Zagreb Crisis

The Zagreb crisis (Croatian: Zagrebačka kriza) is the name used to describe a political crisis that followed the elections for the City of Zagreb local assembly held in October 1995. During the crisis the winning parties were unable to appoint their candidate for Mayor of Zagreb because the President of Croatia, Franjo Tuđman, refused to provide the formal confirmation of their decision.

A centre-left coalition of winning parties continued to hold majority in the local assembly during the crisis and continued to suggest other candidates, but they were all eventually turned down by the President as Croatian law at the time required a formal Presidential confirmation of the appointment. Meanwhile, the city was run by the government-appointed acting mayor, which meant that the city de facto had two parallel administrations. The situation led to several huge protests and was not resolved until the next local elections in April 1997, after which two opposition members of the assembly switched to Tuđman's Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party. This meant that HDZ finally succeeded in gaining the majority in the 50-seat assembly, which enabled the party to appoint their mayor, who was afterwards approved by Tuđman.