Are MOST’s tripartite government dreams becoming reality?
During the never-ending postelection negotiations, MOST was, for a while, insisting that it wanted to form a government with both HDZ and SDP. Although the idea in which almost all MPs would be in the ruling majority while the opposition in Parliament would be almost non-existent, was too strange even for Croatian politicians to accept, the Wednesday’s appointment of an assistant minister shows that perhaps it was not impossible after all, reports tportal.hr on March 25, 2016.
The government appointed Mikel Čivljak as Assistant Minister of Entrepreneurship. It would not be anything strange if Čivljak were not a member of SDP, who recently even announced his candidacy to become a member of the party’s Main Committee.
According to his biography, Čivljak worked for the last 11 years at the Hrvatska Poštanska Banka as an assistant marketing director. The new assistant minister was also a lecturer at the Polytechnic in Šibenik where he taught the course “Tourist Destination Management”. Previously, he was the marketing director of Badel BAP for four years, and he worked as a sales manager and advisor to the managing director at the Ametyst company. He was born in 1963 and has a master’s degree in economics.
According to sources, he was proposed for his new post by the party run by Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić, who is himself a former SDP member. Čivljak confirmed that he was a member of SDP and that he run for the party’s Main Committee. “I have been a member of SDP for four years. Some time ago, I decided to become a candidate for the Main Committee, but that was long before I had the opportunity to become an assistant minister”, explained Čivljak.
As for his appointment, he said that he was contacted by Ermina Lekaj Prljaskaj, a member of Parliament who represents Albanian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Macedonian and Slovenian national minorities and is a member of Bandić’s parliamentary group. “I do not know her personally, but she received information about me and my qualifications, so she called me and told me that there was a possibility for me to become an assistant minister. It is a great honour for me to get a chance to solve economic problems in the country”, said Čivljak.
Čivljak added that he immediately said he was an SDP member, but was told that it was not a problem. He said that being an SDP member would not create any problems for him. However, he added that he did not want his new post to be a burden for the party so he withdrew his candidacy for the Main Committee and would remain just an ordinary member.
