If the political climate is stable, local elections in Croatia take place every four years.
Budgets are planned for three years, while strategic development programmes cover
periods of five to ten years. Technically, the political, financial and developmental
programming cycles can be matched, and implementation of the programmes ensured.
However, political programmes are generally vague, budgets are every so often fictive
and revised mid year and development programmes grow into visionary shopping lists.
The main aim of the paper is to suggest ways of linking strategic development
programmes, budgetary plans and political programmes in the Croatian socioeconomic
and institutional context. The purpose of this research is to demonstrate that
if local governments better understood the interdependencies between these three
segments, they could create reference points for their actions visible in their
programmes and budgets. In this way a platform could be created to enhance the
political accountability, improve fiscal capacity and aim at developmental goals that
are more in line with real needs and potentials of the local population.