Croatia's populist incumbent president, Zoran Milanovic, was re-elected to the post by a wide margin on Jan. 12, election results show.
Milanovic defeated Dragan Primorac, the candidate of Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic’s HDZ party, by a margin of 74.7% to 25.3%, with 99% of polls reporting. The total turnout sat around 44% of eligible voters.
Milanovic is a staunch critic of Western aid for Ukraine as well as the country's future accession into the military alliance. He previously referred to Ukraine's 2014 Euromaidan protests as a "coup d'état" and has railed against Western allies and Ukraine for not respecting the Minsk Agreements.
In October, Milanovic refused to approve the participation of Croatian soldiers in NATO's mission to support Ukraine.
Milanovic's re-election to the largely symbolic position serves as a setback for Plenkovic’s government, whose government was recently embroiled in a corruption scandal implicating a former health minister.
Milanovic, who served as Croatia's prime minister from 2011 to 2016 amid the country's accession into the European Union, was first elected to the presidency in 2020 with the support of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP).
"This is the beginning of the end for Andrej Plenkovic," SDP leader Sinisa Hajdas Doncic said following Milanovic's victory.
The Croatian government, mainly aligned with Plenkovic, has strongly supported military aid to Kyiv, including the delivery of 14 Mi-8 helicopters, and Plenkovic himself has made several visits to Ukraine.
Sonya Bandouil
