sabor. Prior to the elections, the government consisted of a coalition of the Croatian Democratic Union and Independent Democratic Serb Party, with parliamentary support of five national minority MPs, two MPs from the Croatian Social Liberal Party and Croatian Demochristian Party, and one independent MP, Silvano Hrelja.
The Social Democrats is a Croatian centre-left political party founded in 2022. The party was preceded by a parliamentary group of the same name that broke away from the Social Democratic Party of Croatia in October 2021.
Davorko Vidović is a Croatian politician, the current president of Social Democrats and a member of Croatian Parliament.
Zagreb protest was a political protest organized in Zagreb, Croatia, on 17 February 2024 by a coalition of 11 left-wing, liberal opposition parties against the government of Andrej Plenković and the Croatian Democratic Union. The protest was held under the name "Enough! Let's go to the elections!".
