1995 Croatian parliamentary election
Croatia
29 October 1995
All 127 seats in the Chamber of Representatives
64 seats needed for a majority
Turnout68.79% Decrease 6.82 pp
PartyLeader % Seats +/–
HDZ Franjo Tuđman 45.23 75 −10
HSS–HNS–IDS Zlatko Tomčić 18.26 18 +5
HSLS Dražen Budiša 11.55 12 −2
SDP Ivica Račan 8.93 10 −1
HSP Anto Đapić 5.01 4 −1
Minority lists
SNS Milan Đukić 60.60 2 −1
ASH Zivko Juzbašić 34.34 1 New
Independents [lower-alpha 1] – 4 0
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Prime Minister before Subsequent Prime Minister
Nikica Valentić
HDZ		 Zlatko Mateša
HDZ

Parliamentary elections were held in Croatia on 29 October 1995 to elect the 127 members of the Chamber of Representatives.[1] The election was held in conjunction with special elections for Zagreb City Assembly, which resulted with Zagreb Crisis.

The result was a victory for the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which won an absolute majority of 75 seats. Voter turnout was 68.8%.[2]

This was the last election to date in Croatia in which a single party won enough seats to govern alone, without the need for parliamentary support from pre-election or post-election coalition partners.

Background

The term of the existing Chamber of Representatives was to expire one year later, in 1996. However, Croatian government of Franjo Tuđman and his Croatian Democratic Union party hoped to exploit national euphoria over the success of Operation Storm.[3] Chamber of Representatives was quickly dissolved, but not before passing yet another piece of electoral legislation, introducing new voting system which was to improve chances of ruling party.

According to the new electoral law, 32 seats were won in individual constituencies on First past the post basis, while 80 seats were to be distributed on the basis of proportional representation, with the threshold being raised from previous 2% to 5%.

Another addition was raised threshold for lists of party coalitions - 8% for coalition of two parties and 11% for coalition of three and more parties. It is more than obvious that the new rules were introduced to discourage coalitions of small opposition parties and subsequently have their votes dispersed and wasted below the threshold, allowing stronger party to get additional seats.

While 12 seats were kept for Croatian expatriates, number of seats reserved for ethnic minorities have changed. This was most evident in case of Serbs, who had only 3 seats compared with previous 11.

Under such conditions, opposition parties were more concerned about their own political survival than actually challenging ruling party. Learning from their mistakes during 1992 elections, they created ad hoc coalitions and circumvented electoral thresholds by fielding other parties' members as their own candidates on the lists.

Results

The HDZ received a similar percentage of vote and number of seats as three years earlier. More significant changes were among the ranks of the opposition; the Social Democratic Party re-emerged as significant political factor with 9% of the vote, at the expense of Croatian Social Liberal Party saw its vote share almost halved. Neither party was as successful as the large opposition coalition which included Croatian Peasant Party, Croatian People's Party and Istrian Democratic Assembly.

The most tense moment of the campaign occurred during the vote count. It appeared that Croatian Party of Rights would fail to break the 5% threshold, only for the vote to mysteriously increase afterwards.

PartyProportionalConstituencyTotal
seats
Votes%SeatsVotes%Seats
Croatian Democratic Union1,093,40345.23421,152,46046.843375
HSS–IDS–HNS–HKDU–SBHS441,39018.261616
Croatian Social Liberal Party279,24511.5510209,5418.52111
Social Democratic Party215,8398.93839,0161.5919
Croatian Party of Rights121,0955.014170,7556.9404
Social Democratic Union78,2823.24041,0141.6700
Croatian Independent Democrats72,6123.0000
Social Democratic Action40,3481.67017,8620.7300
Croatian Party of Rights 186131,5301.3001,5620.0600
Croatian Christian Democratic Party16,9860.70022,0050.8900
Croatian Party of Natural Law7,8350.3208,4440.3400
Croatian Conservative Party6,8580.2800
Independent Party of Rights6,6080.2701,9900.0800
Homeland Civic Party5,3430.2206540.0300
HSS–HSLS–HNS–HKDU–HND–IDS–SDP–HSP1861548,25022.2844
Istrian Democratic Assembly65,2832.6511
Croatian Peasant Party39,1581.5900
Croatian Christian Democratic Union16,0040.6500
Dalmatian Action13,4050.5400
Rijeka Democratic Alliance7,9800.3200
ASH–DA7,6850.3100
Croatian Democratic Peasant Party6,1110.2500
Slavonia-Baranja Croatian Party5,6440.2300
KDM–HKDS–KNS4,6570.1900
Croatian People's Movement – Free Croatia4,1990.1700
Istrian Independent Party3,8430.1600
Croatian Homeland Party3,6240.1500
Homeland and Diaspora Community3,2560.1300
Croatian Roma Party3,0110.1200
Croatian Party2,7650.1100
Croatian Liberation Movement–Croatian Party3400.0100
Independents59,7292.4300
National minorities7
Total2,417,374100.00802,460,247100.0040127
Valid votes2,417,37496.692,460,24796.99
Invalid/blank votes82,6663.3176,4773.01
Total votes2,500,040100.002,536,724100.00
Registered voters/turnout3,634,23368.793,914,00064.81
Source: CEC

Subsequent changes

The following changes happened after elections:

Notes

  1. ↑ Sandor Jakab (Hungarian seat), Miroslav Kiš (Austrian, German, Ruthenian and Ukrainian seat), Furio Radin (Italian seat) and Njegovan Starek (Czech and Slovak seat)

References

  1. ↑ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p410 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. ↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p415
  3. ↑ "Davor Butković: Prva hrvatska Vlada koja bi mogla pasti - Jutarnji.hr". Archived from the original on 2010-10-19.
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