On the new/old Day of Statehood, Sunday 30th May, the second round of local elections will take place in Croatia.
In all the cities, municipalities, and counties, where no candidate secured more than 50%+1 vote for a mayor or a county prefect in the first round, citizens will choose between two candidates that won the most votes in the first round two weeks ago. The biggest attention of the public is, of course, on the second round of the elections for the Mayor of the City of Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia.
Both candidates, and their supporting infrastructures, in the forefront of this race, Tomislav Tomašević and Miroslav Škoro, were brought there from the political margins by several processes that had Croatian politics in turmoil for the past half a decade, which in turn were largely caused by an incresingly narrow overtone window of Croatian political discourse, contributed to by Croatia's EU accession process.
Firstly, there was an increasing dissatisfaction of voters with the increasingly bi-partisan party system in Croatia with centre-right HDZ, and centre-left SDP. Dissatisfaction of the voters on the right came with from the fact that HDZ adopted a firmly centrist position while systematically annihilating any parties further to the right, which meant the right had no viables candidates to vote for. The dissatisfaction of the voters on he left came from the fact that policy-wise any relevant distinction between SDP and HDZ disappeared, while SDP's increasingly ineffectual leadership made them a poor challenge to HDZ's near permanent rule over Croatia. On the part of the centrists there was also a general wish for a viable "third option".
Secondly, there was an increasing dissatisfaction with the rule of "local sheriffs" in local politics. Those are local politicians who keep the same elected office for decades, govern in an authoritarian manner making democratic procedures meaningless, and have close ties with business structures, using their power and influene to benefit their acquaintances
Thrdly, increasing importance of social media and lack of ideological diversity meant that building up classical party infrastructures has become largely obsolete, and instead political activity has focused on charismatic poster-boys, and experimenting with election "brands"
Tomislav Tomašević started his career as an urban activist against Milan Bandić, the (in)famous "local sheriff" of Zagreb, who died just several months ahead of this years election. Core of the "We can!" political platform was formed ahead of 2017 local elections when Tomašević's activist group started the "Zagreb is OURS" party which formed a pre-election coalition in Zagreb with the New Left (NL, a party formed by leftist NGO notables and intellectuals, inting to be the genuine left), Sustainable Development of Croatia (ORaH, one of numerous environmentalist parties), "For the City" party (an older party formed by young urban activists), and the Worker's Front (RF). For the 2020 parliamentary elections this coalition came up with the "We can"" brand under which they achieved major success, so they retained it for the local elections. (RF left the block in the meantime) This make-up of parties earned them the nickname "Green-Left Coalition".
Miroslav Škoro is a Croatian musician, businessman, media personality (some of his TV-personas had him as a politican), and university lecturer, an all-around renaissance-man who was brought into politics for the 2020 presidential election in what basically started as a joke because Crotian right wanted a charismatic and likable figure it could rally around (a Croatian Trump of sorts).
Namely, a noted Croatian far-right pundit started an on-line poll of whether the voters in his audience would back the HDZ-backed incumbent president of Croatia, or Škoro in the upcoming election, and Škoro received overwhelming support. To the far rights grief, Škoro turned out to be far less radical and far more mild-mannered compared to Trump, so he lost a part of support on social media, but he managed to become the 3rd most supported candidate in the presidential election, and the Homeland Movement (DP, party formed around his presidential campaign) became third strongest in the same year's parliamentary elections. Currently, he's aim is to become the Mayor of Zagreb so he would have some place to implement his policies, and ahead of the second round he clls upon the centre and right to unite to prevent the far left from taking over the cita.
He's also supprted by the Green Action (another of numerous environmentalist parties) i order to show how he is the true environmentalist option, and not the "Green-Left Coalition.
How does local politics function in your RL countries? How do your countires prevent local authoritarian régimes from being established?
In Croatia there is constant talk of reducing the number of local government units and elected offices; do you prefer local government units to be smaller and closer to citizens, or bigger and streamlined? Do you prefer there to be more elected officials to more diversely express the will of the citizens, or fewer for reasons of financial expediency?
