ZAGREB, February 12, 2018 – Speaking with the national radio broadcaster Hrvatski Radio, Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Davor Bernardić said on Monday that his position as the party’s leader was not in question, that he was elected by all party members and that he would answer to them only. I will answer to them after the next parliamentary election, Bernardić said.
There is a handful of individuals in the party who think that with lies, spins and deceit they can be relieved of the responsibility some of them had when, due to poor work while we were in government, when the party started falling rapidly, we lost two elections, he said.
That handful wasn’t loud then and now they are fighting for their own interests and positions, he said, adding that he would not allow the party to be a hostage of that handful of individuals because the SDP is now struggling with the consequences and not with the causes that date back to before he took over the party.
“I want us to turn to the future and to stop dealing with internal matters because that doesn’t interest citizens and that’s not why they gave us their trust,” he said and added that he promised the party’s membership when he was elected as the party leader that the SDP would continue to be strong and stable and that it would once again take responsibility for the country.
Bernardić doesn’t think that he will be asked to resign at the next party convention. Contrary to what that handful of individuals has announced, the convention will not be an election one but will be constructive, affirmative, and a new statute will be adopted that will lead to democratic steps forward, he said.
He added that in the next elections SDP slates would be made up of 50% of women because they wish to additionally strengthen awareness that it is necessary to have a final showdown with conservative movements that are trying to push Croatia where it doesn’t belong and with violence against women.
Commenting on claims by five dailies that he was systematically sending denials via an attorney’s office, Bernardić said that he had announced that he would fight against lies about the SDP and that he “has to protect himself against lies and slander.”
Commenting on a settlement reached for a debt of 9.5 million kuna incurred during Milan Bandić’s mayoral campaign in 2009, when Bandić was still a member of SDP, to be repaid in instalments over the next six years, Bernardić said that SDP’s finances would not be threatened and the party would not go bankrupt. He added that the SDP would sue those responsible for that debt.
Bernardić thinks that President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović’s meeting with Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić in Zagreb today has shown the extent of the divisions within the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) ruling party and that each of the two officials used the meeting to position themselves in their countries for the sake of election campaigning.
Bernardić said that what he considers to be important is whether Croats and Serbs will live better in their countries. He added that he doesn’t believe that the people who created barriers between the two countries could now resolve the problems that exist.
He said that he didn’t expect any apology from Vučić and that he was concerned because Vučić has not changed from “his Chetnik past.” He also doesn’t believe that it will be possible to resolve the issue of war reparations without international arbitration.
