'Dora' has its winner and Croatia has its song for Basel 2025! It's 'Poison Cake', performed by Marko Bošnjak.

On Sunday 2 March, after two semi-finals had taken place earlier in the week, we had the big final of Croatia's Eurovision pre-selection Dora to tune in to.

Those semi-finals had seen to it that the starting lineup of 24 songs was reduced to a more succinct selection of 16 finalists. But of course we could only end up with one song once the evening had played out. Poison Cake is the Dora 2025 champ and will represent Croatia at the 69th Eurovision Song Contest.

The winner of Dora was decided by a vote that comes from three sources.

Viewers watching at home in Croatia were able to contribute to a public vote that accounted for 50% of the final result. Another 25% came from a Croatian jury, while the remaining 25% was made up of points given by 4 international juries.

At the end of the scores being given out, Poison Cake topped the leader board with 130 points. In second place on 120 points was the song Daj, daj (performed by Ogenj) and in third place was AaAaA (by Magazin) on 111 points.

Marko Bošnjak

The singer is regarded as one of the leaders of a new generation of musicians who are making their mark and setting trends on the Croatian music scene.

At only 20 years old, he can already lay claim to numerous awards and recognitions, of which the Porin award for Best New Artist immediately stands out.

He won the hearts of his audience when he was just 11 years old, performing in the popular TV show Pink's Stars .

Marko has recently commenced a new creative era, which so far includes the singles Pusti me , Asfalt and Takav dan . The release of his debut album is also incoming.

Croatia at the Eurovision Song Contest

Alongside Slovenia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1993 via Kvalifikacija za Millstreet (‘Qualification for Millstreet’) - a one-off pre-selection show used to narrow down the field of newly independent European countries wanting to compete.

During the 1990s, the delegation enjoyed a number of top 5 finishes thanks to Maja Blagdan ( Sveta Ljubav , 1996), Danijela ( Neka Mi Ne Svane , 1998), and Doris ( Marija Magdalena , 1999) - after which it took a further 25 years to match those successes.

However, the wait was worth it when in 2024 singer Baby Lasagna delivered Croatia’s best result so far with Rim Tim Tagi Dim finishing 2nd in Malmö and winning the televote and a Marcel Bezençon award in the process.

Though Croatia has yet to win as an independent nation, the capital city of Zagreb did host the Contest in 1990 prior to Yugoslavia’s dissolution.