Recent referendums The Croatian Left has consisted of a broad range of individuals, groups, and political parties who seek egalitarian, economic, social and cultural rights in Croatia.
In 1920, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was proclaimed illegal and its sympathizers were brutally persecuted after winning a large number of positions in the local elections.
In 1919, a congress was held in Belgrade where Bolshevik influence was introduced by soldiers who during the war had been captured by Russian forces and had experienced the October Revolution.
In the late 1980s, Socialist Yugoslavia was on the edge of breakup after Slobodan Milošević started his anti-bureaucratic revolution and used Serbian nationalism as a tool to achieve domination in the country.
[5] After the League of Communists of Croatia withdrew from the 14th SKJ party congress in January 1990 under the leadership of Ivica Račan, they decided to pursue a path of reformation.
For the 1990 elections, Ivica Račan was not able to defeat the emerging right wing party of Franjo Tuđman, the Croatian Democratic Union.
Before the elections, Ivica Račan changed the electoral system for the benefit of his party but it backfired and the Croatian Democratic Union won a great majority of seats with only 41.76% of the popular vote.
Since the Social Democratic Party got a lot of votes from Serbs in that self-proclaimed territory, it meant that Ivica Račan was about to face a great downfall in popular support.
The Social Democratic Union was led by the famous economist Branko Horvat and the votes were a result of support from the ethnic Serbs living in the government-controlled territory.
[7] After Franjo Tuđman won the presidential and parliamentary elections with a big majority, he easily imposed his will on the government controlled institutions and companies.
It commonly refers to the corrupt system of privatization, nepotism in appointing personnel to high state functions, anti-liberalism, international isolation, embracing of extreme Croatian nationalism, state-controlled media and abuse of human rights.
In the Croatian Parliament, the most aggressive Tuđman critic was Vladimir Bebić, a famous left-wing politician from the Alliance of Primorje-Gorski Kotar.
In 1994, a former dissident and high ranking communist politician, Mika Tripalo founded Social Democratic Action of Croatia.
Franjo Tuđman held the election a year early because he wanted to use the euphoria which was present in the country due to the success of Operation Storm.
Šuvar was a strong critic of the Tuđman regime and he spoke about the war crimes that the Croatian Army committed after liberating Kninska Krajina in 1995.
While dining in a restaurant with his wife in Zagreb, Šuvar was brutally attacked and suffered heavy injuries because of his political views.
Zdravko Tomac was a Croatian nationalist with social tendencies and Ivica Račan used him through the 1990s in order to get votes from centrist or right-wing voters.
In 1998, the president of the Social-Liberal party Dražen Budiša and Ivica Račan signed an agreement in which they committed themselves to enter a coalition.
There was a fear at the time that Franjo Tuđman would not allow the new liberal-left coalition to seize power if they won, a view which was shared by Ivica Račan.
Budiša, although a president of the Social-Liberal party, was a self-declared conservative and nationalist with a pragmatic approach in order to reach power.
During his reign, a lot of pre-election promises were neglected such as the investigation of illegal privatisation processes during the 1990s, de-Tudjmanisation, bringing back the money taken from the country, high employment, etc.
[15] The new government also faced right-wing extremism when the ICTY indictments came for the Croatian generals but Račan tried to satisfy both sides in that process which failed miserably.
[19] In the new cabinet, Račan's main partner was Zlatko Tomčić, president of the social conservative Croatian Peasant Party.
Until the end of his term, Račans main goal was to keep the coalition functioning which resulted in a pragmatic government that was destined to lose elections.
The Croatian prime minister and president of the Croatian Democratic Union at that time, Ivo Sanader, had a term which was filled with corruption scandals so the Social Democratic Party was expected to win the 2007 parliamentary elections with independent politician Ljubo Jurčić as the prime minister candidate.
A few days after the elections, Zora Milanović removed Ljubo Jurčić from the position of prime minister and put himself there so that he can negotiate the coalition formation process.
[24] The final blow for the right-wing government came in December 2010 when Ivo Sanader was acquitted for stealing money from state institutions while being prime minister and was arrested in Austria after trying to avoid the charges.
In January 2010, the Social Democratic Party candidate for Croatian president Ivo Josipović won the 2009-10 presidential elections.
[30] Unlike the SDP and its coalitions that still depend on old party centered politics and resources, a new grass-root activism based left and green movement, including much of feminist, LGBTIQ+ and other activists, artists, academics, as well as younger union organizers were coming together in the past 5 years through direct actions and campaigns.
won seats in Zagreb Assembly and since then Tomislav Tomašević proved to be the most committed, vocal critic and as counter candidate for Milan Bandić for 2021 elections.