In January 2016, after the
2015 parliamentary elections, Kekin joined
New Left dissatisfied with the actions of
the new government led by
Tomislav Karamarko's
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). She participated in the "Croatia Can Do Better" protest for a new school curriculum reform on 1 June, and gave a speech emphasizing that it was a protest for the future and "... [kids] who will not fill out buses to Stuttgart but will know how to do well here".
Croatian Parliament During the
2020 parliamentary election in July, Kekin ran for member of the
Croatian Parliament in the
electoral district VII for the
Green–Left Coalition, which went on to win one seat that went to
Rada Borić. In September 2020, Kekin became the president of New Left. In September 2021, she became a member of the Croatian Parliament as Borić's deputy, who left to focus on the politics of Zagreb. Shortly after, in October, Kekin joined several committees: Committee on Health and Social Policy, Committee on Family, Youth and Sport, Committee on Interparliamentary Cooperation, Committee on Justice and Committee on Gender Equality. During her term, she has been active on the issues of healthcare privatization, mental health of the youth,
problem gambling and
femicide. In early 2023, she led the Not Good for Maritime Resources () campaign in response to an amendment that would have allowed for the granting of public maritime resources to private concessions "for periods of several dozen years", as part of a broader change of the Maritime Domain and Sea Ports Act. Public hearings were held and a petition against the amendment collected around 30,000 signatures, resulting in it being dropped from the final law. Kekin's work also contributed to new amendments to the Gambling Act, which saw overwhelming support from all parties with 131 votes for, out of 151. Among new laws are a ban on
slot machines in cafés and stricter advertising rules. During her term, from 2021 to 2024, she was a substitute member of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. On 16 May 2024, in the
2024 Croatian parliamentary election, Kekin was reelected to the Croatian Parliament in the
first electoral district. On 25 May, she became president of the Committee for Health and Social Policy, and in June joined the Committee for Human Rights and Rights of National Minorities. For the duration of her first term, she spoke in the Assembly only six times. She was reelected in June 2025.
European Parliament elections During the
2024 European Parliament election in June, despite being at the bottom of the
We Can! list, Kekin was elected to the
European Parliament with over 11,000 votes, or 25% of the preferential votes. She ceded her seat to
Gordan Bosanac in order to focus on domestic politics, adding that "as a team, we know very well that at this moment the most competent person for this [position] is Gordan Bosanac."
2024 Croatian presidential elections Ahead of the
2024 presidential election, Kekin launched her campaign on 10 September 2024. She was the We Can! candidate with a campaign slogan "President of the New Generation". She ran on a
green-left and
progressive platform, with an emphasis on the problems in the
healthcare system, such as expensive public-private contracts for medical scans and
corruption, especially after former
Minister of Health Vili Beroš was arrested in November 2024 for corruption charges. The total sum earned from donations to her campaign was €41,926, the average donation being little under €30. By 10 December, she accumulated 18,000 signatures, enough to make her an official candidate. She got 144,533 votes or 8.89% of the total vote in the first round, placing her fourth overall–5,902 votes behind
Marija Selak Raspudić. Following the results, she endorsed
Zoran Milanović for the runoffs. == Political positions ==