How to elect a president

Zoran Milanovic won the second presidential mandate in Croatia. Under the slogan "The President for the President", he won 75 percent of the votes in the second round, defeating Dragan Primorac, an independent candidate supported by the ruling HDZ. The unfortunate Primorac had to settle for a sad 25 percent, so the prime minister actually played the main role in his electoral staff. Andrej Plenkovic.

Despite the appearance of a dignified defeat, HDZ faced a serious slap from the voters, because the bad result was mostly interpreted as a message to the current government. Plenković and Primorac did not congratulate Milanović, continuing the practice actually introduced by Milanović after the last elections, when he did not congratulate HDZ on the victory in the parliamentary elections. In short, Milanović said that his program will be the Constitution, which gives him "powers" in the areas of diplomacy and the armed forces.

The political scene in Croatia is now definitely marked by a conflict between two influential politicians who are actually very similar, both by origin from the socialist middle class (Plenković is from a somewhat richer family), through legal education, work experience in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and atypical position within HDZ and SDP . Both were or are presidents of parties, but always with the need to distance themselves a little from the main party currents. Plenković is considered a Brussels bureaucrat, while Milanović is an increasingly vocal supporter of independent Croatian politics within NATO or the EU.

This is precisely why these elections, like the previous parliamentary elections or those for the European Parliament, were focused on mutual fighting between these two. Even the Serbs fell into the background, although as a rule they are an important pre-election topic in every election in Croatia.

It has also been shown that there is actually no great ideological difference between Plenković and Milanović, because the Serbs as a political factor are completely marginalized, the ruling majority is replaced by a coalition with the extreme right, which vetoed cooperation with Pupovec. Plenković's party pushed Croatia to the right, but Milanović found space for the campaign in criticizing corruption, which led to numerous scandals and even the arrest of the Minister of Health.

The media find this conflict extremely interesting, so they broadcast insults every day, with the addition of the extreme right, for which even the HDZ is not "Croatian" enough. The level of political communication has dropped considerably and reached Balkan standards. In short, it was shown that corruption and political spitting have no religion and no nation, no translation was needed.

Differences still exist. According to the Constitution, the President of Croatia must not be politically active within the party, because he is at the service of all citizens. By the decision of the Constitutional Court, Milanović was prevented from running for prime minister in the last elections. So, there is still a separation of powers. Furthermore, despite the conflicts, the cohabitation of the two opponents continues for all five years, and the state functions. It will be similar in the next few years, so some believe that it is actually not bad that all the power in a country is not concentrated in just one politician or party.

Hand on heart, cohabitation actually led to the fact that both parties must adhere to their legal frameworks, which does not happen today in Serbia, where absolute power is in the hands of President Vučić, who would actually be Milanović's counterpart. In this sense, we can say that Milanović performed incomparably better in the role of president than as prime minister, when he complicated relations with his neighbors quite a bit.

An important difference that we could notice during the elections is the awareness of the voters. They are in a country where the ratio of left and right is almost half-half, they elected a center-right government, but also a social democrat president. Furthermore, the statistics showed that the HDZ candidate fared poorly because HDZ voters did not vote for him either. Therefore, at the beginning of his address, Milanović thanked those who voted for him, but also the HDZ voters who contributed to his convincing victory with their boycott.

What is the explanation for this political cohabitation in Croatia, which will last almost a decade? The campaign was marked by insults, the differences between the "Ustasha" and the "communists" are getting smaller, the Serbs are not an issue because they are getting smaller and therefore they are not an important political factor, the country is a member of the EU, so the policy is coordinated with Brussels and NATO. Voters in Croatia are not significantly different from those in Serbia by any demographic criteria. They are neither prettier nor smarter. The only logical explanation I can offer is the work of the media. Regardless of the current distribution of power, authority and authority, in the media in Croatia, primarily the state media, you could see and hear representatives of the government and the opposition. There are preferences and influences, but they cannot be compared with media unanimity in Serbia, where the government deals harshly with political dissidents. The media is therefore the key to a peaceful handover of power, where it doesn't really matter whether the loser will congratulate the winner in the end.

The media consensus in Serbia today already announces the possible loss of power as the beginning of a civil war, some loyalists swear over the icon that they will not change the party if the SNS loses the elections, but will go to the shooting and the gallows with a song. No one in Croatia, where the current health minister was arrested, told people that the opposition was preparing diversions in hospitals and intensive care units. None of the politicians, neither Plenković nor Milanović, appear every day, or several times a day, to explain to the people what is happening and that there is a political debate about all important state issues.

Political pluralism is an obvious consequence of media pluralism in reporting, primarily on television with a national frequency. Voters had the opportunity to choose because they had the opportunity to hear and see representatives of all options, every day, and not just in those few minutes during pre-election periods. The citizens of Serbia have not won that freedom yet.