Two and a half months before Croatia joins the EU, just 21 percent of voters bothered to cast ballots in Sunday's (14 April) election of 12 new MEPs.
The turnout is less than half compared to the country's referendum on EU accession in January last year, which saw 43.5 percent of people vote. It is also one of the lowest ever in EU polls, a record held by Slovakia in 2004, when just 17 percent of people voted.
Croatia's opposition centre-right HDZ party won six seats, narrowly beating the ruling centre-left SDP faction with five deputies. The nationalist and left-wing Labour party got one MEP.
The winners will act as observers with no voting rights in the EU assembly until Croatia joins the Union on 1 July. They will then serve for one year, before Croatia chooses a new set of euro-deputies in the general EU elections next May.
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