ZAGREB, January 13, 2020 - Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) officials Darko Horvat, who serves as Economy Minister, and Željko Reiner,a deputy parliament speaker, said on Monday that an opinion poll that gives the opposition Social Democrats (SDP) a lead in popularity ratings in January was the reflection of the outcome of the recent presidential runoff.
"What is happening now is a reflection of the recent election. The outwitting between the SDP and the HDZ will take one or two weeks and then everything will go back to normal, and the HDZ will again be the strongest political option in Croatia," Horvat told the press in his comment on the CRO Demoskop survey about the approval ratings of the ruling HDZ and the SDP in January, when the opposition party took the lead for the first time in four years.
In the second round of the election on 5 January, the incumbent President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, nominated by the HDZ for her second term, was defeated by challenger Zoran Milanović, the candidate of the SDP and a few more left wing opposition parties.
Reiner said in his comment that the latest outcome of the approval ratings mirrored the situation in the wake of the elections rather than the real balance of power between the HDZ and the SDP.
"Let's wait for a month or two to see what things will look like," Reiner said.
More HDZ news can be found in the Politics section.
