Speaking about the latest changes in the Government, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković clearly said that he is choosing new ministers for the next year and a half, that is, until the regular elections However, the year 2023 is already a pre-election year and in it the starting positions for the next elections for the Parliament are taken, especially since in 2024 the elections for representatives of the European Parliament are also held, and at the end of the year the first round of the presidential elections is already held
Therefore, the parties are preparing for the elections And while the ruling HDZ enters the new political year with a stable 26 percent, and that percentage occasionally swells to 30 percent of support, on the other side, in the opposition, there are still a lot of unknowns
The first of them is – electoral units Prime Minister Plenković stated that this topic is not a priority for him at the moment, but given that good practice dictates that this part of the work must be completed at least six months before the election year, sometime from the summer to the end of 2023, the proposal for new constituencies will be released to the public, considering the new results of the population census
Only when the opposition sees what these changes are, it will be able to resolve the mutual relations and the names of the candidates by individual units within themselves Staffing problem However, a much bigger problem for the opposition than that is the staffing problem, and it will ultimately result in the final decisions about the coalition alliances that will be presented to the voters
It is clear that the head of the SDP, Peđa Grbin, and the head of Mozemo! Tomislav Tomašević (who formally isn't, but is only the first among equals in the structure of that political platform), suffers from a lack of strong leadership, and that is exactly what SDP and Mozemo! should form the backbone of the so-called left-progressive coalition that plans to oppose HDZ and try to defeat Andrej Plenković Realistically, the ratings of both leaders in the polls are weak - Grbin's popularity is even below Tomašević's, but the SDP is still stronger than We Can!, due to the tradition it has and the value of its "brand"
And while common sense and mathematics would dictate that the entire left-progressive opposition should be united in the next elections, that's how they first started talking about a big alliance in which there would be SDP, then Mozemo!, then Center, and HSS, Radnička fronta, GLAS and Fokus, and possibly IDS, that idea has already blown up like a soap bubble Now the SDP already assesses that they do not want to be a "towing service" for minor parties, and they state that it has already been proven in several election cycles that a large coalition is not a guarantee of great success
Some of these parties were reduced to one person, for example GLAS on Anka Mrak-Taritas Therefore, at the moment, they see Mozemo! as their main partners at Ibler
and the Center, while the others will not get a chance to participate in the alliance, as things stand now However, the situation may be the other way around, because the Workers' Front already sent a "shot-card", when their leader Katarina Peović stated that the sheer number of parties in the coalition does not automatically guarantee the quality of the program
"In order for the alliance to function, we first need to have a joint program and quality proposals," said Peović, and immediately irritated the SDP members because she de facto explained to them that they do not have a program The same is true of IDS - they were recently among the parties in the Parliament that supported the Government's decision to train Ukrainian soldiers, and after that it is clear that IDS in the constituency where it is the only one to appear, on the 8th
unit, go independently Although IDS has its own internal problems, it is clear to them that the alliance with the SDP does not bring added value, so they will lead an autonomous policy, unlike the last elections in 2020 when they were on the list together with the SDP
Therefore, for now, it seems, the "big left-progressive coalition" is reduced to three letters - SDP, Mozemo! and the Center However, there are also a number of problems: first, that the SDP and Mozemo! even embarked on a successful national cooperation, their mutual relationship in the City of Zagreb must first be resolved
Mozemo! dominates in the capital, and the SDP only comes out with part of the communal proposals, so if Tomašević accepts them, and the negotiations are still ongoing, a new coalition agreement could be signed by the end of January However, it is of very limited scope and concerns the transparent city treasury, the development of Jarun and some other neighborhoods and, of course, cooperation in the City Assembly, so there is no greater influence on national issues
But, nevertheless, this cooperation will certainly be the seed of cooperation that neither one nor the other disputes, and it is clear that SDP and Mozemo! together to the elections However, there is a problem with the Center - realistically, that party exists only in Split, where the mayor Ivica Puljak still has a good rating, but there are practically none of them on the ground
The Center has a few people in Rijeka, it also has MP Dalija Orešković, but she does not have a base, so the reality is that out of 10 constituencies, the trio will appear together in only a few, probably only Zagreb, Split and Rijeka Ivica Puljak declares that programs, not declarations, will be key for the Center as well: »We want to build serious policies with serious people because it is not just an idea to replace HDZ, we really need to replace it with something that is good«
he explained in "Oporben zerez" In addition, the relations between the Center and the platform Mozemo! they are not at all great on the field - in the elections in Split they went separately, and in Pula they even quarreled over local urban plans
Also, we can't do it ourselves! it does not have a widespread party network by constituencies, and they are active only in these three larger urban units, i e
Zagreb, Split, Rijeka and some in Istria, but there are none in the Slavonic and Dalmatian units This opens up space for the SDP to nominally form a coalition of three parties in these units, but in fact only SDP's candidates are on the lists
Therefore, the option is again "point coalition" - that in those regions where there is no We can! and Center, SDP includes smaller regional partners on the lists An open question However, SDP's infrastructure is increasingly weak in Slavonia and Dalmatia, especially after Grbin dissolved a number of organizations
In the meantime, some of them have been restored, especially in the Slavonic counties, but there are no prominent names in those areas And finally, the issue of leadership
It has not yet been decided whether Peđa Grbin, as head of the SDP, would be a candidate in the 1st Zagreb, or the 8th Rijeka-Istria unit, where he comes from and where his address is formally written (on the basis of which he also received compensation for separate living, which later returned) Certainly, Zagreb mayor Tomašević is the more logical list holder for the 1st unit, but it is questionable whether it makes sense for the head of the opposition Grbin to be a candidate on the "periphery"
In addition, considering that the SDP is still strong only in Rijeka and PGŽ, the list in the 8th unit will be the most crowded, so it makes no sense for Grbin to "waste" places on that list, when perhaps he can do more withdraw in the capital, that is, the center of the country If anywhere
But, it is not the list itself, the issue of leadership that has yet to be resolved within the left-progressive alliance - the question of who will be the candidate for prime minister of the left coalition is still open, and whether it must necessarily be Grbin, who has no economic background and has never been in politics nor was he in a position of executive power He was not a mayor, prefect, or minister - he built his career through the Parliament, so he has no experience managing the public system
Admittedly, neither is Sandra Benčić from Mozemo!, and Tomašević will certainly be the mayor of Zagreb at least until 2025, so he will certainly not be a candidate for such a position In any case, the SDP has started preparations for the elections - they have established a small team that works on the design of the campaign and on personnel filtering of potential candidates, and the famous Alex Braun is also present
while party president Grbin received a mandate from the Presidency in the fall to start negotiations with potential coalition partners Therefore, on an informal level, these talks have been going on for some time, and Grbin will inform his colleagues from the top of the party about everything on January 20 at a meeting in Zadar, where, as they say, new policies will be honed
Whether this will help the SDP, a party that currently has around 12 to 15 percent of voter support, is difficult to say because this party has been functioning reactively lately, so it refers to the government's and Plenković's policies, and offers less of its own solutions However, the preparations certainly begin, no matter how they end
What should not be forgotten, however, is the fact that the opposition is not only SDP, We can! and the Center There are also the Social Democrats as the largest party in the Parliament - although their rating does not exceed the threshold of 5 percent in polls, it is possible that some other, smaller parties will join them by the time of the election, so it would be an alternative left bloc, along with that of the SDP
It's no secret that they don't want to be with each other, and it would be hypocritical after all the conflicts that are still current among the leaders of those options There is also Most, who will obviously have to go to the elections alone, because no one on the left wants to join them (although President Zoran Milanović suggests it), and even less on the right
The »pure right«, which consists of the Homeland Movement, the Sovereigns and some others in the traces, will also not be present in all units, so their reach is also questionable, especially since they are also burdened by internal relations, so probably only a few voters today know in which club does Miroslav Škoro belong to, and who is actually the president of DP Thus, the pre-election year 2023 could pass in the opposition's attempts to consolidate,
Speaking about the latest changes in the Government, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković clearly said that he is choosing new ministers for the next year and a half, that is, until the regular elections However, the year 2023 is already a pre-election year and in it the starting positions for the next elections for the Parliament are taken, especially since in 2024 the elections for representatives of the European Parliament are also held, and at the end of the year the first round of the presidential elections is already held Therefore, the parties are preparing for the elections And while the ruling HDZ enters the new political year with a stable 26 percent, and that percentage occasionally swells to 30 percent of support, on the other side, in the opposition, there are still a lot of unknowns The first of them is – electoral units Prime Minister Plenković stated that this topic is not a priority for him at the moment, but given that good practice dictates that this part of the work must be completed at least six months before the election year, sometime from the summer to the end of 2023, the proposal for new constituencies will be released to the public, considering the new results of the population census Only when the opposition sees what these changes are, it will be able to resolve the mutual relations and the names of the candidates by individual units within themselves Staffing problem However, a much bigger problem for the opposition than that is the staffing problem, and it will ultimately result in the final decisions about the coalition alliances that will be presented to the voters It is clear that the head of the SDP, Peđa Grbin, and the head of Mozemo!
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