Left of Croatia
|
Left of Croatia
Ljevica Hrvatske |
|
|---|---|
| President | Ivan Ninić |
| Founded | 16 November 2001 |
| Headquarters | Rijeka |
| Ideology |
Democratic socialism (constitutional position) Anti-fascism Left-wing populism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| Colors | Red |
The Left of Croatia (Croatian: Ljevica Hrvatske) is a marginal leftist Croatian political party with no parliamentary representation.
Left of Croatia was created in 2007 by the merger of several parties:
The Social Democratic Union (Croatian: Socijalnodemokratska unija) was founded in 1992, following Croatian independence, being one of very few political parties to identify itself as left-wing. Most of their members were former Communists or left-wingers displeased embracing Croatian nationalism, the excesses of privatisation and human rights abuses of ethnic minorities. The first leader of the party was Branko Horvat, noted economist and one of the few Croatian intellectuals to oppose dissolution of SFR Yugoslavia. In the early 1990s SDU was one of the few political parties to openly advocate co-operation and integration of Croatia with other republics of former Yugoslavia a view very different from the current Croatian political mainstream. On 1992 parliamentary elections it turned out that SDU nevertheless enjoyed some degree of support, especially among ethnic Serbs living in government-controlled territories. Although it failed to break the 2% vote threshold of entry into the Croatian Parliament, SDU could have hoped to win three seats by fulfilling the constitutional quota of ethnic Serbs in Sabor. Instead, the Croatian Constitutional Court, in one of the most controversial decisions in their history, ruled that the seats should go to Serb People's Party as an "ethnic party", and presumably the only true representative of ethnic Serb minority, despite the fact SNS won fewer votes than SDU.
SDU had some success in the local elections held a few months later, but the biggest boost came to them with parliamentary status gained when Vladimir Bebić, a colourful member of Sabor from Rijeka, decided to join their ranks. Bebić, who enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the Croatian public, gradually became the party's leader. In the 1995 election he managed to increase SDU's vote margin, but with increased vote threshold (5%), SDU failed to enter Sabor. This, the appearance of more mainstream left-wing parties, and the establishment of a rejuvenated SDP as Croatia's main opposition party, led to SDU becoming more marginalised, struck with internal divisions and gradually phased out in late 1990s. After the Socialist Labour Party of Croatia (SRP) was formed, many SDU members joined that organization.
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