According to exit polls, the centre-left coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has won 83 seats in the seventh Croatian parliament in Sunday's vote, while the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) has won 40 seats.
The exit polls were conducted by the Ipsos Puls agency for the three national TV stations HTV, RTL and Nova TV and their results were broadcast after the closure of polling stations at 1900 hours.
The exit polls covered 30,000 voters who cast their ballots at 400 polling stations in ten constituencies.
The exit polls show that the five percent election threshold has also been passed by the Croatian Labour Party (six seats), the Croatian Democratic Alliance of Slavonia and Baranja, HDSSB (six seats), the Croatian Peasant Party, HSS (2), the Independent List of retired Catholic priest Ivan Grubisic (2), and the right-wing alliance led by Ruza Tomasic (1).
The State Election Commission (DIP) will be releasing early election returns on its web site (www.izbori.hr) as of 2100 hours, and returns collected by 2330 hours will be announced at a news conference at midnight.
A total of 4,504,081 million people in Croatia and abroad were eligible to vote in the elections.
