What now for SDP?
The first round of elections for the new SDP president will be held on 2 April, possible second round on 9 April, while the party convention which will elect party vice-presidents, members of the Presidency and the Main Committee will be held on 16 April, reports Vecernji List on January 24, 2016.
The original proposal of SDP president Zoran Milanović and most of the members of the Presidency was for the elections to be held as early as 12 March. However, during yesterday’s marathon session of the SDP Main Committee, Milanović was apparently forced to accept demands made by party vice-president Zlatko Komadina – who will be his main and possibly only opponent – for the elections to be held in April after the Easter holidays.
In the end, Milanović reportedly himself proposed that the elections should be moved to 2 April because he did not want the issue to create additional divisions within the party. During the meeting, supporters of Zlatko Komadina reportedly clashed with supporters of Zoran Milanović. First they discussed the campaign and the results of the parliamentary elections. Milanović’s opponents accused him of losing several elections in a row (local, European Parliament, presidential and parliamentary), and that as leader of the party he should be held accountable.
Party vice-president Rajko Ostojić, who is a supporter of Komadina, demanded that a special commission to analyze the election results should be formed. In the end, the commission will not be established but a compromise has been reached – Milanović’s report on the activities during the election campaign was accepted, but with a comment that the report lacked a political analysis of the election results.
Many members of the Main Committee criticized Milanović and his team in the party leadership that they had spent too much time during the election campaign talking about ideological issues. Several members asked him who ever authorized him to accept entering a coalition with MOST and HDZ. There was also criticism of the post-electoral tactics which supposedly included an attempt to break up MOST. Nenad Stazić reportedly said that members of MOST were clerical fascists and that Milanović was intelligent to accept the tripartite coalition.
“Those who are not able to change themselves will end up with less than 20 percent of the vote. We have to analyze our mistakes in our five electoral defeats in a row”, said at the meeting Davor Bernardić who supports Komadina for the new party president. Mayor of Rijeka Vojko Obersnel said he thought that both Komadina and Milanović were competent to lead the party and urged that SDP should not have internal divisions and that it must remain united.
