The Croatian Party of Pensioners ( hr, Hrvatska stranka umirovljenika or HSU) is a Croatian
centre-left
Centre-left politics lean to the left on the left–right political spectrum but are closer to the centre than other left-wing politics. Those on the centre-left believe in working within the established systems to improve social justice. The ...
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
that is currently led by
Veselko Gabričević.
When the party was founded, few people took it seriously and many commentators speculated that the ultimate purpose of HSU was to take away pensioners' votes from rejuvenated
SDP and thus help ruling
HDZ
The Croatian Democratic Union ( hr, Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, lit=Croatian Democratic Community, HDZ) is the major conservative, centre-right political party in Croatia. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Cro ...
remain in power. However, the party gradually built its organisation throughout the country and slowly rose in popularity due to both HDZ and left-centre cabinets of
Ivica Račan refusing to honour a Constitutional Court verdict that ordered the government to pay back pensions that had been denied in the early 1990s.
HSU gained much notoriety after local and regional elections in May 2005 when many of its members got elected on left-centre election tickets only to support HDZ and right-wing parties during the forming of coalition governments.
At the
2007 Croatian parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Croatia on 25 November 2007 and for overseas voters on 24 and 25 November.[D'Hondt method
The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highest ...]
) allowed them to receive only a single representative in the Parliament,
Silvano Hrelja
Silvano Hrelja (born 14 March 1958) is a Croatian politician who has been Leader of the Croatian Party of Pensioners (HSU) since 2008 and a member of the Croatian Parliament for the Croatian Parliament electoral districts, VIII electoral district ...
. They continued to support the government of Ivo Sanader, which in turn continued to pursue pensioner-related policies aligned with the opinion of the HSU.
In 2009, the economic crisis caused the government of
Jadranka Kosor
Jadranka Kosor (; born 1 July 1953) is a Croatian politician and former journalist who served as Prime Minister of Croatia from 2009 to 2011, having taken office following the sudden resignation of her predecessor Ivo Sanader. Kosor was the fi ...
to start talks about extra crisis taxation and after a row with the finance minister
Ivan Šuker
Ivan Šuker (born 12 November 1957) is a Croatian politician and economist. He served as Minister of Finance from 2003 to 2010, as a member of the Croatian Democratic Union.[Kukuriku coalition
The Restart Coalition ( hr, Restart koalicija) is a centre-left political alliance in Croatia. The coalition was formed in 2010 as the Kukuriku Coalition (''Kukuriku koalicija''). This somewhat facetious name meaning 'cock-a-doodle-doo', taken fr ...]
since 2011. It continued with the coalition
Croatia is Growing
The Restart Coalition ( hr, Restart koalicija) is a centre-left political alliance in Croatia. The coalition was formed in 2010 as the Kukuriku Coalition (''Kukuriku koalicija''). This somewhat facetious name meaning 'cock-a-doodle-doo', taken fr ...
at the
2015 Croatian parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Croatia on 8 November 2015. All 151 seats in the Parliament were up for election. This parliamentary election was the 8th since the first multi-party election in 1990 and the first since Croatia joined the Eu ...
. In that election, it became possible for the candidates of HSU to receive
preferential votes, and they won a total of 11,026 (out of a coalition total of 744,507).
Electoral history
Legislative
European Parliament
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
1996 establishments in Croatia
Pensioners' parties
Political parties established in 1996
Political parties in Croatia