In two weeks, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic will face conservative opponent Dragan Primorac in a run-off election after the incumbent barely lost an outright victory on Sunday, according to official results.
Milanovic, supported by the opposition left-wing Social Democrats, received more than half of the first round vote and would therefore escape the run-off on January 12, according to an exit poll that was made public right after the polling places closed.
According to statistics given by the state electoral commission from almost all of the polling stations, Milanovic received 49.11 percent of the first round vote, while Primorac, who was supported by the ruling conservative HDZ party, received 19.37 percent.
Milanovic, who polls predicted would win the election, has such a large lead that Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic’s HDZ is extremely concerned.
The 3.8 million-person nation, which is a member of NATO and the European Union, is facing severe inflation, pervasive corruption, and a labor shortage at the time of the election.
According to the exit poll, center-right MP Marija Selak Raspudic and green-left MP Ivana Kekin trailed the two front-runners out of the eight candidates. They each won around nine percent of the vote.
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