ZADAR, Croatia – Croatia’s ruling party finished first in a general election on Sunday despite continued criticism of the country’s recent handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic’s center-right party, the Croatian Democratic Union, has won more than 65 seats in Parliament. It was not enough for an absolute majority, but with more than 90 percent of the votes counted, his party had at least 10 more seats than it had at the beginning of the campaign.
Mr. Plenkovic called for early elections at the height of the pandemic in May, after his government was praised for its good management of the early stages of the outbreak and his party took the lead in opinion polls. But in the days leading up to the vote, that decision began to seem risky.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases began to rise, and polls showed that Plenkovic gave way to his main rivals, a center-left alliance led by the Social Democratic Party.
Still, on Sunday, Plenkovic’s party came up with one of his best performances in more than a decade. “The gamble paid off,” said Karlo Jurak, a political analyst and academic at the University of Zagreb.
The strength of Plenkovic’s performance will make it easier for him to form a coalition with small centrist parties and parties representing ethnic minorities, analysts said. Plenkovic will also be less committed to a new far-right group, the Homeland Movement, which has now entered parliament for the first time and is led by pop singer Miroslav Skoro.
Although the Homeland Movement was projected to win some 15 seats, making it the third largest in parliament, it no longer seemed likely that Plenkovic needed his support to form a coalition.
Voters opted for stability amid a deep economic and health crisis, said Dejan Jovic, a political scientist at the University of Zagreb. “It appears that the electorate sees the difficulties ahead and wants a center-right government to lead the country,” he said.
During Mr. Plenkovic’s four years in office, his government was plagued by scandals: nine ministers left office for reasons related to corruption. But during the campaign, Plenkovic successfully diverted attention from the graft by focusing his reelection bid on the strong response to Croatia’s coronavirus, which was at one time among the strictest in the world.
“Croatia and this government defeated Covid-19,” said Plenkovic at a press conference in May.
But as the campaign progressed and social restrictions eased, his strategy seemed counterproductive. In the two weeks leading up to the elections, daily coronavirus cases in Croatia exceeded 50, reflecting rates at the height of the crisis in April.
As cases increased, Plenkovic’s rivals, and some of his allies, suggested that the election be postponed in the interest of public health. Trying to avoid those concerns, the electoral authority briefly banned the participation of confirmed coronavirus patients. But the country’s Constitutional Court later reversed the ban, allowing patients to vote for power.
And just as support for both the center-left and the far-right began to rise, Plenkovic was criticized for supporting an exhibition tennis tournament organized in Zadar, a coastal city, by Novak Djokovic, the world’s number 1 tennis player.
The tournament was meant to spark interest in Croatia’s holiday vacation spots, boosting the country’s embattled tourism industry, a key part of its economy. It ended in shame for both Mr. Djokovic and Mr. Plenkovic.
The crowds at the event did not have to wear masks or follow the rules of social distancing. Several participants contracted the virus, including Mr. Djokovic himself, forcing an early end to the tournament and undermining Mr. Plenkovic’s victorious narrative of the coronavirus.
Plenkovic was charged with hypocrisy after beating Djokovic and then refusing to quarantine, which critics deemed contrary to government guidelines to curb the spread of the disease.
And when Mr. Plenkovic was defended by members of the group that monitors the response to the Croatian virus, the group’s experts were accused of politicizing public health. The decision created a “double standard,” said Mr. Jurak, the political analyst.
But on Sunday, the Plenkovic base, however, seemed to have faith in the prime minister and his party, Jurak said. “Plenkovic timed the vote correctly.”
Joe Orovic reported from Zadar and Patrick Kingsley from Berlin.
