Croatia’s Riven Ruling Party Eyes Autumn Election

The resounding nature of Plenkovic's victory, however, glosses over internal divisions that plagued the conservative HDZ leading up to this race.

Plenkovic has consistently been attacked by the party's right-wing faction with the claim that he is too liberal. One of the main catalysts for this attack was his government's ratification of the 2018 Istanbul Convention on domestic violence and violence against women. 

This decision was strongly opposed not only by right-wing members of the HDZ but also powerful socially conservative forces within Croatian society, including clergy members of the Roman Catholic Church. Critics say the convention's definition of gender is too loose and undermines traditional family values. 

There were also those who saw this decision as evidence that the HDZ has lost its sense of its conservative identity since forming a minority government in coalition with the liberal Croatian People's Party in June 2017.

The moderate-conservative divide within the HDZ is not a new phenomenon, but rather a common theme throughout the party's history. The HDZ was founded in 1989 by the country's first president, Franjo Tudjman, and came to power shortly after the country gained its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

Independent Croatia'a first president, Franio Tudjman, seen taking part in emergency peace talks in May 1993. File photo: EPA/DIMITRI MESSINIS

Throughout the 1990s, the HDZ led a right-wing nationalistic government with Tudjman at the helm until his death in December 1999, shortly after which the HDZ lost to the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 2000 parliamentary elections. 

Ever since Tudjman's death, the story of the HDZ has been one of centrist and right-wing factions vying...