Zoran Milanovic, a NATO critic, comfortably wins the run-off vote after securing 49 percent of votes in round one.
Croatia’s opposition-backed President Zoran Milanovic, a critic of the European Union and NATO, has overwhelmingly won re-election for another five-year term, defeating a candidate from the ruling conservative party in a run-off vote, near-complete official results showed.
Milanovic won more than 74 percent of the vote, with his opponent Dragan Primorac securing nearly 26 percent, with more than 90 percent of the votes counted.
Milanovic, an outspoken critic of Western military support for Ukraine against Russia, won 49.1 percent of the vote during the contest’s first round two weeks ago – narrowly missing an outright victory.
The 58-year-old leader entered the contest with surging momentum as he faced off against Primorac, who managed to garner 19.35 percent of the votes. Primorac, 59, is backed by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, which has governed the former Yugoslav republic since it declared independence in 1991.
The election comes as the EU and NATO member country of 3.8 million people struggles with biting inflation, corruption scandals and a labour shortage.
“Croatia, thank you,” Milanovic told his supporters.
“This is a big day for me personally, and I view this victory as recognition for my work, a kind of act of people’s trust in me.”
Earlier in the day, after casting his ballot in the capital Zagreb, Milanovic told reporters: “In the past five years I did my job in the best faith and I hope that people have seen that.”
Milanovic, a former left-wing prime minister, took over the presidency in 2020 with the backing of the main opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Milanovic has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but has also criticised the West’s military support for Kyiv. His main rival has dubbed him “a pro-Russian puppet”.
He is popular and is sometimes compared with United States President-elect Donald Trump for his combative style of communication with political opponents.
The leader has been a fierce critic of current Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, and the pair have long sparred with each other.
The incumbent president regularly accuses Plenkovic and his conservative HDZ party of systemic corruption, calling the prime minister a “serious…