Opposition wins election in Croatia

Dec 4, 2011, 18:29 GMT

Zagreb/Belgrade - The opposition coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) won Croatia's parliamentary election Sunday, inflicting only the second loss in two decades to the scandal-ridden ruling conservatives.

Citing exit polls, state television HRT said the Kukuriku (Cock-a-doodle) coalition won 44.5 per cent of the ballots cast, twice as many as Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor's Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).

The HDZ, which governed the country during all but four years since its independence in 1991, paid the price for a series of corruption scandals which led to the trial of its former leader and premier, Ivo Sanader.

HDZ also failed to reform the economy, bringing Croatia to the brink of a severe financial crisis.

Kosor had been due to sign Croatia's landmark accession treaty with the EU on December 9, but it will apparently be the SDP leader, Zoran Milanovic, who will lead the country when it becomes the 28th member of the bloc in July 2013.

Croatia split from former Yugoslavia in 1991, but had to fight Belgrade's forces until 1995, when it finally asserted its sovereignty over its entire territory.