Blink and you will miss the plot. The latest twist…
After MOST decided to break up coalition negotiations with SDP in early afternoon, during the evening its National Council decided to restart negotiations with HDZ-led Patriotic Coalition. The news was confirmed by MOST president Božo Petrov: “After what happened today, we will now ask the President to give us additional 24 hours to come to an agreement with the Patriotic Coalition. In their letter, the Patriotic Coalition yesterday clearly stated that they agree to form a reformist government. We do not have any confidence in SDP-led Croatia is Growing coalition anymore.” Petrov also claimed that there were no divisions in MOST. “We are all together, we are going to the President with all 15 signatures,” reports Jutarnji List, Index.hr and Slobodna Dalmacija on December 22, 2015
After the evening consultations with President Kolinda Grabar Kitarović, HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko said: “We have shown 78 signatures from MPs: 63 our signatures, and 15 signatures from MOST. That is it for now, but we expect additional signatures. Consultations with the President will continue and tomorrow we will propose the prime minister-designate.”
“I hope that we are going to have the name of an expert non-partisan prime minister-designate by 6 pm tomorrow”, MOST leader Božo Petrov said. “Until this morning, we had a pleasant cooperation with SDP. We have asked Milanović for eight ministries, and today we were supposed to reach an agreement, but everything fell apart. Within 24 hours we will have the prime minister-designate. The most important thing is that today we have a parliamentary majority. We have our own proposals, and the Patriotic Coalition has its proposals, but I believe that we will come to an agreement.”
Negotiations with SDP were broken up after SDP allegedly tried to convince some members of MOST to support SDP president Zoran Milanović as prime minister-designate instead of Božo Petrov. However, Petrov has refused to name any names. “We have agreed that we will not disclose any names, but SDP knows very well who was calling our members.”
During the afternoon, SDP president Zoran Milanović held a press conference where he denied that anyone from SDP tried to influence MOST members. He said that yesterday SDP and MOST had agreed on almost everything and that MOST would get ministries of interior, justice, public administration, agriculture, environment, economy and transport.
“This raises a logical question: why would we call anyone in this situation. Perhaps to offer them five more ministries or to get out of the Government altogether and to support them from the parliament? So, their story does not make any sense, since we have agreed with everything that have asked from us. Now the President has to show whether she is a stateswoman or not. I hope and believe that she is”, said Milanović. He concluded that “HDZ is engaged in police and intelligence operation” to win over MOST. Asked if SDP is ready for possible new elections, he replied: “It now depends on the President, who must see what is happening.”
