page_title: Social Democratic Party (Croatia)
section_title: Opposition: 2003–2011
hierarchical_section_title: Social Democratic Party (Croatia) / History / Opposition: 2003–2011
caption_attribution_description: Ivo Josipović sudjelovao je danas na sučeljavanju predsjedničkih kandidata u sklopu ‘Weekend sessiona’ u Zagrebu. Sučeljavanju na temu “Tko je hrvatski Obama” prisustvovali su i Vesna Pusić, Vesna Škare Ožbolt te Andrija Hebrang. Više informacija pročitajte na: josipovic.net/dogadanja/ne-bih-otisao-na-thompsonov-koncert/
context_page_description: The Social Democratic Party of Croatia is a social-democratic political party and the largest party of the Croatian centre-left. The SDP is one of the two major political parties in Croatia, along with the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union.
  The SDP was formed in 1990 as the successor of the League of Communists of Croatia, Croatian branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, which had governed Croatia within the Yugoslav federation since World War II.
  The party first won the elections in 2000 and formed a coalition government headed by Ivica Račan. After losing the 2003 general election, the party remained in opposition for eight years. In the 2011 parliamentary election SDP won 61 out of 151 seats in the Croatian Parliament, and managed to form the 12th Croatian Government under Zoran Milanović with its partners from the Kukuriku coalition. After SDP and its coalition partners failed to achieve an agreement on forming a new government following the 2015 general election, the party returned to the opposition. Former SDP member and presidential candidate Ivo Josipović served as the third President of Croatia from 2010 to 2015.
context_section_description: In the 2005 presidential race SDP opted to support independent incumbent Stjepan Mesić, who succeeded in winning his second term by an overwhelming majority of 65.9% of the vote in the run-off in front of HDZ candidate and runner-up Jadranka Kosor with 34.1%.
  In 2007 the party was dealt a blow due to the death of their long-time leader and founder Ivica Račan, who died on 30 April 2007 due to complications from his previously treated kidney cancer, after he stepped down from his chairman post earlier that month. In an extraordinary party convention former party spokesman Zoran Milanović was elected as their new leader, beating acting chairwoman and former defence minister Željka Antunović in the party election run-off. Other prominent candidates for the post were Zagreb mayor Milan Bandić and former foreign minister Tonino Picula.
  For the November 2007 parliamentary election SDP ran on an economic program with Third Way elements devised by the previously non-partisan economist Ljubo Jurčić, who was also picked to be the party's candidate for the post of Prime Minister in case of their election victory at a party meeting in July 2007. In the election of 25 November SDP finished a close second behind HDZ, with 56 out of 153 seats. It might have won the domestic election, but as SDP doesn't participate in diaspora constituency, it lost in the overall tally. Five days after the election, amid speculations that SDP might assemble a governing coalition in spite of them failing to win outright majority, he was replaced in that role by Zoran Milanović. Nevertheless, SDP failed to assemble a governing coalition, and positioned itself as the largest opposition party instead.
  In the subsequent June 2009 local elections, the party failed to make significant gains on the county level, but still managed to achieve some major wins in important cities, due to the adoption of a new election system where mayors and county heads were for the first time elected directly, as opposed to the previous system which employed party lists. SDP recorded mayoral victories in a number of traditionally centre-right leaning coastal cities such as Dubrovnik, Šibenik and Trogir and also managed to win in Vukovar, a city that had been almost destroyed in the Croatian War of Independence and was regarded as HDZ stronghold ever since. They also manage to retain control of the economically most powerful parts of the country, including the capital Zagreb, the northern Adriatic city of Rijeka and also won in Istria (in coalition with IDS).
  In the run up to the 2009–10 presidential race, SDP held a primary election for the very first time, in which party nominees Ljubo Jurčić and Ivo Josipović ran. Josipović won the primary by some two thirds of the vote. Josipović later won the 2009–10 election with 60% of the vote in the second round in front of former SDP member and populist Mayor of Zagreb Milan Bandić and was officially inaugurated on 18 February 2010.
  In 2010 SDP formed a political alliance known as the Kukuriku coalition with three other centre-left parties (Croatian People's Party – Liberal Democrats (HNS), Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS) and the Croatian Party of Pensioners (HSU)), with the aim of running in the December 2011 parliamentary election. The coalition unveiled their 21-point election program on 15 September 2011 in Zagreb.
caption: Ivo Josipović, President of Croatia (2010–2015)
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "168", "Image ImageLength": "220", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2010:11:29 02:57:52", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "378", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5439", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "168", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "220"}