Seven Reasons Why HDZ Would Win Again
Despite the Gospić affair with 37,000 tons of waste, HDZ would, according to Telegram.hr's analysis, win again. The electoral model, voter apathy, and a fragmented opposition work in favor of the ruling party.
Despite the Gospić affair with 37,000 tons of waste, HDZ would, according to Telegram.hr's analysis, win again. The electoral model, voter apathy, and a fragmented opposition work in favor of the ruling party.
Currently, a large part of Croatian citizens is rightly horrified by the scenes from Gospić circulating on social media and portals. USKOK's expert analysis shows that approximately 37,000 tons of improperly managed waste were buried and left at the site of the former PPK Velebit in Bilajska Street. Heavy metals and PFAS compounds, known as forever chemicals, have been found in groundwater downstream.
The police link more than 35,000 tons of waste from Slovenia, Italy, and Croatia to this case, which spans from Varaždin through Gospić to Benkovac and Senj. Since 2022, citizens have reported trucks unloading waste at night, but institutions did not react. According to USKOK's suspicions, an employee of the Lika-Senj County signed the permits, and in November 2025, the then Chief State Inspector was also taken into custody.
If parliamentary elections were held next Sunday, HDZ would win again, according to Telegram.hr's analysis. Although the margin would be somewhat smaller, it would still be the relative winner in almost all electoral units. In the 2024 elections, it lost in only two of the ten electoral units, with the exception of the City of Zagreb and a few units along the Slovenian border where it regularly loses.
HDZ and its personnel derivatives-people from the same party school who alternate as factions of the same political culture-have ruled Lika for three and a half decades. For a voter who wants to punish the system, it's a choice between the original and a copy.
The first reason is the electoral model itself. The electoral units are designed in HDZ's favor, and the D'Hondt method of seat allocation structurally gives an advantage to the relative winner. A party positioned as center-right can hardly go wrong in such a model. The model naturally rewards bipolarity, meaning it presupposes a center-left party as a counterweight. But SDP lost that position long ago, so it only has a real chance in a national coalition with Možemo, a party seen outside the metropolis as exclusively Zagreb-centric.
The second reason is the public's complete indifference to corruption scandals. They fill media space but not polling stations. In the 2024 parliamentary elections, turnout was exceptionally high, reaching 62 percent, which was the only moment HDZ trembled. However, realistically, it's below half of registered voters, and even lower in local elections. Low turnout structurally favors the party with the most disciplined voter machine.
Third, about a third of those who turn out will vote for HDZ regardless of circumstances, for two reasons. One is interest-based, as they are tied to the government through employment, either as workers in the state and public sector or as part of the food chain that depends on public money flows. The other is ideological: SDP and Možemo cannot stand this segment of the electorate because they see them as "haters of everything Croatian," and in the case of Možemo, also Zagreb's urban elitism, and a good part of the Croatian provinces cannot stand Zagreb and everything that comes from it.
Fourth, the influence of the Catholic Church and its clergy, which is extremely strong in smaller communities and among less educated voters, acts as a constant multiplier of the right-wing vote. Fifth, negative selection in emigration. Over the past ten years, Croatia has seen an above-average outflow of educated citizens-precisely the segment of voters who vote against HDZ in significantly higher percentages. Demographics have quietly but persistently worked in favor of the ruling party.
Sixth, the apathy of part of the electorate, which by not voting indirectly supports the relative winner. The campaign "they're all the same" is the most successful of all HDZ's pre-election campaigns, even more successful because it never had to officially run it. And seventh, a fragmented opposition that fails to impose social issues as the only important ones.
At the top of the list are the pension and health systems, by far the biggest problem for the impoverished pensioner population, which is the EU record holder in terms of the share of those at risk of poverty. Exploiting this issue and mobilizing at the polls all those affected by inflation and rising living costs, whose pensions due to the Swiss formula have not kept pace with that rise, is the only path for the left-liberal-green opposition to an approximately equal fight with HDZ.
Instead, the opposition chases every scandal the media offers and spends it within a week. So, Gospić and all those to come will not affect Croatia's political landscape. HDZ will continue to control all levers and parts of the government because, for most citizens, the topics with which the media and the opposition bombard them are too abstract or irrelevant for the daily struggle for survival.
Elections are won, and something else brings down the current government: social neglect and marginalization, poverty, and despair. These are the only real drivers of change, whether in the USA, the most developed EU countries, or Croatia. Until that moment, pensions and health are the most important social, and thus political, issues in the country. Whoever realizes this first will one day defeat HDZ. The poison buried in Lika's soil will not.
While the political scene deals with scandals, the Government of the Republic of Croatia highlighted a sporting achievement on social media. "Third gold medal 🥇 for the young #Barakude at international competitions this summer❗️ After the world golds of the U16 and U18 water polo teams, Croatia is also the European champion in the under-20 category. Heartfelt congratulations to our water polo players on their brilliant achievements and confirmation of an excellent future 🇭🇷 for water polo. 🤽♂️🏆," reads the post.
