Elections are a prerequisite for democracy. They represent the processes of shaping the political will of the electorate based on the possibility of choosing between multiple political options. That is why they have always attracted the attention of the public. Many authors have sought to explain voter behavior. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to determine the extent to which the preferences of voters in the parliamentary elections in Croatia from 1990 to 2015 were influenced by party election programs, ie problem voting, and the extent to which they were influenced by factors such as party identification, traditional, historical and identity cleavages and party candidates. Therefore, the pre-election party programs of those parties and coalitions that won the largest number of seats for the Parliament from the first free multi-party elections in the Republic of Croatia until 2015 were subjected to a qualitative content analysis. According to the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP), which did research on election programs, the paper analyzes the standard categories represented within the seven policy domains, that is, in the domain of External Relations, Freedom and Democracy, Political System, Prosperity and Quality of Life, Structure societies and Social groups. Recognizing the research material of the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences and the research of the Faculty of Political Science, it was concluded that the programs did not play a significant role in the outcome of the parliamentary elections and that voters' preferences were more influenced by party identification. The change came in 2015, when younger voters were shown to trust those parties that offer radical reforms in their party programs.