The woman who won the world's narrowest presidential victory

Countries & Cities · Published 12 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In 2015, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović became the first woman to lead Croatia as president. Her path to the office was defined by a razor-thin margin: she won by just 1.48% of the vote, making her the only candidate to ever defeat a Croatian incumbent without winning the first round.

Grabar-Kitarović’s ascent to the presidency was marked by several historical firsts. Born in 1968, she became the youngest person to assume the office at age 46 and the first woman elected to the role since Croatia's independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Her career was built on high-level diplomacy, serving as Croatia's minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, where she guided the nation toward EU and NATO accession. Between 2008 and 2011, she acted as the United States' Croatian ambassador, and she later became NATO's inaugural female Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy.

Her 2015 election remains a statistical anomaly in Croatian politics. After finishing second in the first round of the December 2014 election, she faced incumbent Ivo Josipović in a runoff on January 11, 2015. She secured 50.7% of the vote, winning by a margin of 1.48%—the smallest victory margin in the country's history. Furthermore, her 1.114 million votes in the second round represent the lowest number of votes ever received by a winning candidate in a Croatian presidential election.

Beyond the domestic sphere, her presidency was characterized by significant international initiatives. She launched the Three Seas Initiative in 2015 alongside Polish President Andrzej Duda. Her tenure also saw her navigate the 2015 European migrant crisis, during which over 39,000 migrants entered Croatia by September 19, 2015. Her career also included a notable security incident in 2010 when a member of the embassy security staff was fired for unauthorized filming of her family in Washington, D.C.

Grabar-Kitarović's political identity is deeply rooted in the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). While she was required to resign her party membership and other positions upon taking office, she remains a significant figure in conservative politics. Her election also placed Croatia in a rare group of parliamentary republics to have had both a female head of state and a female head of government.

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