HDZ

Three former High Represenatives to Bosnia, Carl Bildt, Paddy Ashdown, and Christian Schwarz-Schilling, expressed their concern in an open letter to EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini on Thursday over Croatian attempts to dispute the legitimacy of the election of Zeljko Komsic as the Bosnian Croat member of the state's tripartite presidency.

With the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, losing potential partners for forming a new governing majority in the Croatian parliament, new general elections seem to be a realistic scenario in the coming months, an analyst told BIRN.

A key representative of ethnic minority communities in the Croatian parliament is insisting that Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic must distance himself from hardliners if he wishes to remain in power.

Despite a dispute with the ruling centre-right Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic may win the upcoming local elections in May, political analyst Zarko Puhovski told BIRN.

Reports last week suggested that the HDZ rejected Bandic's city budget proposal for 2017 in order to initiate a process to oust him.

After Croatia's State Election Commission counted all the votes from the general election, the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, has emerged as the clear winner with 61 seats.

The centre-left People's Coalition came second with 54 seats followed by the centre-right MOST [Bridge], party, which won 13.

Voters in Croatia are going to the polls on Sunday to take part in the second parliamentary elections since November of last year, with no party heading for an outright majority.

There are 3.8 million eligible voters in the country who can cast ballots to elect 151 MPs, out of which eight are for national minorities and three to Bosnian Croats and the diaspora.

Experts worry that Zoran MIlanovic's comfortable victory of his fourth term as party president of Croatia's strongest opposition party, the centre-left Social Democratic Party, SDP, may signal a monopoly of power within the party.

Croatia's Bridge of Independent Lists, MOST, has received over 3,600 comments in less than 24 hours on a Facebook page after opting to form a government with the centre-right parties.

The political deadlock in Croatia should finally be resolved on Monday when the prime minister-designate will be named, according to key negotiating political parties.

Polling stations opened at 7am on Sunday in Croatia, where more than 3.7 million voters have the opportunity to cast votes in parliamentary elections.

Who they will choose is hard to call after a closely fought campaign between the governing centre-left coalition and its centre-right opponents.