Green left’s Tomašević elected Zagreb mayor with record number of votes

Tomislav Tomašević won almost 200.000 votes, after achieving an all-time high as well in the first round, and won the mayoral election in the capital city of Croatia. His We Can! platform promised to support the installation of solar panels on the roofs of houses and buildings, to conduct energy efficiency measures and to introduce the principles of circular economy in its rule over Zagreb.

“My campaign for Zagreb began already in 1998, when I was 16 – not even knowing that the Zagreb campaign was starting – when I fought against the illegal dumping of hazardous waste in the gravel pits alongside Sava river, endangering the city’s sources of drinking water,” the next mayor of Croatia’s capital city Tomislav Tomašević said when the results came in after the election.

He won nearly 200,000 votes, repeating a record-breaking victory from the first round, against 106,300 for his opponent Miroslav Škoro. Tomašević leads the We can! – Political Platform (Možemo! – politička platform), which will have 23 out of 47 representatives in the local parliament. The list won seats in Split, Croatia’s second-largest city, and also passed the threshold in Dubrovnik, Pula, Šibenik and Korčula. Its member Suzana Jašić will be the mayor of Pazin in Istria.

Greener, juster, more transparent Zagreb

“Twenty three years later, here we are together, with the best team of people, with whom I have been sharing for years now the fight for a juster and more tolerant society with more solidarity. They are the people with which I share the vision for a greener, juster and more transparent Zagreb,” Tomašević said.

The We Can! platform is one seat short of a total majority in the Assembly of the City of Zagreb

He was among the activists who stood up against the plan to build a waste incinerator in Resnik in Zagreb. After a while, the city administration dropped it. Tomašević was in the front row in the protests against a residential and business construction project in the pedestrian zone in the center.

The campaign started in 2006 and lasted five years. At the time, an initiative was launched for the protection of public space and citizens’ participation in urban planning. It was one of the foundations for the establishment of the Možemo! green left coalition. Its roots are also in the three-decade struggle for the protection of nature, for gender equality and against war and nationalism.

Citizens of Zagreb will take part in decision making

In his victory speech, Tomislav Tomašević called on the people of Zagreb to participate in the changes. Two hundred people wrote the platform’s program and ten thousand citizens contributed in the creation of a vision for individual districts.

We Can! put a special focus on the support for the installation of solar power panels on the roofs of houses and buildings, implementation of energy efficiency measures and the introduction of the principles of circular economy.

Because of the system where the heads of the main offices in the City of Zagreb are elected in public contests, many officials have mandates until as long as 2024, so it won’t be easy for Tomašević to appoint his allies to key posts. He announced the number would be cut to 15 from 27.