More negotiations for the main parties as they fail to elect a speaker.
The Croatian Parliament met yesterday morning at its first sitting after the elections, but has failed to elect its speaker. SDP proposed Robert Podolnjak (MOST) as the only candidate for speakership, but after he realized that HDZ would not support him, Podolnjak refused to stand and the session was adjourned reports Vecernji List, Jutarnji List and Dnevnik.hr on December 4, 2015.
“It is a great honour for me to be an elected member of parliament. But, our principles are more important than the possibility of becoming the speaker. We have been saying that from the very start, and I hope we can force the political parties which have a greater number of members to work for the common good”, Podolnjak said.
Branko Grčić (SDP) said that SDP had an agreement with MOST that SDP would propose Podolnjak to be the speaker, but that he would accept it only if he receives the support of HDZ’s Patriotic Coalition as well.
Božo Petrov, leader of MOST, said that he was sad that the speaker was not elected. “In this situation, you cannot blame a party which has just 10 percent of all members of parliament. We can continue the negotiations, but only if both sides are involved. I cannot judge what will happen. I can only say that we would like to finally reach a consensus, at least temporarily”, Petrov said.
“I invite all newly elected MPs to be accountable to the citizens, to the voters who elected them. The second round of consultations will be held on Monday”, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said.
“We think that the choice of the speaker is a very serious issue for this country, and we cannot do that without proper procedure. We want to define who is the parliamentary majority and who is in minority. We are going to continue negotiations with MOST about the whole package, about speakership, government and other positions”, HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko said.
In the afternoon, MOST called the leaders of both main coalitions, SDP’s Croatia Is Growing and HDZ’s Patriotic Coalition, for a joint meeting on Monday at noon. The invitation included an ultimatum that, if only one side comes to the meeting, MOST would continue to negotiate only with that coalition.
HDZ responded saying that it would first discuss the possibility of coming to the meeting with its coalition partners. SDP announced that they will definitely be coming to the meeting on Monday.
However, during the evening, MOST announced that it will meet separately with the Patriotic Coalition representatives on Friday. At this moment, it is not known where and when precisely that meeting will be held. NOVA TV has reported that Karamarko asked for the meeting in order to have more information about the planned meeting with MOST and SDP on Monday, which will help him make a final decision whether to come to that joint meeting.
