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Andrej Plenković, current Prime Minister of Croatia and leader of the center-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, he announced that he had reached an agreement to form a government with the far-right Patriotic Movement (DP) party. Last April 17, HDZ won the parliamentary elections, but was unable to obtain enough seats to have a majority: in recent weeks Plenković has therefore negotiated with other political forces to try to form a coalition that would support his third government.
If the agreement is confirmed it would be the first time that the DP has entered a governing coalition. It is a rather new party, founded in 2020 and made up largely of radical and conservative nationalists who abandoned the HDZ. In an interview with the television network N1 Croatian analyst Zarko Puhovski he compared it to the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
The DP has set as a condition for any agreement with the HDZ the exclusion from the coalition of the main party representing the Serbian minority, the Independent Democratic Party of Serbia (SDSS), causing strong concerns about possible tensions and violence in the country.
Relations between the Serbian minority and the rest of the Croatian population have been complex and delicate since the time of the bloody Croatian war of independence, fought in the 1990s, with tensions that in recent decades have generally been smoothed out without ever completely disappearing. Until now, Plenković’s party, which has been in government since 2016, had maintained positive and collaborative relations with the SDSS. Plenković is also a centre-right politician with pro-European positions, different from the Eurosceptic ones of the DP. Commenting on the exclusion of Serbian parties from the governing coalition, Plenković insisted that the inclusive position of his possible new government towards the Serbian minority will not change.
In addition to the Independent Serbian Democratic Party, the DP he asked to also exclude from a possible coalition the ecological and progressive party Mozemo!, which was the fourth most voted in the April elections.
The government agreement must be approved by a vote in parliament scheduled for the next few days: at least 76 votes are needed for approval, i.e. the majority of the 151 total deputies of the Croatian unicameral parliament. The leader of the DP, Ivan Penava, he said that if the agreement is approved his party will obtain at least three ministries.